Prevention is key to fight bullying

MILFORD — Violent bullying can be prevented by targeting its precursors - verbal, emotional and cyber intimidation, Thomas McHugh, Penn State Cooperative Extension education expert, emphasized recently during a symposium at the Pike County Administration Building. “In a way, when hitting starts, control of bullying has already failed,“ said McHugh while pleading with school personnel, parents and students to immediately report instances of non-violent bullying. “It’s not tattling, that’s when one person tries to get another into trouble. Reporting is merely noticing and reporting when one person is doing harm to another,“ he said. McHugh urged schools to adopt a firm policy on bullying with specific definitions outlining exactly what emotional, cyber and verbal bullying are. He defined the bullying as the “persistent behaviors by one person toward another that intends to harm or injure them.” “Bullying usually begins when the bully repeats the non-violent act over and over again,” he added. McHugh said that when non-violent bullying is reported to authorities and dealt with, then the violent schoolyard bullying is usually prevented. “Prevention is the key, “ he said. “To deter the progression reporting the acts is vital.” Also needed, he said, is swift and firm action on the part of the administration. “If a kid reports bullying and nothing happens to the bully, then the program has failed,” he said. “Research has found that bullying is most likely to occur in schools where there is a lack of adult supervision during breaks, where teachers and students are indifferent to or accept bullying behavior, and where rules against bullying are not consistently enforced,” according to the National Youth Violence Prevention Center. McHugh said that the ratio of costs in ignoring the non-violent precursors to violent bullying is $13 to $1 — the cost of treatment for victims and bullies, as compared with a consistent program of prevention. Like abuse in the home, most bullies were bullied themselves, so prevention not only deals with the immediate problem but breaks the cycle of bullying passed on from generation to generation. The shooters in the Columbine and Virginia Tech rampages were bullied for a long period of time before they lashed out, McHugh said. A new world about bullying: • In the online world cyber bullying has arisen with sometimes tragic consequences. It occurs when a child or teenager is tormented, threatened, harassed, humiliated, by a peer using the Internet. Instances of murder and suicide have been attributed to cyber bullying. • Verbal bullying includes name-calling, insulting, making racist comments and constant teasing. A subset of verbal bullying is termed relationship bulling. That’s when the bully tries to convince others to exclude or reject another. • Emotional bullying is when someone tries to gain control by making others feel angry or afraid. It is related to verbal abuse such as name-calling, sarcasm, incessant teasing, threatening, mocking, putting down, belittling, ignoring, and lying. This type of bullying also extends to racially or sexually abusive comments and behavior.