A new study released today from the Los Angeles based Josephson Institute of Ethics demonstrates that today’s high school students are navigating a difficult social and educational environment where bullying, physical violence, aggression and substance abuse are regularly experienced. Half of the more than 43,000 students in the study said they’d bullied someone in the past year. One third of the kids said violence was a big problem in their school and nearly a quarter admitted they don’t feel safe when at school. Not difficult to see why when the majority of respondents admit hitting someone in the last year when they were angry.
Combine that with the armed minority (1 in 10) who have brought weapons into the school (and presumably not been deterred by metal detectors or school policy) and 16% who admit being intoxicated at school, and you have a mixture ripe for trouble. No wonder that so many kids on all sides of the danger equation take their problems online where the back and forth of gossip and anonymous chatting can fuel the anger, turn to cyberbullying or cyberstalking and other online issues.
A remarkable aspect of this new study is that it contradicts the previous held belief that bullying at school and cyberbullying peaked in middle school. We now have evidence that in many schools the high school corridors feature a taller, stronger and more experienced bully, one more likely to evade parental detection.
Parents who will no doubt be as concerned as I am by the study’s findings can turn to the Character Counts! website where you can read the study’s findings and take online surveys intended to help you learn if your child is a bully or being bullied and find resources for additional help. You can also use helpful free tools like Norton Online Family to help keep an eye on online activities. Knowing the search terms or websites visited by your teen may help you understand issues they are grappling with. Above all, every parent should know that the best assistance you can offer a teen who is experiencing bullying at school are your listening skills and understanding of their situation. Your child is reluctant to tell you about any at-school problems, especially if they think you won’t understand, will offer outdated advice, will take away the computer or Internet access or otherwise fail to help them.
Should your child be a victim of bullying at school, make sure you work with the school administrators, but ask for written documentation of every action plan, follow up judiciously and seek outside assistance as well. Where threats of physical harm are involved, you may need to involve your local police. And in the worst cases, you may actually need to remove your child from the school and transfer to another. For more information, please visit www.cyberbullying.us and the US government’s Stop Bullying Now site.