Reply to Bullying in Bethesda an CC elementaries

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Certainly part of the problem is that many people use bullying as a catchall phrase that goes far beyond the definitions schools and others use with respect to bullying.  For example, it seems a stretch to call the message suggesting what girls should wear bullying, and I would think the proper response to something like that would be to tell your child to ignore it rather than to contact the parents.  This is also a problem in the schools when kids are taught that if they label behavior they do not like as bullying, they will get a response, so just about everything gets that label, and kids become immune.  There are lots of real issues with respect to bullying and they need to be taken seriously, but calling cliques and gossip are probably best treated differently.  It is also interesting that a number of posters suggested actions like calling the school even though the original poster provided no details, this is not to say that OP's child is not being subjected to serious bullying, just that we should be more precise in our definitions, particularly when raising issues of bullying.      [/quote]

I totally disagree.  I think gossip and cliques can actually be worse than physical bullying, especially among the girls.  Gossip is bullying.  Period.  And kids need to be taught this.  They need to realize that they can't spread rumors about other kids without consequences.  What often happens to girls is that a clique of girls will decide they don't like one girl and then spreading all kinds of rumors.  Then they act innocent if any adult is told and calls them on it.  The problem is that that kind of gossip and rumor spreading really can interfere with a kids' ability to learn.  And that is what matters.

I also think the emails and texting can verge on harassment.  And again, kids need to be taught a bit of self-control when it comes to that.  The key thing is that these activities interfere with classroom learning, period.  And that's why parents, teachers and principals need to take them seriously.

The problem is that if they don't call rumor spreading and gossip bullying, even though it might really be causing a child harm, then nothing is done to intervene.

In recent history, it should be noted that most bullying-related suicides among kids/teens were actually of the gossip kind of bullying and not the physical version.  That should be proof enough that those behaviors, even though not traditional bullying, are damaging and serious enough to be called bullying and treated as such.

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