Yep! Interventions are seeds that can last a life time. I don't want to teach students to be responsible for classmate's behavior or from becoming a crutch. I want to teach compassion and a sense of social responsibility - a healthy interdependence. Maybe we could teach the TA drama triangle along with bullying response strategies. This might help students to recognize the invisible connections between playing a rescuer or enabler, prosecutor and victim.

I do agree with your viewpoint with only a few exceptions. I remember when I was in school there was a severely handicapped girl who had both cognitive and physical limitations. For whatever reason another girl found it fun to taunt her and push her books from her hands knowing a back brace prevented the girl from being able to bend over and pick them up. No one ever stood up for the girl and this behavior continued for months until finally a boy stepped in and vowed to protect her. He escorted her to class for the rest of the year and the girl was finally able to come to school and learn without daily emotional truama. In this case, the girl was perhaps not capable of learning interdependent skills to handle her own bullying. In genereal, however, it is good to have kids overcome thir own tormentors. We just can't lose sight of insatnces like this one where a true victim is actually very easy to judge.

Theoretically, you are probably correct in that doing nothing is better than doing something, statistcally that is. However, until you have been on the receiving end of bullying, you cannot speak about such matters. If someone intervenes when you are being taunted and sticks up for you, that alone is a self-esteem booster. However, if you, as a bystander, chose to "ignore" the bullying because you believe that stepping in won't help him/her, your silence is perceived by the victim as evidence that what is happening to him/her is okay and that you tolerate it. Letting the victim bear the brunt of a bully is analogous to ignoring a racist joke or comment;your silence is perceived by the person as support. Ask youself these two questions: How many people have been killed sticking up for someone being bullied? And how many people have committed suicide or shot up school because they were frequently teased and nothing did anything about it (including teachers and students)? You claim statistics are on your side but I'm afraid I would have to beg to differ.

My daughter is 8 years old and in the 2nd grade at a Catholic School and is being bullied by this boy at school that won't stop looking at her and picking on every move she makes. It is disrupting her learning and the teachers and principles are putting the blame on my daughter because she is reacting to it. To me, the teacher and the Principle seem to be bulling her too! They called me at work and made me come get her because this boy told her that he wishes that she was never born. They told me that my daughters problem is that she thinks that she is so pretty and that she can get out of trouble because she is pretty. WHAT! So somehow this is all my daughters fault for being "pretty"? I am at my whits end with this and I did research to try and help her make this boy stop and I came across your "Bullies 2 Buddies" article. I totally argee with it and I KNOW it will work! It is getting my daughter to stop reacting to this kid that is going to be the hard part. But I am going to give it a try. Her self esteem is so low right now that I don't know how to help her. She feels that everyone hates her. The teacher even sent her to Kindergarden because she was crying about how this boy has made her feel! She told her that she is acting like a kindergardener and she can spend the rest of the day there! We are going to sit down and discuss all the steps that she needs to take to pull this off. And when it works I am going to go to the principle and the teacher and give them a peace of my mind along with a copy of your article. They have done nothing to help her try to help herself and they keep punishing her and not him. They are enabling this boy to keep bulling her by letting him "win". As a parent it hurts to see her so down on herself and not be able to fix it and I am so glad that I came across your article. Thank you so much! My daughter is so excited about it and I know that she can do it!

I totally agree with your approach - however some beliefs are so engrained in us, that it's hard to try new approaches...even if they make so much sense! I have always stressed to children (especially my own) that they don't have to "let" what others say about them get to them...they choose how they feel and respond. I love your magic response "Do you believe it?" and use it frequently. It has even rubbed off on my teenage daughter who uses it with friends without even knowing it! However, when it comes to standing up for other, I've always been a proponent of standing up for the underdog and not allowing someone to be mean to another. I see now that the best possible solution may not be to stand up for the person, but to help empower the person (away from the bully) to handle the bully themselves.

This is really the crux of the whole bullymania. I have changed my approach with students since hearing and reading what Izzy has to say. I did have a student who told me that Izzy says to "do nothing". I had him show me where that was written and he did. Of course, he took it totally out of context, which led to a great lesson. When parents want the school to bully the bully, I just do not see how that helps the "victim" except to have shown how having others take care of you is a life skill. Wow, I hope we don't have a generation who thinks others should take care of them. OOPS, I forgot, we already do!!

I'm glad to hear that you are not advocating the "do nothing" approach because at first that is what your articles and website seem to encourage.

Teaching bullied children how to emotionally deal with bullies and not react in a way that encourages further abuse is an idea I can get behind.

However, I still feel it is important that targets of bullying are also encouraged to step forward and report it. Otherwise we will lose sight of how serious of a problem it is and will not know to intervene or recognize that a child does not have the skills to deal with it on their own. In some cases we don't find out about these situations until there is a suicide.

On my website, OvercomeBullying.org, we showcase a program called Speak Out Now that allows targets, bystanders and even bullies to report incidents. If, for example the target reported an incident they can enter into the system how they would like the situation to be addressed.

In this way all concerned recognize the need for bullying to not just be swept under the rug and ignored but at the same time recognizes the need to identify targets, bystanders and bullies so that they can receive the support or education they need.

That support can be in whatever form is deemed best. In this case it would be to identify targets who need to learn the skills required to handle bullying situations better on their own.

You can find more information about Speak Out Now here:
http://www.overcomebullying.org/speak-out.html

Their is a brother and sister team in our neighborhood that have picked on my children for a very long time. Both at school and at home. We have tried ignoring: didn't help. My children have tried bullying the bullies back: didn't help. I have tried talking to the parent: this proved difficult because the parent was a bully too! So are my kids supposed to be emotionally abused, suffer from stomachaches every morning because we shoudn't address the issue? It seems to me that the real issue is that the bullies are crying out for help too. There must be problems within themselves and at home or they wouldn't have such poor social skills. I don't see how getting rid of bullying policies will help. The children that suffer this torture are being thrown to the wolves. Maybe the bullying policy needs to be reinvented to get the bullies the psychological help they obviously need.

I've been saying this for years. We, adults, including the education world and all the so-called experts, don't know what to do about bullying. Izzy Kalman is the first professional I have seen admit it. It has angered me for so long that we tell children to tell an adult when they are being bullied. The truth is we don't know what to tell these kids. Of course if there are witnesses and physical contact we, the educational professionals, can take action (punitive). But, so much bullying happens outside of teachers' direct contact; hallways, cafeteria, recess, bathrooms, and so on. And "if we didn't see it and there are no witnesses, there is nothing we can do."
Also, by the way, bullies have parents, who often do not feel that their children ARE bullies. They expect the school to provide proof. One child's words vs. another's is not proof. This so-called indifference of teachers may be based in this. And we do need to consider whether we really want schools to react simply based on reported words. Frustrating, yes, but schools are such easy targets and oh so kickable.
This website is the first bullying program that appears to based in reality. I don't think I can cause it to be implemented school-wide, but I can surely see what it can do for my classroom.
Thank you!