Bullying
Posted by Robert Chambers
on Jan 10, 2012
At their regular club meeting noon
January 10th members heard about bullying from Senior High School
Guidance Counselor Leslie Limbke.
She talked about the various forms of bullying: the traditional
physical bullying that most are aware of but also the verbal, psychological and cyber bullying. Some are gender based with males more
likely to physically bully and females more likely to psychological (the
long stare) bully or verbally bully. Cyber bullying is the new entity
and can hurt both the victim (posting very hurtful comments or "facts"
as the person believes they are anonymous) and the bully (anything you
post can be traced to you and may come back to haunt you in future
years). This can even lead to "cybercide" or suicide due to cyber
bullying.
We are now seeing bullying not only in school but church groups and other organizations as well as the work space and the community in general. The key are the bystanders who an do nothing and this enable the bullies or gently intervene and walk the victim away. Documentation and reporting of incidents is important to build a case against the bullies. The causes are many but poor self image and learned behavior from parents are two. Training for the students and parents to recognize it and intercede appropriately is important. It is not a school problem; it is a community problem and it will take the whole village to solve it.