An End To Bullying: It's Not A Rite Of Passage, Experts Say

NEW JERSEY — October is going orange, and not just for Halloween.

Across the nation, an orange ribbon has become a reminder that October is National Bullying Prevention Month.

It puts a sharper focus on what some may dismiss as a harsh fact of life or a rite of passage - that there are the bullies and the bullied. And all people have to do - usually children - is "toughen up."

But bullying prevention advocates are challenging the very core of that mindset.

The National Bullying Prevention Center laid the groundwork for National Bullying Prevention Month to become a nationwide "call to action" for communities to learn their roles in bullying prevention, the organization says.

"This initiative has helped shift thinking away from bullying as a 'rite of passage' and toward the knowledge that bullying can be prevented and stopped through education and awareness," it adds.

The organization has named Wednesday, Oct. 19, Unity Day, a day to wear and share orange to send a visible message that no child should ever experience bullying, its website says. It encourages people to wear orange T-shirts, shoelaces, socks, sunglasses, wristbands, crowns, and capes.

It also wants people to "share orange" by posting images to social media tagged with #UnityEveryDay.

"Wear it to make a powerful statement, helping inspire everyone to act with kindness, acceptance, and inclusion on Unity Day, during National Bullying Prevention Month, and every day," the center urges.

Empowering older victims

Taking concrete steps to address bullying is part of what Christa Riddle, the coordinator of the Howell Alliance in Howell Township, works with every day, along with the organization's other activities for mental health and substance abuse prevention.

"No one is immune," she says.

In fact, she just presented a seminar to senior citizens about bullying in that age group.

Bullying, she said, is a repetitive, negative behavior.

Her program offered lots of information, and she discussed a few of the points she brought to seniors:

It is estimated that 10 to 20 percent of seniors are bullied, she said in her lecture. The most common type of senior bullying is verbal abuse, although the abuse can also be physical; it most commonly occurs in institutional settings, such as senior living facilities, nursing homes, assisted living facilities, and senior centers, where a lot of time is spent together and resources are shared.

What makes someone a bully?

Elderly people who instigate bullying may have had that problem their whole life. "You don't outgrow it," Riddle said.

Among the elderly, Riddle said neurological diseases that come with ageing can cause or contribute to bullying someone else. Other reasons seniors may bully include a fear of the unknown, a mental illness, or a history of having a negative personality, such as intimidating and bullying others during their younger years.

Seniors, much like young people, may live in groups - assisted living or a nursing home.

"You have many of the same issues as kids with having a shared space in a social setting," Riddle said. Someone might take your property, or gossip or get angry, she said.

At any age, the important thing is to not lose a sense of your empowerment. "You can do something about it," she says.

Her office cited various resources, including a report on senior bullying at their senior communities.

How Children Can Respond

Bullying may be more familiar at the other end of the age spectrum, among children.

In Hazlet, Mathew Weisfeld owns a karate school, United Martial Artist Academy, and recently held a seminar there on the topic of bullying for his students and their families.

He said part of empowerment is becoming strong and more confident - an evolution he understands from personal experience.

As a child he was bullied at school - "I was a scrawny little guy," he said. But he had the protection of his older brother, Jonathan Weisfeld. His brother died in an accident when he was only 10. Dealing with that tragedy, he took up karate even more seriously.

"I lost my protection," Weisfeld, now 37, said. But learning karate "changed everything" for him, he said.

He said it's important for families to identify if there is a bullying problem. One response can be for the bullied student to avoid the bullies by finding better people to associate with, perhaps through a club or a sport, he said.

The child who is the bully needs help, too, he said. An adult needs to have a conversation to make that child who perhaps is older or stronger use his position to help people - not bully them.

Taking non-aggressive, rational action is a thread that runs through many sites that offer education about bullying.

Stop Bullying.gov is a U.S. government site that has lots of information for people of any age.

But bullying is most usually identified as a childhood problem - the bully on the bus or the hallways. And now there is cyber bullying on social media platforms.

The site offers some ways to respond to bullying on the spot and to lay the groundwork to stop the syndrome. Here are some of the suggestions:

• Look at the kid bullying you and tell him or her to stop in a calm, clear voice.
• You can also try to laugh it off. This works best if joking is easy for you. It could catch the kid bullying you off guard.
• If speaking up seems too hard or not safe, walk away and stay away. Don’t fight back. Find an adult to stop the bullying on the spot.

There are things you can do to stay safe in the future:

• Talk to an adult you trust. Don’t keep your feelings inside. Telling someone can help you feel less alone. They can help you make a plan to stop the bullying.
• Stay away from places where bullying happens.
• Stay near adults and other kids. Most bullying happens when adults aren’t around.

The website also offers a section and video on cyber bullying, a particularly harsh practice that has often had devastating effects on the victim, as instances of teen suicides show.

Long-term effects

The National Bullying Prevention Center said bullying can leave devastating and often long-term effects for those who are victimized, such as a loss of self-esteem, increased anxiety and depression.

The center offers some statistics on the bullying problem from the National Center for Education Statistics. The federal government began collecting data on school bullying in 2005, when the prevalence of bullying was around 28 percent, according to the U.S. Department of Education, 2015.
Here are statistics from 2019:

• One out of every five (20.2 percent) students report being bullied.
• 41 percent of students who reported being bullied at school indicated that they think the bullying would happen again.
• Of those students who reported being bullied, 13 percent were made fun of, called names, or insulted; 13 percent were the subject of rumors; 5 percent were pushed, shoved, tripped, or spit on; and 5 percent were excluded from activities on purpose.
• The reasons for being bullied reported most often by students include physical appearance, race/ethnicity, gender, disability, religion, sexual orientation.

The organization helps provide resources to help schools and parents to support bullying prevention.

National Bullying Prevention Month, the group says, works on several levels - not the least of which is to "help create a world without bullying."

Some of its other initiatives:

• Encourage the nation to take action at the local level to create safe and supportive schools.
• Offer information and education about how everyone can prevent bullying.
• Provide a platform to hold school and community events.
• Share information about the issue through news media, social media, videos, and print publications.
• Speak with education and public policy leaders about their roles in bullying prevention.
• Promote dialogue between educators, parents, and students on their roles in addressing and preventing bullying.
• Invite organizations to share information about their bullying prevention resources.
• Inspire everyone to unite for kindness, acceptance, and inclusion.

Bullying and special needs individuals

The Arc is a national organization promoting the human and civil rights of children and adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) and their families. The New Jersey office is in North Brunswick and there are 20 county chapters in the state.

A banner on its website refers to "A World Without Bullying," and Céline R. Fortin, associate executive director of Arc of New Jersey, says she certainly hopes to make that so.

"We have to hope so and work together to make it so. Bullying should never be tolerated. It shouldn't be seen as a rite of passage or something no one can escape.

"To do so gives in to the bullies and diminishes the urgency to address what is wrong. It is imperative that everyone works together to recognize and address this issue, as well as support victims," she said in a statement.

Fortin said the New Jersey Department of Education "does a lot with bullying in general."
She said they have a network of anti-bullying specialists - "one in every school district I believe - that address bullying for children."

The Arc has produced a major report discussing people with IDD and bullying, as well as other abuse. The report compiled this information:

"Research has consistently found that children with disabilities are two to three times more likely to be bullied than their peers without disabilities. One study shows that 60 percent of students with disabilities report being bullied regularly compared with only 25 percent of all students.

"Bullying has serious consequences that should never be minimized," the report says.

One student quoted said special education students were bullied in his school - not physically, but emotionally, with mean words.

"Often the only mark they leave is a scar on your heart, which is impossible to see" the 15-year-old boy wrote.

Fortin's advice for coping with bullying echoes other professionals:

"The first thing everyone can do is talk about bullying and make sure that the message is clear - bullying is wrong. Also, create safe spaces for victims to be able to talk to someone for support," she said.

"For kids, it needs to be stressed that speaking up when you see someone being bullied is a powerful tool. This is also true of self-advocacy. Empowering people with disabilities to speak up and speak out for themselves and others gives them tools to stand up to bullies or seek out the support they need to stand up to them."