With National Bullying Awareness Week running from Nov. 16-22, Rocky View Schools (RVS) is not only working to address the precarious issue through education sessions (held from Nov. 18-20), but also to ensure that bullying is identified in a responsible manner in schools.
“One of the first steps we need to take is to define bullying,” said Chris Pawluk, lead psychologist for RVS, “as well as defining some other concepts, such as conflict and disagreements between friends.”
Pawluk said research has made the move away from labeling children as a ‘bully’ and rather describing behaviour as ‘bullying’.
“By describing the behaviour accurately, rather than defining the child as a ‘bully’ we can help to ensure the children are not funnelled into the label of being a bully,” said Pawluk.
RVS’ current definition of bullying behaviour is this: “Bullying is unwanted, aggressive behavior among students that involves a real or perceived power imbalance causing embarrassment, pain, or discomfort to someone. The behavior is repeated, or has the potential to be repeated, over time. It can be planned and organized, or it may be spontaneous. It may be perpetrated by individuals or by groups of individuals. Bullying may take place in schools, homes, community settings, or online.”
It’s also important for parents to get involved when they feel their child is being bullied, but it’s important they do so in the proper fashion.
“Parents obviously and understandably become upset if they think their child is being bullied,” said Pawluk, adding that teacher and principals can also become upset with these situations. “Parents get the best results for their children when they work with the school to help resolve the issues their child faces.”
Getting involved is important to help the child through what can be a difficult situation.
Though Pawluk highlights the importance for children to learn to be independent to become successful adults, there are some students who need support to accomplish this.
“If we leave students alone with no support, the worst that can happen is that children die,” said Pawluk. “We still need to allow students enough independence to learn from their mistakes, but we can’t let their mistakes, or the mistakes of their peers, have lasting negative consequences.”
Social media and technology has also changed certain aspects of child interaction.
Though Pawluk believes social media has not changed the way children interact with each other, it has changed the amount of interaction, the reach and the permanence of the interactions.
“Children still say mean things to each other, online and offline,” Pawluk said. “The difference is that social media follows you, so students are able to be contacted even when they are physically apart from each other.”
Pawluk added that through social media it is easier for children to get their message to a larger audience.
“If I say something mean about you to my friend,” he explained, “my friend can only tell a certain number of people. The reach online is in the millions, very quickly.”
In addition to RVS holding parent/caregiver information sessions on bullying during the week at various schools throughout the district, Nov. 21 will mark Blue Shirt Friday, which will symbolize peace in its schools.
“Bullying is a society issue, which can be detrimental to a person at any point in their lifecycle,” said Pawluk. “It’s hard to talk about bullying in isolation, but we all want a quick fix, and would like the whole issue to be less complicated than it really is.”
Visit bullyingawarenessweek.org for more information.
