When it comes to bullying boys and girls can bully using the same actions but we do see a difference when we look at it as a whole. Boys do what we call direct bullying, this is punching, kicking, shoving, knocking books out of people’s hands, throwing things at another person. What we have found is boys usually bully outside of their circle of friends. With that being said; no wonder teachers catch boys bullying because they can visually see them doing it and because it is done outside of their circle of friends they’re out in the open to be caught by an adult. Girls do what we call indirect bullying. Girls do more of we call the social aspects of bullying. They exclude, give those mean or rude stares and gossiping is something that they use often. Girl’s usually bully inside their group of friends. They have one queen bee that controls the rest of the girls and if she doesn’t like what you have to say, she gets the rest of the girls to turn on them. The problem teachers have is; they cannot see it happening they only find out about it down the road when the victim finally speaks up. The other girls won’t speak up knowing they could lose their circle of friends. When it comes to students in grades 6 and up it becomes more of the social aspects of bullying. Stats show that 90% of students who bully in middle/high school are just average kids. They do well in school, they have lots of friends and their teachers love them. What allows them to bully is that they are socially popular. We received 3 calls this morning from students in middle/high school asking us to send information to their school because they’re being bullied at school. In each of the calls the students were talking about the social aspects of being bullied. They also said that they talked to an adult and in each case the adults passed it off as a conflict. In my next blog I’m going to talk about the importance of integrity when it comes to following through as adults and protecting these victims of bullying.
