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Surviving

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“I was 11. One afternoon, on my way homefrom school, I walked around the corner hedge to get my bicycle. I didn’teven see the punch coming. It hit me so hard that I was paralyzed withshock. As my eyes began to refocus, I saw five older boys standing in a circlearound me. They pushed me, spat at me and kicked me. The tallest boygrabbed me by my school tie, choking me. “Say your mother is a whore and

a slag!” I refused. More kicks and punches. “Say yourmother is a whore and a slag.” To my total disbelief, asif my voice was no longer mine, I heard myself saying,“My mother is a whore and a slag”. I almost threw upwith shame, realizing what a coward I had just been.I adored my mother, yet I had just humiliated her inpublic and brought dishonor on my family.

I lay dazed on the ground, hot tears of intense shamerolling down my face. How could I possibly look mymother in the face and tell her the truth of what I hadjust said about her? Sure enough, an hour later, tooafraid to “rat” on the gang and tell the disgracefultruth, I told my mother that the terrible cuts andbruises were because I had fallen off my bicycle andcrashed into a fence. I had always told her the truth, soshe believed every word. Looking into her trusting andconcerned eyes, instead of receiving love and protection,it was as if I was swallowed up into a secret, toxic, sub-terranean world of bullied shame and humiliationwhere I remained hopelessly trapped, unable to talk tomy parents, for three awful years…”

Dickon Pownall-GrayBullying survivorFounder, Surviving Bullies Charity, Inc.

Dickon is the exception, not the rule. He was aboy who was continuously and brutally bullied forthree years, with violence so severe that he washospitalized several times. But he was also a boywho managed to eventually change schools and

escape the bullying and go on to lead a happy and successful life. Much more common is the child who, when severely and repeated-

ly bullied, enters a dangerous downward spiral. Chronic bullying hasbeen shown to damage the brain, causing short-term memory diffi-culties, affecting a child’s ability to concentrate in class and rememberinformation for tests. Schoolwork suffers, grades go down (Dickonsuddenly failed several subjects in school during the years of bullying),children withdraw from their friends and family, their self-esteem isdamaged as they start to believe what the bullies are saying aboutthem, and they can literally be put on a different path in life than ifthey hadn’t been bullied.

Who are these bullied children? They are no longer just the stereo-typical loners or nerds. Typical targets of bullies are the children whoare “different:” the child who is “too smart,” “too pretty,” “too wealthy,”or the child who is painfully shy or overweight, or has an accent.

Why are we suddenly hearing so much about bullying? Hasn’t itbeen around forever? What has changed?

First, yes, it’s been around forever. But it’s a bit like smoking. Peoplealways smoked but we didn’t realize how harmful it was. Once welearned that it was deadly, we started to work to reduce the incidenceof smoking. We are finally starting to realize that bullying has painfuland far-reaching consequences.

Second, we used to primarily define bullying as physical in nature –the sandbox bully kicking sand in the little kids’ eyes, the tough brutewho picked on weaker kids. Today we know that there are many moretypes of bullying, all characterized by three things: if it hurts, if it’srepetitive and if it’s perpetrated by a person or group with more powerthan the target, then it’s bullying. There are six different main types ofbullying: physical, verbal, relational (spreading rumors, gossip), exclu-sional (deliberately leaving a target out in order to hurt him/her), sex-ual and cyberbullying.

Third, technology has facilitated a whole new form of bullying, andthis in turn has created new types of bullies. Today, cyberbullies don’teven have to look their targets in the eye; they can pick on them fromanywhere, at any time, 24/7. Rumors, gossip and lies can be posted onsocial networking sites. Revealing photos can be passed from cell phoneto cell phone (“sexting”), impossible to stop. The power of cyberbullyingis immense. Bullies get their power from the “audience” – the bystandersthat see how tough they are and how weak the target is. Before, at mosta small group would witness the bullying. Now, it’s easy to humiliate atarget and have thousands of people see it endlessly. A fake posting on asocial networking site can tarnish a target’s reputation permanently.

And the consequences? Suicide is one increasingly frequent out-come, when the pain and humiliation simply become too much forthe young target to bear. It’s become so common it’s actually spawneda new word – “bully-cide.”

So what is the Surviving Bullies Charity doing about all this?We developed and implemented “The School Climate Project.”

The goals of the program are:To identify students who are being bullied and to empower these

students to better handle their bullying situation. To identify emotionally distressed students and to intervene to

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help these students. To provide succinct “School Climate” data analysis reports to school

administrators so that they can take data-driven, tangible stepstowards improving their school climate.

To teach the entire school community about the negative impactthat a tolerance for bullying has on the overall learning environment.

To make school communities aware that academic research showsthat chronic stress caused by bullying can damage the memory centerof the teenage brain so that learning suffers.

As professional business-people, we set out to develop a system thatwas highly automated (keeping it low-cost) and easily scalable toenable us to grow beyond Connecticut.

First, in order to “find” the targets of bullying, working with the YaleDepartment of Psychology, we designed a comprehensive online ques-tionnaire and database system that examines many aspects of emotion-al well-being such as anxiety, depression, self-esteem, bullying, weightbias, loneliness, connectedness to school, and peer relationships.

Then we found a school system that had the courage to pilot thequestionnaire. Joan Parker, the principal of Helen Keller Middle Schoolin Easton CT, was immediately captivated by the idea of looking forkids in her school that were targets of bullying and finding ways to helpthem. She then persuaded the other schools in her district, John ReadMiddle School and Joel Barlow High School in Redding to come onboard as well. From November 2008-March 2009, we put approxi-mately 900 5th-9th graders through our program.

Although we originally designed the questionnaire to simply findtargets of bullying, we soon realized that we actually had an “emo-tional distress” early warning system that can immediately identify notonly children who are targets of bullying but also children who are atemotional risk, regardless of whether they are being bullied or not. Weuse different strategies to help these two groups of children.

First, for the targets of bullying (approximately 10% at each schoolwere being significantly affected by bullying, which correlates withnational statistics), we sent their families our Mean T(w)een VideoBook.

Several years ago, Dickon had written a workbook filled with prac-tical advice for targets of bullying. We took the paper workbook andreformatted it so that it became an ‘interactive’ online book where stu-dents can click on diagrams, type their thoughts into text fields, andmost importantly, watch 59 videos of mostly teenagers, themselves tar-gets of bullying, talking about their own experiences and giving advicebased on what worked for them. Each video is set to music, and thekey points are highlighted at the end of each video with graphics. Notonly does most of the advice come from their peers, but it’s in a for-

mat that appeals to today’s youth. There are also videos of noted experts in their field giving advice on

nutrition and sleep, both of which have a dramatic impact onteenagers’ mood and emotional stability.

A kid picks on you in math class because you get your numbersbackwards. It might be tolerable if you’re rested and feeling good. Butif you’re exhausted, had nothing to eat because you woke up late, andyou’re on edge, you might blow up and retaliate. That can cause thebullying to escalate.

How many teenagers (or parents) know that teenagers need 9.25hours of sleep per night? How many know that using electronicdevices late at night actually winds us up and delays sleep, even thoughit seems like relaxing down time?

(To learn more about our Mean T(w)een VideoBook, or to downloadit, go to: www.survivingbullies.org and click on “VideoBook.” )

Second, for the children at emotional risk, we have outside consult-ant psychologists contact the families. Our psychologists may offerreferrals to other doctors if requested, provide information about serv-ices the school offers that can help their child, or simply act as a con-cerned “sounding board.”

Where are we now?Thanks in part to a grant from our main sponsor, People’s United

Community Foundation in Bridgeport, CT, by the end of the schoolyear, we’ll have evaluated almost 3000 students; 5th-9th graders in 9different Connecticut public schools. Our psychologists will have con-

tacted hundreds of families and we’ll have provided our Mean T(ween)VideoBook to hundreds of children who are subjected to bullying everyday. In addition, after we analyze the data of each school, we presentthe results to the superintendent and the school administration,together with recommendations for improvement.

We’ve found that school administrators have sound intuition abouttheir students. But without the data to prove it, it’s hard to act on theirintuition and even harder to justify spending money to improve weakareas. We provide them with data to support their intuition. Theanalysis documents where they are now and where they need toimprove. The following year, when we test their students again, thedata shows how well their investment of time and money has paid off.

For example, in every school, the students say that the bullyingoccurs where adults are least present – on the bus, in the cafeteria, atrecess, in the halls between classes. The data shows the percentage ofstudents picked on in each of these locations (as well as others).

At one school, we suggested the school “invest” in extra teacherpresence on the playground.

If it hurts, if it’s repetitive and if it’s perpetrated by a person or groupwith more power than the target, then it’s bullying.

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