After several major school massacres and massive media attention on school bullying, are kids today still being victimized by their peers?
Studies have shown that taunting and tormenting are still going on in schools across the country, sometimes in new, modern ways.
Internet bullying or “cyber-bullying” was brought to the national forefront last October with the suicide of Megan Meier, a 13-year-old from Dardenne Prarie, Mo. According to news reports, Meier hung herself in her room after a former friend of hers, and possibly even the friend’s mother, allegedly harassed her on MySpace posing as a teenage boy named “Josh Evans.” The 48-year-old mother was accused of the harassment.
According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, “In 2002, a report released by the U.S. Secret Service concluded that bullying played a significant role in many school shootings, and that efforts should be made to eliminate bullying behavior.”
Bullies can intimidate their victims both physically and emotionally.
But a local free seminar will be helping kids deal with both of those threats.
Self-confidence, according to Sensei Kat Diaz, is the key. Diaz has been a head instructor at Tiger Schulmann’s Mixed Martial Arts center in Hoboken for eight years.
She has seen children come in the door with fear in their eyes, and has sent them back with a fire in their bellies.
“A lot of times it’s more for their self-confidence,” Diaz said.
She will be conducting their annual Bully Prevention Seminar on Saturday, April 19 in their Hoboken location to help instill confidence in kids who might otherwise be targets.
“We want to teach them how to avoid it,” Diaz said, “before it gets into a physical confrontation.”
In search of confidence
And according to Charles Patricolo, vice president of marketing for Tiger Schulmann, “It is a proven fact that confident kids don’t get bullied.”
He said kids become less of a target because they lose their fear of the fight. “When you’re training, you’re less afraid of physical confrontation.”
The kids are taught how to recognize and handle bully situations, including physical confrontation.
“We teach them a very simple way to get out of a basic wrist grab,” among other things, said Diaz. “These are moves where you can release without hurting the other person.”
Leaders of such programs say they are teaching the kids to defend themselves and be confident, not to start a fight.
“We do tell them to let teachers know if it gets physical,” said Diaz.
In the Hoboken schools
In the local schools, administrators say that physical bullying has diminished.
“We don’t have that many physical challenges on our hands,” said Connors School Principal Linda Erbe last week.
She said that the key is intervening and talking before it gets that far.
“It’s being proactive with kids,” she said.
Connors recently brought in Dr. Michael Fowlin, an actor, psychologist, and poet, to give students grade three through seven a lively presentation on problems they might face, including bullying. His presentation offered solutions to these problems with character-building techniques.
Last week, the district sent various teachers and administrators to a seminar on bullying run by regional universities.
“They separate it into two stages, passive and aggressive,” said Edith Vega, district bilingual ESL supervisor.
Passive examples would be shunning or allowing other to get bullied and aggressive bullying is bullying in the classic sense.
Vega said teachers bear much of the burden, but that everyone is responsible even after the bell has rung. “It encompasses all of us, principals, disciplinarians, coaches.”
Cyber-bullying
The seminar also dealt with a new breed of computer-friendly bullies. Cyber-bullying can range from sharp insults to grave threats.
“As of January 1, we are to include cyberspace bullying in our bullying policy,” Vega said. “They use technology to harass other students.”
“I don’t think we have too much going on via the computers,” Erbe said of Connors School.
The seminar that Vega attended called for schools to take responsibility for any cyber-bullying that occurs on their computers. She said that the district already has a policy on acceptable use of the Internet.
A 2007 study by the Pew Internet and American Life Project found that one out of every three of teens had been subject to online bullying. The study also showed that kids are still more likely to be physically bullied than they are to be cyber-bullied.
“One in every five kids doesn’t want to go to school because they’re getting bullied,” Diaz said. She said bullying can start online, but it can easily spill over to the schoolyard and kids need to know how to deal with it confidently.
Seminar information
The seminar takes place on Saturday, April 19. It is divided into two segments. It runs from 2 to 3 p.m. for kids ages 5 through 8, and 3 to 4 p.m. for kids ages 9 through 13 at Tiger Schulmann of Hoboken, 84 Washington St.
The Bully Prevention Seminar is one of Tiger Schulmann’s KIDSAFE programs which, according to Patricolo, also include a Child Abduction Seminar.
For more information on the seminar, call (201) 792-5425, or visit www.tsk.com.
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