Inappropriate behavior does require a response when school authorities become aware of it. We can’t just let such things “slide,” and, unless I’m misreading you, I don’t think you’re suggesting that. The issue is really proportionality. Once upon a time, minor corrections and “second chances” for first offenders were considered humane and enlightened responses, especially where kids are concerned. Maybe such notions deserve some reinvigoration, since it is the rare kid who does not step over the line (whether or not s/he is caught) at some point. Excessive punishment of the ones who are caught smacks of scapegoating, as the kids of whom “examples” are being made are well aware.

Most of us have unpleasant memories of bullies. I certainly do, and I suppose that is why harsh policies against them are popular. Yet, the particular bullies I faced back in ancient times at my old prep school were not sociopaths who later went on to careers of crime. They were ordinary students who rowdily got caught up in the moment. To have seen them expelled – much less hauled before a judge – would have done far more damage to not only to them but to me. My complicity in that event would have been unfortunate personally and socially. That, perhaps should be another consideration: disproportionate response may be bad not just for the offenders but for the victims.

Richard:

Thanks for the comment. I agree with most of your points, and I believe you are understanding me correctly.

I do take issue, though, with your opening statement, "Inappropriate behavior does require a response when school authorities become aware of it." Almost everyone has come to believe this, but people don't think it through because it sounds right. But since when does every "inappropriate" action need to be addressed by the authorities? Does it happen anyplace else in life? Do you and I never behave inappropriately, and what authority figures step in to address us or punish us whenever we are inappropriate? "Crime" is the thing that needs to be addressed by the authorities, not "inappropriate actions." If every inappropriate action were to be addressed by the authorities, we would have a totalitarian police state. Furthermore, who is to decide what is appropriate and what isn't? And is it "appropriate" to address every inappropriate action? The reason we can't stand our mothers-in-law is because they criticize us for our inappropriate actions (my apologies to any of you who are mothers-in-law). If you are not sure about the folly of addressing every inappropriate action, try a simple experiment. For the next week, whenever you are aware of someone doing something you think is inappropriate, reprimand and/or punish them for it. How many friends do you think you will have by the end of the week?

The point that I am trying to make is that the reason the psychological establishment has made such little progress in reducing bullying in schools is that it is not using psychology. It is acting as an arm of the law enforcement system, and the "crime" (bullying) is doing anything that's inappropriate.

But we are in the field of psychology! Our job is not to make children safe and to punish wrongdoers. If we wanted to do that, we we should have attended the police academy rather than graduate programs in psychology. Our job is to teach people how to deal with life, not to protect them from it.

What virtually everyone is failing to see is that the popular anti-bully programs have nothing to do with psychology. Their only relationship to psychology is that psychologists are researching and promoting them. The anti-bully psychology is, in fact, a complete abandonment of the most basic of psychological and philosophical principles. For anyone who wants to understand what is wrong with the anti-bully "psychology," I refer them to my recent newsletter article: http://www.bullies2buddies.com/news/2008_10.html#1

We need a complete paradigm shift if we want to deal effectively with bullying in schools. We need to start acting like practitioners of psychology and stop playing the role of law-enforcement officer.

I've been a school counselor and violence prevention educator for the last 5 years and it has become obvious to me that we need to work with the victims as well if we are going to make progress. This is in no way to blame the victim but it is an understanding that prevention is a two way street. I've listened to your CD's and will be using the information in my school assmeblies going forward. Thank you for what you're doing and for letting your daughter do the voice over:)

Your points make a lot of sense. As an elementary school counselor, I have decided to change my guidance unit on "Stopping Bullying" to "How to Stop Being a Victim."

Izzy Kalman is spot on...aggression is applauded in the business world, in sports, in many social situations. In school, however, it is anathema. The idea that schools should expel "bullies" solves nothing at all. Learning to handle aggression is a very useful life skill, and the best place to teach it is in school before leaving for the big world. The research is very supportive that anti-bullying campaigns fail miserably. Izzy points out that fact beautifully. We will never make everyone nice. We can teach people not to become victims. This works, and Izzy's campaign to change the paradigm resonates with those of us who work with children daily.

Our kids are far too quick to seek shelter in teachers and parents to take away the responsibility they have to work at solving their own problems. Teaching them to do so is the responsibility of the parent primarily but also falls on the schools. Kids are in school to learn and social adeptness is an important life skill which can help teachers tend less to behavior issues and more to studies. Thinking about the bully mentality brings visions of attention seeking, exertion of power over others. Over time through skillful instruction, if kids are able to understand the behavioral underpinnings of the bully and help motivate positive change with each interaction the bully will in time be forced to look to other ways to get attention and exert his/her will on others. Scripting can give support. As an example, "I am sorry you feel that way about me because I don't feel that way about you." when a bully says hurtful words with the expectation of a negative reaction from the victim. Now the victim is no longer a victum. I can tell you that the self esteem that develops in a child from being able to handle a difficult social situation is heartily rewarding. Yes, it requires skill and effort to teach these skills, but given the challenges in schools today, wouldn't a more co-operative supporting nature in school children be refreshing to all who are involved with them?

Teachers actually watch the occurrence of "inappropriate" behavior all the time without intervening. Just think about how elementary, or even high school, students act in the cafeteria at lunch. Most of us adults think much of the behavior we see there is immature, foolish, etc., but we don't intervene because no one is actually getting hurt. On the issue that "teachers can't teach, and students can't learn," in an environment where bullying sometimes occurs...get a grip! Of course they can, they did so successfully for more than 200 years in the US alone! I went to elementary school half a century ago (when, incidentally, most of the public was quite pleased with the successful educational performance of the public school system - unlike today) and I saw bullying occur. I was bullied, myself. When a teacher saw that I was having problems with another kid on the playground, she did indeed, do something about the "inappropriate behavior" she witnessed, but she didn't talk to the kid who was bullying me. Instead she took me aside after recess and gave ME advice on how to deal with this kind of thing more effectively the next time it happened. I took her advice (remarkably similar to Izzy's, by the way) and the bully got tired of harrassing me over the next few days, and started leaving me alone. This third grade teacher knew perfectly well that she couldn't successfully intervene by going after the bully, it would simply drive the behavior underground and get me bullied even more when she wasn't around. She also must have realized that the problem wasn't that I was getting bullied, but that I didn't know how to deal with it. So she intervened and fixed the problem. No one else was ever told about our little talk, as far as I am aware, nor was any "official" action taken. A good teacher simply did her job and "taught." But she was a good enough teacher to realize that sometimes there was a need to teach things not normally on the school curriculum. Still, she saw a student of hers who needed to learn something, and she taught him. The whole thing took no more than five minutes of private, one-on-one time, and I had a new coping skill that I could use for life. It worked fine then, and it would work fine now. But then, that would be expecting teachers to act like teachers, instead of like policemen, wouldn't it?

Hi Izzy! I attended one of your seminars in Orange County. I am the one that gave you my parenting manual and am also a Police Lieutenant for the Long Beach Police. I got to role play your stlye with a girl student recently. I will followup with her soon but we had a good time role-playing her scenarios and we both were laughing pretty hard. She got the message and saw how she was playing a role in the problem.

Thanks for your insight! I am teaching these principles to the Officers that work at the schools. I would love for them to attend your next workshops when you come out to California again!

Keep talking!

Warmly,

Ty

I do agreee with certain ideas that we dont always get to deal with "nice " people in life, and that school prepares u for life in many ways, of course. However, Children are NOT adults, and bullying can be detrimental to the child "learning" about life, because his experience has made learning ANYTHING at all difficult. The stress, anxiety, and pain of even entering the school building can ruin a bullied childs education and future.

I myself would not even go to school to avoid it, or if I did go I would hide somewhere (chorus room, library etc) so as not to be seen and bullied. I eventually failed many classes and then dropped out, because there was no way I was going to graduate. This had nothing to do with my intelligence, I had a very much above average IQ.

I agree that "telling on" a bully might make the bully even angrier and bully the victim even more, however there has to be somewhere to draw the line.

If a bully is being reported regularly for example by differnt students...or if a teacher or authority sees the bullying blatantly happening before their eyes, the I do believe the bully should have "consequences"

Your argument that the punishment should fit the crime is not very strong..."carrying my books because you knocked over mine?" In the adult world that you compare this to, a person goes to prison for raping someone, he ISNT told to now "take them on a proper date"

I do think that victims should be better equipt at handling bullies, and this should be taught, but to completely let the bully off the hook doesnt make any sense to me at all.

You dont see how suspension or expuslsion fits in? Well I think it is the bully that should have his education deteriorate because of his behavior, not the victim.

Luckily for me, I regained strength (as an adult) and went back to school and then to college, but my life as a child was tortured by bullies, and your stance being that adults should basically look the other way is very disturbing to me (as well as to others I am sure).

I dont claim to have all of the answrs, but I dont think your approach is 100 percent on the mark either...I think your approach will help in lots of cases but not nearly all...I think a combination of education for victims AND bullies along with behavioral practice on both ends, along with some sort of intervening consequences to the bully when it becomes clear...I am sure you will find many problems with my comments here but as I said I dont have it all figured out, no one (including you) does, which is why this is STILL such a serious issue in our society

One of the problems with the subject of bullying is that we are judging the severity of the problem by the degree of the suffering of the victims.

I guarantee you that, since you are intelligent, had I had the chance to work with you during the time you were going to school, I could have successfully taught you how to stop being bullied in practically no time, and your suffering would have been over. But since all you are aware of is the years of horrible suffering you endured, you think of the problem as incredibly horrific.

The bullying experts portray bullying so horribly that people have come to compare it to things like rape. There are behaviors that are crimes, and the perpetrators deserve to be punished. Rape is an incredibly serious crime, and the Bible, as well as most ancient cultures, punish it by death. Rape is not something that can be undone, and it needs to be deterred through serious punishment.

The actions that are called "bullying" are not criminal. In fact, they are the ordinary kind of mean things that people do to each other in the ordinary course of life. We need to learn to deal with these things. Punishment by the authorities for the ordinary meanness of life is not going to make it disappear. It makes it escalate. This can be understood not only by simple logic, but is proven by the research.

Of course, if teachers see kids picking on each other, they must go over and stop them, and see if they can help them in a positive way. The problem is that most times it happens when no staff are looking. Kids come and tell staff that they were picked on. Then the staff has to conduct investigations and try to figure out who should be punished and how. The legal justice authorities, who are trained experts at dealing with crime, have a hard time doing this effectively. Furthermore, in case you didn't notice, the legal justice system cannot make all crime disappear. But school staff, who are complete amateurs in law enforcement, are expected to be successful at making all meanness among kids disappear.

Most mental health professionals don't even know how to make bullying disappear in their own lives. They get divorced as often as anyone else, they have difficulty with peers and bosses at work, and their own children fight as often as anyone else's. If the experts don't know how to make bullying disappear from their own lives, how in the world is a school supposed to make it disappear?

The only place where everyone is always nice to each other is Heaven. This idea may enrage people, but all of the anger is not going to change this reality. We need to learn to handle the difficulties of life. Expecting others to do this for us is irrational.

I would like to make what I think is a fundamental clarification. The most important distinction in this debate is between aggressive behavior that physically harms and aggressive behavior that does NOT harm. Yes, aggression is a human trait. Part of the broad notion of education is that one learns how to channel aggression into non-violent behavior.

Oh, and this comment about "aggression is part of the real world"...if you hit someone in the "real world" it is a criminal offense called battery:
At common law, an intentional unpermitted act causing harmful or offensive contact with the "person" of another.

Battery is concerned with the right to have one's body left alone by others.

Battery is both a tort and a crime. Its essential element, harmful or offensive contact, is the same in both areas of the law. The main distinction between the two categories lies in the penalty imposed. A defendant sued for a tort is civilly liable to the plaintiff for damages. The punishment for criminal battery is a fine, imprisonment, or both. Usually battery is prosecuted as a crime only in cases involving serious harm to the victim.

What empiral research backs up this program? It seems to me this is a fad gaining popularity, which is why you have just a masters and you are writing in the illustrious "Psychology Today". You seem to be pushing your program pretty strong as a self purported "expert" in anti-bullying techniques. I'm not buying about 50% of your claims, but I can see why the teachers and school counselors must LOVE you. You are saying exactly what they want to hear. All those whiny complaining brats...now you can get the victims to deal on their own without having to waste the teacher's time. Woo hoo! Can I buy the program for $500? I'll be sure to tell the girl who gets abused by her older brother that she needs to be friends with him and keep it a secret from mom and dad.