Bully for Everyone

Three responses to the last two entries asked about the role that parents can play in transforming the bullying culture that prevails. Some comments at the end of the previous post addressed this briefly, but perhaps a more pointed response will provide some food for thought.

To combat some of the nameless, faceless, and overwhelming cyberbullying that takes place, parents should control and limit access. I am tired of hearing the excuse that students need personal cell phones to access the resources they need throughout daily life. Crap! If your son or daughter is at practice or an activity of one kind or another, his coach or advisor has access to a telephone. If your son or daughter is out in public, phones are ubiquitous - payphones, land lines in businesses, available adults with cell phones abound.

If your young son or daughter is somewhere that a phone is not accessible, you as the parent should be standing next to him or her. People younger than 16 do not need cellphones.

The fact of the matter is that our young people have access to phones, computers, blacberries and other electronic communications tools because having such access is easier on parents. Parenting, part of which involves monitoring your child's activities and whereabouts, is demanding. I maintain that parents can't protect their children from anything when they provide the youth with unsupervised access to all these toys.

Parents can also counteract the prevailing culture by having intelligent conversations with their children as young as age five or six. All interactions with people should subscribe to the patterns that comprise the rules or courtesy, civility, and propriety. This may sound more difficult than it is, since all such rules may be reduced to the Golden Rule. If you don't want someone doing it to you, don't do it to someone else.

I also endorse one other controversial point of view. I taught my children the following rules of engagement when confronted by aggressive behavior. 1. Tell the other person to stop. 2. Run away, even if it makes you look bad. 3. If running away doesn't work, run to an adult that you can trust - teacher, parent, neighbor. Kids my tease, but you will be safe enough to devise the next plan. 4. If you cannot find an adult you trust, find any adult and ask for help.

The fifth rule is a big one, and I will endorse it, though I know many people will reject it. 5. If you are backed into a corner, or you think you are in danger that you cannot run from or avoid, hit the bully as hard and as often as you can, for as long as it takes to provide an avenue for escape.

In the 8th grade, my son was suspended for driving a pencil into the arm of his attacker. The bully had him pinned in a student desk, and after a full minute of telling the bully to get off of him, to no effect, he lashed out with the only weapon he had. I supported the suspension, but demanded to know why the teacher was not near enough to provide assistance. I forget the reason why, so it must have been a rare, but unfortunate case of divided attention brought on by another incident.

The bully never interacted with my son again.

At 10, my daughter kicked a neighbor boy in the groin to thwart an attack. She tried to get help from the neighbor boy's father, whom she said closed the curtains of the upstairs bedroom when he heard her cries for help. (He said he didn't hear her.)

Last year, that same daughter was trapped in a dormitory bathroom by a drunken visitor to the college. She didn't scream for help, though I don't know why. Instead, she told him he wasn't going to get her, and dashed through a small opening in the doorway that he must have thought he had completely blocked. She ran back to her room, locked the door, and phoned for help. He followed her to her room and tried to get in.

These incidents validate my belief that I have provided sadly appropriate advice.