BULLYING IN SCHOOLS:

TREAT THE CAUSE NOT THE SYMPTOM

Why do we seem to not be able to eradicate bullying from schools? 

The answer is simple. We have been treating the symptoms and not the cause. We want to put a plaster on incidents and hope it heals instead of delving deeper and asking why did this happen in the first place. It has now been over a year that I have been visiting schools, doing talks and having discussions with smaller groups.  It becomes clearer to me daily; we are going about this problem all wrong. Currently we are identifying the bully, labeling him/her as the bully and punishing the bully.  We are doing the same for the victim.  Creating labels creates expectation.  

Look at clothing labels; we “expect” certain things from certain labels. No different from a bully carrying the label of “bully”. We forget the bully carries two labels, that of victim and bully.  There is not a single bully who has not been a victim. It is this protection against more pain that makes the victim take their anger and frustration out on others, adding to themselves the label of “bully”.

Being a bully is someone who chose to put on a mask, living a life of pretense.  

Pretending you have no fear, pretending to be the most confident kid in the school, while the person behind the mask lives in fear and has zero self confidence and worth. 

In group sessions I get the bullies to remove these masks, creating a safe space where they can share their stories and allow themselves to be vulnerable. I push the bully into a corner, in a gentle manner; he knows he is now exposed as someone wearing a mask and also just a victim trying to protect himself by using aggression.  They are forced to remove the mask, and face the pain. I help them deal with their trauma and give them tools on how to move forward having a label they need to lose as everyone still knows them as a bully.

Often bullies are victims of trauma outside the school. 

We live in a broken world, yet we expect our kids to act like angels and be “normal”.  Sadly “normal” to many kids are seeing horrifying images on television, going to sleep with the sounds of gunshots, hearing family members argue about money and survival and the list goes on.  Kids grow up with a sense of having to protect themselves.  No-one else will, so they put on a balaclava of protection, a mask.  They hide their pain and hurt others to feel a sense of control.

Until we look at solving the problem of bullying by labeling and punishing labels, we will never solve this problem.

Constant encouragement and support to victims to become survivors is the answer.

It is hard to have sympathy with a bully. Instinct makes us want to hate the aggressor but we need to understand why the aggressor is acting out, to solve the problem of bullying.

We have all added to this messed up society we find ourselves in, whether it be through accepting the lie on the front page of a magazine and believing that is what we should be, or whether we all strive to buy the same car to impress others, but we cannot expect the youth to know any better if we do not guide them.

Personally I feel schools need to focus more on counselling in these times we live in. Kids are left to find their own coping skills and due to lack of life experience, often make the wrong choices.  We need to allow kids to remove their masks and find their own authenticity.  

If you find what makes you different from everyone else, don’t ever change. 

Written by: Liesl Schoonraad