Among teen boys with an autism spectrum disorder, those who are considered high-functioning are confronted with a greater degree of bullying behavior than their “typically developing” peers, new research indicates.
The observation specifically reflects upon boys aged 12 to 18, and refers to the kind of physical aggression, name-calling, intimidation, rumor-mongering and group exclusion that characterize bullying behavior.
The finding is slated to be reported Wednesday at the International Meeting for Autism Research in San Diego, by a study team led by Elizabeth A. Kelley, assistant professor in the psychology department at Queens University in Kingston, Ontario.
To explore the subject, the investigators focused on 68 adolescent boys, 31 of whom were diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder.
All the study participants completed questionnaires designed to gauge their IQ, language skills, emotional intelligence and prior “peer victimization” experiences. Parents were also asked to discuss their child’s ability to manage social interactions.
Children with autism were found to have lower IQ scores and were less adept at making appropriate judgment calls, the study found.
Judgment skills were not found to have a direct impact on bullying risk. However, for all of the study participants, the ability to manage stress and maintain emotional control did have a bearing on the risk for experiencing peer victimization, the researchers found.
“Difficulty modulating emotional responses appropriately and a lack of ability to cope with stress appear to place adolescents with and without an autism spectrum disorder at risk for peer victimization,” the study authors concluded.
Because children with autism were less able to manage their emotional responses and stress, and were not skillful at reflecting upon and expressing their own thoughts and feelings or understanding those of their peers, they were therefore at greater risk of being bullied than typically developing boys, the findings suggested.
Experts note that research presented at meetings should be considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.
One evening two weeks ago, Nancy Anderson Dolan’s 13-year-old son opened his laptop and yelled like he’d been struck. Dolan rushed to his side and saw what had appalled her child: An expletive-filled message from a child her son has known for years, threatening to hurt him.
Moments later, her son’s phone lit up with text messages from another child: More threats, more cruel insults.
“It was an odd experience, like kind of a home invasion, actually, because it was just so sudden and unexpected,” Dolan, a counselor in Calgary, Alberta, told LiveScience. “It was freakish. You just couldn’t wrap your mind around something like this happening.”
Even now, after involving her son’s school and helping him recover from the cyberbullying incident, Dolan finds herself on edge.
“We are having a pretty optimal response, but still that sense of not being able to keep my child safe is so pervasive,” she said. “It strips away any facade you might have that you think you are able to protect your children.”
Most research on bullying has focused on its effect on children, for the good reason that children bear the brunt of the suffering. But parent reports suggest that Dolan’s emotional reaction isn’t unusual. When a kid is bullied, many parents say they feel angry, frustrated and helpless. Their relationships with other adults in the community may crack as parents choose sides. In some cases, bullying strains the whole family, making it harder for parents to help end their child’s torment. [The History of Human Aggression]
“What I always encourage parents to do is to have a measured, calm approach to the situation,” Susan Swearer, a bullying expert and psychologist at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, told LiveScience. “That’s difficult to do, because it’s upsetting, obviously, when your son or daughter comes home and they’re upset.”
Fear and worry
Parental worries over bullying were in the national spotlight recently, with a “Good Morning America” feature on 7-year-old Samantha Shaw, who got cosmetic surgery to correct a minor ear deformity — largely, Shaw’s mother Cami Roselle told GMA, to prevent her daughter from being bullied.
“I don’t want her to be teased and bullied and then have her lash out and treat people the way she’s being treated,” Roselle said.
Kids do bully each other because of perceived differences, Swearer said, ranging from clothes to body shape to intelligence. But body modification may not protect kids from being taunted, she said. [Facts About Your Teen’s Brain]
“The fact is, we are all different in some way from each other. That’s one thing that makes humans so interesting,” Swearer said. “Since kids bully others for a variety of reasons, I suspect that having plastic surgery will not stop the bullying.”
A bully’s choice of victims can come out of nowhere for parents. For Dolan, the bullying incident shook her perception of her tight community and her son’s small private school. It saddened her younger son, who had previously looked up to one of the boys who’d sent the messages. And it raised the specter of her child getting physically harmed, either by the children who’d threatened him or by his own hand.
“A teacher who is a client came in that week and talked about a student of hers who committed suicide from bullying,” Dolan said. “It really impacted me to have that come up during the same time.”
Marie Newman, a business consultant from suburban Chicago, felt similar fears when her middle-school-age son became a bullying target. Despite attempts to intervene with the school, the bullying went on for a year and a half. Eventually, Newman told LiveScience, the bullying went viral across the school, and her son became a pariah.
“In the news every day, a poor, poor child is committing suicide over this, and you’re thinking, ‘Oh my gosh, will it get to that point?'” Newman said.
The bullying brought out a series of emotions, said Newman, who later co-authored a book on coping with bullying, “When Your Child is Being Bullied: Real Solutions for Families” (Vivisphere, 2011). At first, she was incredulous that her child could be the brunt of such cruelty. Then she became outraged, frustrated — and worried.
“During the day, I’d be sitting in a meeting with a client, and I’d be thinking, ‘Who is doing what to him now?'” she said.
In the end, Newman and her husband sent her son to another school, where she says he is thriving. The rifts between their family and others in the community have also pushed the family to make a long-discussed decision to move to another Chicago suburb.
“Everybody needs a fresh start,” Newman said. “You become so negative and anxious.”
How to deal
That anxiety can intensify when parents run up against unresponsive schools. Eric Bergman, a communication consultant in suburban Toronto, said he was disgusted when another girl at his daughter’s middle school started psychologically bullying her with rumors and whisper campaigns. The middle school shut the bullying down, Bergman told LiveScience. But when both girls moved on to high school, the bullying became physical — and neither the school administration nor the local police would take action, Bergman said.
“It went from disgust to fear,” he said. “And an utter feeling of helplessness, impotence. It was very scary.”
While it can be hard to cope with the emotions bullying brings, Swearer encourages parents to focus on solutions for their child.
“Going in angry and yelling and screaming, which I have seen, does not help anybody,” Swearer said. “Everybody just gets defensive.”
Parents should realize that bullying is a complex social problem, and the situation may have been developing for some time, she said.
Parents can take steps to protect their children before bullying starts, said Rene Hackney, a school and developmental psychologist for Parenting Playgroups, which offers parent workshops in Alexandria, Va. Bullies often target kids who don’t stand up for themselves, Hackney told LiveScience, so parents can teach their kids early how to express their emotions and assert themselves in social situations.
For example, parents might try reading a book such as “The Berenstain Bears and Too Much Teasing” (Random House, 1995) to their children, Hackney said.
“The idea is to read through and really talk about the characters in the story, ask if [the child] has ever felt that way,” Hackney said.
Making sure the child has a wide range of play dates with different peer groups can also prevent bullying, Hackney said, because the more social connections a child has, the less likely they are to get picked on. In middle and high school, the focus shifts to making sure tweens and teens know they should report bullying when they see it.
“If bystanders just watch, it gives power to that aggressive child,” Hackney said. “To curb the social aggression in the middle and high school years, it really takes the whole community.”
If a child does report bullying, Hackney said, parents should take it seriously.
“Don’t think of it as, ‘They’re always telling,'” she said. “You want to think, ‘They’re finally telling’ … Once they do come to you, they’ve often been picked on for weeks.”
No matter how upsetting that news, both Hackney and Swearer emphasize the need to stay collected for the child’s sake.
“Generally, it’s important to remain calm, collect the facts, remember there are two sides to every story and then go in with a solution-oriented, problem-solving approach,” Swearer said. “How parents react to the bullying can make it worse or make it better.”
You can follow LiveSciencesenior writer Stephanie Pappas on Twitter @sipappas. Follow LiveScience for the latest in science news and discoveries on Twitter @livescienceand on Facebook.
PALM HARBOR, Fla. – Things are slowly returning to normal at Carwise Middle School.
Authorities say a 13-year-old boy stabbed the Resource Officer there on Wednesday.
Officer Kenneth Fridlund caught the teen in the bathroom with 11 glass bottles full of gasoline. When questioned, the boy stabbed the officer in the stomach without warning.
Students arriving on campus had much to say on Thursday. Some say they wish they didn’t have to come back today, while others said it’s important to get back to normal.
There is more about the young man in question who brought the gas-filled bottles to school along with the the knife. He has been identified and some information was available from inside sources, including some teachers, who said he wasn’t a bad kid but that he did suffer some taunts and some bullying.
For now, ABC Action News is not naming him because he is a minor and no charges have been filed yet.
It was back to school as normal as possible for the students, teachers and the resource officers.
A day after a student brought a duffel bag with the bottles full of gasoline and stabbed the resource officer, everybody was abuzz about the incident.
“I guess it leads from bullying,” said student Loren Jackson. “And this is probably his way of taking it out.”
Students said the seventh grader, who would wear his boy scout uniform to school, was occasionally picked on.
“I guess they would just, like, bully him because he was wearing the outfit to school and stuff,” said Nicole Carver.
“I guess he tried to threaten to burn down the school, trying to scare the students. ” said Jackson.
He scared parents who said they were fearful that the incident had been brewing for awhile.
“It’s just sad,” said Kimberly Frazier, right after she dropped her son off for school. “Something’s not right in that child’s life.”
Sad, too, that a resource officer required emergency surgery to repair a stab wound and a day of learning was lost to yesterday’s lockdown.
The teen suspect continues to be evaluated mentally.
Authorities say the process could take up to 72 hours and it won’t be until after that before criminal charges are contemplated.
Princess-to-be Catherine Middleton was bullied to tears as a young teen at school, because she was too nice.
Now aged 29 and due to marry Prince William on April 29, Miss Middleton’s school torment included having her bed soiled by fellow students, Britain’s News of the World newspaper reported.
“She hated it, absolutely hated it,” school pal Jessica Hay said of Miss Middleton’s time at the exclusive Downe House girls’ boarding school.
“The girls there were horrible. They used to put faeces in her bed and she was very, very badly bullied.
“She was picked on because she was perfect – well turned out and a lovely person. She was not the type of person to stick up for herself,” Ms Hay told the newspaper.
Aged 13 at the height of the bullying, the Middleton family withdrew their daughter from the school mid-term and she transferred to Marlborough where she completed her secondary schooling.
Miss Middleton and her prince have named Beatbullying as one of many charities their wedding guests will be invited to support in lieu of gifts.
Details of Miss Middleton’s troubled school life are set to be revealed in a new book, Kate, written by Sean Smith and released on May 2, which tells how the royal fiancee was self-conscious about her height and the condition eczema, from which she suffered as a girl.
Alye Pollack, seen here in a homemade video posted to YouTube March 14, describes the alleged bullying suffered at Bedford Middle School in Westport, Conn. (YouTube).
A 13-year-old girl apparently bullied by her peers has taken her plight to YouTube, posting a haunting video that describes the alleged torment suffered at a top Connecticut middle school.
Alye Pollack, an eighth-grader at Bedford Middle School in Westport, Conn., uploaded the video, titled “Words are worse than Sticks and Stones,” on March 14. As of Wednesday morning, the three-minute clip had more than 30,100 views.
Pollack, who does not speak in the homemade video, is seen holding up signs recounting the alleged bullying endured at the hands of her classmates.
“I am bullied. Not a day has gone by without one of these words — ‘bitch,’ ‘whore,’ ‘fat, ‘lesbo,’ ‘slut,’ ‘freak,’ ugly,’ ‘weird,’ fag,” the signs read.
“I don’t cut but I’m close,” Pollack writes. “I’m in therapy/guidance more than my classes.”
“Think before you say things. It might save lives,” reads another sign.
After the video was posted, the school principal wrote in a letter to parents that he was investigating a case of cyber bullying, MyFoxNY.com reports.
The superintendent has declined comment on Pollack’s case, specifically, citing privacy reasons, according to the station.
“We’ve been very rigid about being intolerant about bullying,” Dr. Elliott Landon told the Westport News. “If there’s any sign that a kid’s in trouble, we act on that immediately.”
Bullying has had a dramatic effect on people across the United States. Bullying has lead to students and workers skipping and/or dropping out of school or work because they don’t feel safe. Students who drop out are more than likely to end up in jail instead of graduating and going to college to become doctors or lawyers or what they wanted to be before being bullied took over their lives. Workers who skip work can’t support their families or pay their bills. In extreme cases, bullying can lead to very severe psychological problems; possibly requiring hospitalization. Even more extreme cases can result in death by suicide because the person can’t handle the pain they’re being put through and feel at a complete loss, as if no one would miss them or people would be happier without them around.
Physical bullying is when physical contact or intimidation is enforced to make the victim do something they don’t want to do. Physical bullying may only show damage on the outside, but only the victim and the victim’s family knows it affects them mentally too. A 2010 case supports this. Adam Casey was bullied and he ended up going to the hospital with a broken nose, a broken eye socket, and requiring 13 stitches. Casey felt like a monster because of the way he looked after the incident. His mother told the press that he has become very angry because of the incident. Physical bullying can cause a lot of damage to the outside, but in cases like Adam Casey, it can cause even more damage mentally and emotionally.
Hazing is when the victim is embarrassed into doing something they don’t want to do. Seth Walsh was hazed. He was harassed into committing suicide. Students were taunting Walsh about being gay. He was humiliated by it and hung himself in his back yard. Hazing can be a group event. Twenty-six years ago, James Lenaghan was being initiated into an off-campus fraternity. In order to join he was forced to eat spaghetti, wash it down with wine, and throw it up so he could eat more. Lenaghan ended up dying of blood-alcohol poisoning. Hazing might not be considered bullying in all cases, but the results can still be disastrous.
It doesn’t matter if it is physical or emotional. Bullying is a problem. Adam Casey felt like a monster after being beaten up. James Lenaghan and Seth Walsh died. Bullying damages lives, some of which end in a blink of an eye.
Statistics show that one out of four kids are bullied almost every day. That’s around 25% of students being mentally, physically, and/or verbally abused. 14% of those bullied students have severe reactions to the bullying. Approximately one out of five kids will admit that they are bullies. 8% of students miss school to avoid bullies. Almost half of the people bullied fear further harassment in the bathroom. Roughly 280,000 students are attacked in middle school. Every seven minutes a student is bullied. 4% of adults will interfere, 11% of friends will interfere, BUT 85% of people will not interfere when they see someone getting bullied.
Every once in a while a lucky person will stand up for himself (or herself) doesn’t end up like the examples we read about in newspapers or hear about on the news. Not everyone is brave enough to stand up to their bully. Home should be the safest place for a person to be. School or work should be second. No person should have their safe havens taken away from them to the point that they feel like they shouldn’t exist.
A very disturbing report was released today documenting that special education children are bullied at a higher rate than non-special education children. The report, Walk a Mile in their Shoes, by Abilitypath.org, shows that disabled children are two to three times more likely to be bullied than their non-disabled peers. These statistics were combined with the tragic personal stories of some of those students who had experienced bullying.
This report confirms the fears of parents of special needs children who send their children to school but worry that their child will be mistreated. It sometimes feels to these parents that they do not have the ability to protect their children while they are at school. While it is certainly true that effective intervention can seem difficult, there certainly are proactive steps that parents can take to ensure their child’s chances of being bullied are greatly reduced. These same step will also help to ensure that if it does start, that it does not become an on-going problem.
Be a change agent: Last week, schools in San Clemente took part in Kindness Counts, a week-long campaign to encourage kindness and discourage bullying at all San Clemente public schools. Take on the challenge of leading an anti-bullying crusade at your child’s school. The truth is that bullying thrives on being unnoticed. When bullying behavior is spotlighted, it almost always decreases or ceases. By being responsible for creating awareness at your child’s school, you not only make it less likely your child will be bullied, but also that all children will be mistreated by their peers.
Make it a part of your child’s IEP: As noted in Walk a Mile in their Shoes, parents of special needs children should make sure that their child’s IEP includes goal that help protect them from bullies and their unwanted and harmful behaviors. Following are some examples of the types of goals parents who suspect their child is a victim of bullying should insist on in their child’s IEP.
Social skills goals-Bullies often pick on children who are shy and quiet. If your child fits this description, make social skills a part of their IEP. Through social skills groups and through in-class reinforcement, shy children can be taught communication skills and encouraged to give voice to the wealth of feelings they harbor within.
Self-esteem goals-Often, disabled children’s self-esteem, particularly in school, is quite low. They may have faced years of failure before their disability was recognized and addressed. That failure can lead to students feeling less than when in school. By having goals around a positive self-image, students are less likely to be bullied and more likely to report it to you as a parent or to officials at the school.
Teach reporting behavior-All students should be taught to report it when another student is making them uncomfortably or threatened at school. Incorporate into the IEP that your child be taught how to recognized and report bullying on campus.
Watch for signs that your child is being bullied-If your child is being bullied, you will be lucky if your child tells you about it. Being bullied is shameful for most children, and they are reluctant to tell others. Watch for signs that your child is being bullied. Some thing to look for is a sudden and dramatic reluctance to attend school or ride the bus. Frequent unexplained physical complaints can also be a sign of a child who is afraid to go to school. Finally, problems sleeping and/or an unexplained loss of appetite are also tell-tale warning signs.
Advocate for your child-If you find out that your child is being bullied, you must advocate for your child immediately. Go to the school and schedule a conference with your principal and teacher. Make them aware of the situation and together create an action plan of how the problem is going to be addressed. Know that schools have a responsibility to keep your child safe. If the school does not address the problem, you should report the problem to the school district or even possibly consider hiring an educational attorney.
The most important job we all have as parents is keeping our children safe. As all of us who have gone to school can unfortunately attest, young children are not always nice and sometimes they can even act awfully. As a society we too often hear stories of the suicides and tragedies that result when students are repeatedly bullied in schools. Do not let your child be a victim. Be vigilant, proactive, and a part of keeping your child safe at school.
A series of suicides involving bullied gay teens has shocked much of America this past month.
On Sept. 9, 15-year-old Billy Lucas of Greenburg, Ind., hanged himself after enduring constant taunts from bullies at school.
Two weeks later, 13-year-old Asher Brown from suburban Houston shot himself soon after revealing he was gay.
And on Sept. 27, another 13-year-old, Seth Walsh of Techachapi, Calif., died after injuries sustained from hanging himself. He too, had endured “relentless” bullying from other kids, according to The New York Times.
One more death — the Sept. 22 suicide of 18-year-old Rutgers University freshman Tyler Clementi — catapulted these and other suicides of young gay teens into the media spotlight. Clementi’s roommate, Dharun Ravi, allegedly broadcast surreptitious video footage over the Internet of Clementi in an intimate encounter with a young man. Last week, Clementi left a message on his Facebook page: “Jumping off [George Washington] bridge sorry,” and then did just that.
Cases like these are far from rare, and “this may be the tip of the iceberg,” said Dr. David Reitman, chair of the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual Transgender and Questioning Special Interest Group, part of the Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine. In a statement, he said “the tragic outcome in these cases underscores the profound consequences that bullying and harassment can have on a young person.”
Of course any child, gay or straight, can become victims of bullying, as the much-publicized suicide in January of 15-year-old Phoebe Prince of South Hadley, Mass., showed all too tragically. She had withstood months of bullying from schoolmates after moving from Ireland.
But experts say adolescence renders young people especially vulnerable to harassment, and the difficulties of grappling with sexuality can complicate that further.
Columbia University psychiatry professor Dr. Jeffrey Lieberman noted that the adolescent brain is still developing and sensitive to negative feedback from peers. Teens “are very prone to take things to an extreme,” he told ABC News. “So what may be an insult or a setback to an adult, to an adolescent is the end of the world.”
Add to that the impulsive nature of youth and suicide becomes more likely. “Something happens, they’ve got to take care of it right away,” Lieberman said. “They can’t sit with it or try to work through it or not react to it.”
Despite some headway in societal acceptance of gay people generally, the bullying of gay teens remains widespread. According to a recent survey conducted by the New York-based Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network, almost nine out of every 10 gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgendered middle and high school students say they suffered physical or verbal bullying in 2009.
A teen’s outward aspect — seeming somewhat “feminine” if male, or “masculine” if female — can up the risk of bullying and contribute to a propensity to depression for years to come, one new study suggests.
In the study, published in the November issue of Developmental Psychology, researchers looked at data from a survey of 245 gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender young adults from the Bay Area in California. About half were Latino and about half were white; they realized their sexual orientation at an average age of 11 and reported coming out — disclosing their orientation to someone else — at the average age of 15.
The participants who reported the most bullying as children were about 2.5 times more likely as the others to be clinically depressed as young adults, the study found. About 63 percent of the most bullied kids were clinically depressed, compared to 34 percent of the least bullied.
In the big picture, the bullying of the most feminine boys and the most masculine girls — that’s the way they described themselves looking back on their childhoods — appeared to “essentially account for major differences in mental health between young gay adults,” said study co-author Stephen T. Russell, a professor at the University of Arizona.
“We didn’t realize how important the harassment was going to be,” said Russell, who is also director of the Frances McClelland Institute for Family Studies and Human Development. As the children become young adults, “it completely accounts for the differences in their mental health.”
Young people involved in the often difficult process of understanding their sexuality and coming out should know that support is out there, however.
Reacting to the Clementi tragedy, syndicated sex columnist Dan Savage, who is gay, launched the “It Gets Better” campaign in September. That YouTube site features successful gay adults from all walks of life who talk about their own experiences with bullying — and how they came through it.
Speaking on the site about his own experience, Project Runway style guru Tim Gunn relates that “as a [gay] 17-year-old youth who was in quite a bit of despair, I attempted to kill myself.” Gunn found the support he needed, however, and now urges teens facing the same fears to call The Trevor Project, a 24-hour suicide hotline for gay youth.
Experts say the best sources of support remain those closest to home, however.
“The three main groups of pivotal figures [for adolescents] are family, friends and their schoolmates,” Glenda Tesone, executive director of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community in New York City, told The New York Times. “If they’re feeling isolated and like they can’t tell those people, it’s going to be a very rough ride.”
More information
Contact the The Trevor Project to reach a 24-hour, toll free confidential suicide hotline for gay teens and those who are questioning their sexuality.
LAS CRUCES – Nathaniel Rodriguez was bullied throughout middle school for being gay. He said kids would tease him, call him “faggot” and tell him he ran like a girl.
“It was never anything to the point where they would mess with me physically, just call me names. But I got tired of that. And then high school came around and I was like OK, fresh start,” Rodriguez, 18, said.
“I didn’t really come out to my friends in high school. So they didn’t really know who I was because I was hiding that part of me. I was just more scared of what it was going to be like. Kids are crueler,” he said.
Rodriguez said as part of his cover he dated girls, and that for awhile the teasing stopped.
“Then one of my friends actually found out. And me and him were really close, like really, really close friends. We would do everything together,” Rodriguez said. “And he was straight and he thought I was also.”
After finding out, his friend logged onto Rodriguez’s MySpace account and “outed” him to his 500 to 600 friends online, publishing lies about his behavior and even posturing as Rodriguez and breaking up with the girl he was dating.
Rodriguez, who was then living in Albuquerque, ended up switching schools.
Online threats are just as harmful as face-to-face bullying and sometimes there’s no escape, said Sheri Bauman, an associate professor at the University of Arizona and a recipient of National Science Foundation grant to study cyber bullying.
“Not too long ago there was a kid persistently victimized. The school made every attempt to stop it and eventually the student was advised to change schools. Well, with cyber bullying the information was already at the kid’s new school, making it more difficult for kids to cope with these types of situations,” Bauman said.
A study published by the Journal of Adolescent Health in 2009 found that more than 13 percent of students have experienced cyber bullying. Cyber bullying is common on social networks, like Facebook or MySpace, but it also occurs frequently in text messages, e-mail and even on some online games and virtual reality sites like Second Life, Bauman said. More than half, 55 percent, of all online American youths ages 12 to 17 use online social networking sites, according to a 2007 survey of teenagers conducted by the Pew Internet & American Life Project.
As a result of being bullied online or offline, kids can feel depressed and anxious. They can withdraw and their performance in school and attendance can decrease, she said.
“Parents need to become educated about technology so they know what kids are talking about,” Bauman said.
Kids are often hesitant to tell parents or teachers about cyber bullying because they fear their technology will be taken away, she said.
“And that means they’re cut off from the world, their connected all of the time and they’d rather put up with the experience then risk being the only kids without Internet or a cell phone.”
Christine Rogel can be reached at (575) 541-5424.
Tips for parents
The Federal Trade Commission provides these tips on Internet safety for parents:
•Start early: As soon as your child is using a computer, a cell phone or any mobile device, it’s time to talk to them about online behavior, safety, and security.
•Create an honest, open environment: Be supportive and positive. Listening and taking their feelings into account helps keep conversation afloat. You may not have all the answers, and being honest about that can go a long way.
•Initiate conversations: Use everyday opportunities to talk to your kids about being online. For example, a TV program featuring a teen online or using a cell phone can tee up a discussion about what to do – or not – in similar circumstances.
•Communicate your values: Be upfront about your values and how they apply in an online context.
•Be patient: Most kids need to hear information repeated, in small doses, for it to sink in. If you keep talking with your kids, your patience and persistence will pay off. Work hard to keep the lines of communication open, even if you learn your kid has done something online you find inappropriate.
CARPENTERSVILLE — Bullies, according to one fifth-grader at Lakewood Elementary School, are people who don’t feel good about themselves, so they pick on other people.
Martial arts, such as those demonstrated to the school’s physical education classes this week, can help those bullies find self-confidence and self-control so they don’t feel the need to pick on others.
And for children who are bullied, martial arts can give them the confidence to stand up for themselves, look the bully in the eye, and tell them to stop, said Rick Steinmaier, whose Kim’s Black Belt Academy conducted the demonstrations.
Steinmaier reached out to several area schools this summer, offering to come in and teach children martial arts basics. Leann Granell, one of the physical education teachers at Lakewood, took him up on that offer.
She was particularly interested in focusing on bullying, an issue that has come into the forefront following the suicides of students around the country this year. Many of those students were reported to be victims of bullying.
Research shows that students who are bullied are far more likely to be suicidal, Steinmaier said. Boys who are bullied are five times more likely to take their own lives, and girls eight times more likely, he said.
The data on bullies themselves also are troubling, Steinmaier said. Statistics show that 60 percent of boys who are identified as bullies in school end up being convicted of crimes by the time they are 24 years old, he said.
Standing up to bullies
While the best way to stop bullying behavior is to tell an adult, Steinmaier said, it also works to stand up for oneself.
“Sometimes, all it takes is to look them in the eye and say, ‘You are bothering me. Stop it,’ ” Steinmaier said. “We are afraid to look someone in the eye, because it intimidates us. Once you have said that … odds are it will stop.”
Martial arts are not about violence and beating up bullies or the weak, Steinmaier said.
“We are talking about self-defense,” he said. “What we learn at the academy is not to be taken outside the academy.”
For students who are not involved in other sports, art or music, martial arts can be the niche that helps them find self-confidence, Granell added.
During Wednesday’s classes, just 35 minutes each, Steinmaier ran the students through basics such as what he calls the “big dog drill.” As if a big dog was chasing them, students ran in place, leaned forward to run uphill, back to go downhill, ducked like under a tree branch, jumped like leaping a fence, and side-stepped — like dodging an Illinois pothole.
Kicks, punches and barrel rolls completed the quick lesson.
“It is a little taste of what martial arts are like,” Granell said. Some students really got into it; others were less interested, she added.
Stress reliever
For those who are interested, Steinmaier offered a two-month scholarship to the Elgin-based Kim’s Black Belt Academy. Students were asked to write an essay talking about bullying — what it feels like to be bullied, how to stop it, or what to do when they witness it. The teachers will review those essays, and one student from each class, up to 11, will be offered the scholarship if their parents agree. The winning students will be honored in an all-school assembly prior to their winter break.
Lorimer Artaga, 12, of Carpentersville, said he planned to complete the essay and hoped he would get to use the scholarship. He’s been bullied, Artaga said, and admitted he has bullied himself.
“I got mostly experience about how to posture” during the class, he said. It also showed him there are other ways to get one’s anger out other than lashing out at others. “You can go there to get your stress out.”
The class also showed the sixth-grader that he does have power. “I felt my capacity of my strength. It could be something I could do in the future. It was like nothing else I have ever done,” Artaga said.
Kids who get into martial arts because of the one-class session could find themselves with an activity they enjoy for the rest of their lives, Granell added.
“They were exposed to an activity that many of them don’t get a chance to see,” she said. “It exposes kids to an opportunity and something they could do one a daily basis.”
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