ASK THE EXPERT: MEGAN TOY

Megan Toy is a Peaceable Schools Coordinator in the Washington, D.C. school system.
She is also an accomplished tri-athlete and member of TEAM TSA.
(this article was originally published in TSA's Summer 2007 newsletter)

Is there anything that parents can do or say to their young child who is being teased about TS at school and on the playground?
The child has done nothing wrong. Young children (and older people, too) often tease and criticize that which they do not understand. The unknown can be frightening to children, and some children handle this fear by making light of it and teasing. Educate your child’s peers about TS. Answer their questions honestly. If your child is old enough and comfortable, have your child be the one to educate his or her peers. Contact your local TSA Chapter as many chapters have someone with experience going to schools to talk with young children. Many children will stop teasing once they have a better understanding about TS and its cause/effect on their classmate. They may also become the child’s allies and stand up for him if other students continue to tease.

Practice self-assertiveness skills with your child. Role-play confident body language and the tone of voice your child can use to tell children who are teasing him/her to “Stop. Don’t talk to me that way.” Your child needs to learn to be firm but not angry, to stand up straight and make eye-contact while telling the teasing student to stop, before moving away to a place that he or she feels safe.

It is not the child’s responsibility to stop the teasing. It is the responsibility of the bystanders (adults and other students) in the environment to send a clear message that bullying is not acceptable and that there will be consequences if it continues. All parents should be educated about bullying behaviors and find out who to contact at their child’s school should they have problems with bullies.

What doesn’t work when a child is being bullied:
• Ignoring the problem
• Blaming your child for provoking bullying
• Telling the child to “hit back” or “fight back”
• Calling the parents of the bully (unless there is a friendly relationship between the parents)

Messages to communicate to a child who is a target of bullying:
• You do not deserve to be bullied
• We will work with you and the child who is bullying you to bring the bullying to an end
• Identify a person at school they can talk to about continuing problems
• Work with school personnel to develop a safety plan

High school can be one long popularity contest and bullying is one way to gain friends at another student’s expense. What do you recommend to a teen with TS who finds herself the target of a bully?
It is not the teen’s responsibility to stop the bullying. Again, it’s the bystanders’ role to convey the message that bullying will not be tolerated in the school environment. That being said, I’ll share what I did when I was bullied about my TS in high school. With the help of my guidance counselor and my local TSA Chapter, I took an educational day from the school in which I was excused from my classes and sat in the health room all day. I taught every health class that day and the subject was TS. I described my personal experiences with TS and then answered questions from my peers. They asked some pretty personal questions and I answered them all honestly. My courage and candor was recognized by most of the students. As a result of this day I gained approximately 250 allies who understood what TS was (and what it wasn’t) and who stood up for me when they heard other’s teasing and mocking me about it. Shortly after this experience my bullying stopped. Taking this action gave me a sense of power in a dis-empowering situation. It enabled me to retain my self-esteem and confidence.

What kind of policies do you think schools should enact in order to curtail bullying behaviors?
Schools should adopt and implement school-wide policies around the issue of bullying. The Olweus Bullying Prevention Program is one of the few research-based, best practice models of bullying prevention world-wide. Components of this model include:
• School rules against bullying
• Development of rubric based sanctions/consequences for bullying behavior that is enacted consistently by all staff when bullying occurs
• School wide education on what bullying is, why it is unacceptable and what to do if you witness or experience bullying
• Classroom meetings (at least once a week). The goal of these meetings is to build a sense of community in the classroom and create empathy which will decrease the likelihood that students will bullying one another and increase the likelihood that they will stand up for one another
• Train staff in intervention techniques (both on-the-spot and follow-up interventions) when they witness bullying
• For more information go to www.clemson.edu/olweus and www.stopbullyingnow.hrsa.gov.

Has the old “boys will be boys bullying is part of life” philosophy met its end?
Unfortunately, that belief is still held by some. As education and training continues to dispel the myth that bullying behavior is a phase that will be outgrown fewer people believe in this. Research shows that 60 percent of boys who were identified as bullies in grades 6 through 9, go on to be convicted of a crime by the age of 24. As we can see from the data, bullying is not something children outgrow, but the behavior can be changed with appropriate intervention.