Study: Kids rate bullying and teasing as 'big problem'

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http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/03/08/violence.survey/index.html

Study: Kids rate bullying and teasing as 'big problem'

Survey finds children don't think parents hear their safety concerns

March 8, 2001 Web posted at: 7:19 a.m. EST (1219 GMT)

In this story:

Tough topics need ongoing attention

'We have too much going on'

RELATED STORIES, SITES

By Rose Arce CNN Producer

NEW YORK (CNN) -- A new report finds bullying and teasing tops the list of children's school troubles and that many students say talking with their parents does little to ease the stress.

The children who knew Charles Andrew Williams, the suspected teen-age shooter at Santana High School in Santee, California, told a familiar story: "His ears stuck out, he was small, skinny, had a high voice," said Scott Bryan, a friend of Williams', "so people always picked on him 'cause he was the little kid."

Like the teen-agers at Colorado's Columbine High School who shot their schoolmates because they felt like outcasts, there are suspicions that Williams, 15, might have been prone to attack other students because he was the target of teasing and taunting.

Authors of the survey "Talking With Kids About Tough Issues," by the Kaiser Family Foundation and Nickelodeon, asked 1,249 parents of children ages 8 to 15 and 823 children ages 8 to 15 about their problems and whether they sort them out by talking to each other.

Seventy-four percent of 8- to 11-year-olds say teasing and bullying occur at their school, more than smoking or drinking or drugs or sex. As kids get older -- 12- to 15-year-olds were a separate group in the survey -- the number rises to 86 percent, still higher than substance abuse or sex. And both age groups called the teasing and bullying "big problems" that rank higher than racism, AIDS, the pressure to have sex or to try alcohol or drugs.

Tough topics need ongoing attention

Yet kids who say they've discussed these problems with their parents say the conversations were infrequent and not very memorable. One in two 8- to 11-year-olds whose parents say they discussed their troubles with them don't even remember the conversations.

"What parents are saying is an issue they've discussed is not always getting through to their kid," said Tina Hoff, who oversaw the survey for Kaiser Family Foundation.

Parents acknowledge that sticky topics are often brought up first by the children, particularly issues surrounding sex, puberty and AIDS. Yet while those topics aren't addressed at home, even the younger kids say they are feeling the pressure at school. One third of 10- to 11-year-olds called the pressure to have sex a "big problem."

"This isn't an issue where you have a big talk and you check this off your to-do list," Hoff said. "These issues need to get talked about on an ongoing basis.

'We have too much going on'

"Some kids sometimes don't know how to tell their parents, 'I have this problem. This person is bothering me, I don't know what to do,' " said Victoria Zaras, 15, who responded to the survey. "Instead, some may take matters into their own hands."

Victoria's mother, Evelyn Feliciano, said parents also face a dilemma: "We have our kids scheduled for soccer, dancing, swimming and we have our own lives ... We sit at a computer and ignore our kid for an hour. We have too much going on, and we separate ourselves from our families."

Dominic Cappello, an expert on parent-child communications, said parents often think their children will never act out on their problems.

"Parents think, 'Oh my kids are not in high school yet. I guess I will wait to talk,' " he said. "What we say is 'Oh no -- when your child starts kindergarten, you have to start conversations about how you respect people. ... This is very serious. It is not just bullying and teasing. These are threats of violence.'

"They are little acts, but then they start adding up after first grade, second grade, third grade. By middle school, a lot of kids are really afraid of going to school," Cappello said.

At Santana High, schoolmates of "Andy" Williams never believed the taunting would provoke violence.

"He was picked on a lot, but he never really did anything," said Santana student Andrew Kaforey. "I mean, he talked a lot, but he never really did anything."

Investigators said the teen-ager's rage didn't seem specifically targeted at anyone.

"We don't know if he was mad at the school, mad at students, mad at life, mad at home," San Diego County Sheriff's Department Lt. Jerry Lewis said. "He was an angry young man."

-- Buddy (buddydc@go.com), March 08, 2001

Answers

Jesus. This one stirs up too many memories. Deep ones. Emotionally- charged.

I would love to hear from those of you with kids. Do they talk to you about this issue? Are they bullies or bullied? Has your kid(s) ever been threatened with a weapon that you know of? Have they been robbed of lunch money, jewelry, or been forced to pay for protection?

If yes to any of the above, what steps have you taken to ameliorate the situation? Boxing/martial arts lessons? Begin a regular weight training regiment? Meetings with other parents, teachers, administrators, police? Discussions regarding respect for others? Ever hunt down the offending bully and threaten to beat his ass to a pulp? Taught your kid to defend himself to his fullest capability? Preach non-violence? Ever take your kid(s) to the emergency room for treatment due to injuries received in fights?

NOTE FOR THE PC INCLINED: I use masculine pronouns above and will continue to do so, as my experience teaches males are the predominant perpetrators of violent confrontations.

-- Rich (howe9@shentel.net), March 08, 2001.


My experience of 9 years as an inner-city public high school teacher was that the number of bullies among the inner city kids was much higher than in more affluent neighborhoods. Along with that was the pressure to join gangs or "crews" in order to protect themselves from the bullies.

I left teaching six years ago. Since then my son has grown and is now in 3rd grade. His school is pretty good, I don't think the problem is large there. The story is different at the Jr. High and High School that he will attend if he remains in DC Public Schools. There is a certain mentality in those schools whereby being a good student is frowned upon by a large segment of the students. There are plenty of good students there, but they have to find ways to avoid confrontations with the ones who are only interested in social status and who has the best jacket or sneakers. These are two of the best schools in the city. They are located in a historically white, upper-middle-class neighborhood, but have a large number of students commuting from across town. Many of those commuting students cause problems on the buses and in the Metro subway. There was recently an uproar when a young teenage girl was arrested and handcuffed for eating in the subway. While that may have been harsh, the police were following their policy of always handcuffing arrested people. They since have eased that policy for minors. Be that as it may, the police have gotten serious about cracking down on the eating, radio-playing, rudeness, shoving, and assaults occurring among those kids. We're glad, it's about time. My impression of this group of troublemakers is that their parents are not very involved in their upbringing, that their parents often have the same mentality, lots of them have an "entitlement" mentality and think the world owes them a living, and no one is putting pressure on these parents to control their kids' behavior. Although there does seem to be more dialog going on about this problem of late, so I hope the city will do something. They have already implemented a curfew for minors which seems to be having an impact.

As for my son, the biggest problem he has had so far is with a kid whose mother works at the school! Somehow this lady thinks it is OK for her son to run loose after school, although there is a policy of no unsupervised children allowed on school grounds after school. This little kid not only tries to bully other kids, but he backtalks adults who try to deal with him. Recently, a good friend of my son's was so upset by the kid's bullying that he reported it to teachers. The boy has since been brought under control somewhat. My son handles him OK, he just looks him straight in the eyes and tells him he won't let him bully him again.

-- Buddy (buddydc@go.com), March 08, 2001.


My oldest daughter was the victim of a bully that lives right here on our street. It happened a few years ago. The boy (a few years older than my daughter) sucker punched her in the kidneys. Now, you know she had to have her back turned to him. According to her it was an unprovoked attack. She came running into the house crying her head off.

It happened it was a Saturday and her father was also home at the time. So he went down to the neighbor's house and knocked at the door. The kids father answered and my husband proceeded to tell him what had taken place. You're not gonna believe what this guy said, "If I didn't see it...it didn't happen." My husband was fit to be tied. This guy is a total loser.

Anyway, as it later turned out, the boy was diagnosed with bi-polar disease (PC name for manic depression).

He was expelled from the school (5th grade) he was attending, because he kept beating up on another boy.

He was sent to the Alternitive school we have here for middle school students, and was expelled from there for bringing a knife to school...which he claimed he needed because some hispanic kids were threatening him. He now attends a school for troubled children out of the city.

So here you have a child that has a mental disorder, coupled with the fact that the father is an asswipe...is that a recipe for disaster? As far as I'm concerned, he's a walking time bomb...whether he's on medication or not.

He's about 14 or 15 years old now...and he's not around much, which is just fine with me. But when he is around and my girls are outside, I keep a very close watch on what's going on.

-- Peg (pegmcleod@mediaone.net), March 08, 2001.


Getting teased and picked on is a rite of passage for everyone. Human nature being what it is, there's just no avoiding it. Granted, those on the lower echelons of the popularity scale probably endure more razzing than the cheerleader with a zit on her nose, but no one escapes the cruelty of adolescence unscathed. It's a fact of life.

Still, I have to wonder why those of a few generations back never resorted to the extreme violence that's being exhibited by today's youth. What's changed? Where did we veer off the path to create such mini monsters? It would seem that these disturbed children are sending a signal of a society in deep crisis just as the disappearing frogs are harbingers of an ecology gone awry.

I'm not going to blame the availability of guns, the weapon of choice for today's teens. Baseball bats and knives were available to yesterday's youth but there were rarely stories of bludgeonings and slashings on campuses in the past. Nor am I going to blame drugs because those have been around since the dawn of time. The problem originates a long time before guns and drugs are an option. The problem lies in the formative years where children learn about boundaries, cause and effect, and RESPECT! Somehow through the course of time, harried parents neglected to instil the basics. It just slipped through the cracks. And with the concept of nuclear family a thing of the past, grandparents, aunts and uncles, etc. aren't around to pick up the slack. How is a latch-key child supposed to learn values when no one is around to set an example or guide the child through troubling experiences? The adults have seriously let the children down.

I also think the "self-esteem" craze perpetrated by the psychologists also plays an integral role since children have distorted it into a "me first/anything I want" attitude of defiance and misbehavior. We're raising a whole new generation of spoiled brats who feel entitled to be so.

And let's not forget the media who glamorizes, immortalizes, and endlessly dramatizes these events, ad nauseum. Attention starved children see violence as a mean of retribution with the added bonus of having the spotlight shone on them. Two for the price of one - whatta' deal!

Then there's the further desensitivation of video games, tv and movies where the lead character is shot but miraculously makes a wholly unrealistic recovery in the blink of an eye. Where's the reality of blood, guts and gore....complications and infections....disfigurements and disability.....months of physical rehab? Somewhere along the line we threw a veil over the truth for these kids and they now view the world from a distorted and dangerous perspective.

Aw hell, we could go on and on, peeling back the psychological layers but the question remains: How do we fix it? CAN we fix it....or are we witnessing the precursory events leading up to the anarchy of Mad Max? Is society imploding upon itself?

Is it a lack of respect that causes them to disregard the value of life - theirs and others? Does this lack of respect evolve from parents too tired and harried to define boundaries of acceptabilitylay down a solid

lack of respect

-- concerned (About@FutureGenerations.com), March 08, 2001.


Like Rich said, this brought up some bad memories. High school meant having the crap beat out of me almost daily by the school thugs - I was literally black-and-blue for most of my sophomore year. The school authorities did nothing, of course... they felt the perps were 'troubled children' with 'special needs'... the usual BS.

After more than a quarter of a century, it still hurts - deeply. I empathize with that young man in CA. How much pain is too much? The physical terrorism that goes on in many schools would result in jail sentences for the offenders in the adult world, yet it isn't taken seriously for the most part. The school probably didn't want to get involved - or refused to notice - the bullying. It's just a shame that he apparently picked his targets randomly instead of targeting his tormentors.

-- cantforget (*@*.*), March 08, 2001.



It's a problem and has been a problem for decades. The administration doesn't do enough to prevent it. My daughter has been bullied by males and females, from name calling and death threats (even written) to physical attacks. She comes home every day crying about it. I've complained to the school, nothing done. Well, I had it. When she feels the least bit threaten, she needs to go to the office, dial 911 and bring the police in. Schools don't like when the police infringe on their territory but I'm totally frustrated. I tried to reason with her, "ignore them, they don't count in your life" to the fight back, to the "if you want friends, you must first be a friend" to complaining to school admin on a daily basis and nothing works.

I went to an all girls high school. My brothers went to all-boys high school. There were problems but I believe much less than in mixed gender schools. So many damn hormones raging, boys trying to show off in front of girls and girls trying to entice boys. (Geez, I sound like an old fart!) But I think this behavior only adds fuel to the fire and helps to create the lines drawn.

Case in point: My daughter came home the other day and complained about a sophomore who was harassing her. The sophomore said she hates all freshman because her ex-boyfriend is now dating one. Boy, if ever there was a reason to hate an entire group, that's it - so illogical but typical of adolescents.

-- Maria (anon@ymous.com), March 09, 2001.


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