I've been working on this blog since the beginning of the week when 9 teenagers were finally indicted for various crimes that appear to have led to the suicide of Phoebe Prince. Phoebe, for those of you who don't know, was a 15 year-old freshman and new student from Ireland at a middle class Massachusetts high school who made the mistake of having sex with a senior boy on the football team, thereby inspiring several month of harassment and bullying from his female friends.
One day in January, right before the big school dance, a car of these mean girls drove by Phoebe and hurled an energy drink can at her. She went home and hung herself in her closet. Worse, the mean girls continued the hatefest at the dance two days later.
Parents across the country and in Europe are sickened and terrified by such malice. We hate this window into a female version of Lord of the Flies savagery; we recognize the pain of our own old wounds at the hands of our peers in school and feel threatened anew; we believe that there, but for the grace of God, go our own children; and we frantically seek to find a solution to protect all our kids.
I'm still writing this blog at 9pm before my post tomorrow morning because I've already thrown out three versions. Three times I've attempted to offer warning signs and rescues, and three times I've found them insufficient. This last rewrite is to say that I, like so many of you, don't really know what we should do about bullies and the kids they victimize.
I've nearly raised the last of my four teenagers and I am writing my fifth book in my series of Girlfriends' Guides-devoting this one to, naturally, teenagers. In the last two years of conducting interviews and doing research, I've met with parents of 'teens and teens and repeatedly felt the agony and helplessness of parents of kids who were being ostracized, ridiculed or tormented by other kids. With four kids of my own, I've experienced enough to feel those parents' pain, too.
There have been many blogs and editorials since January about Phoebe Prince and the thousands of victims she represents. When the indictments came down, I was hoping to feel some small, albeit pathetic, satisfaction, but I don't. Phoebe is still dead. My gut tells me that legal action taken against these young people does little to spare future victims.
We've learned from scientists that teenagers specifically lack the ability to extrapolate to the consequences of their actions, so I'm thinking that these nine probably are incapable of learning anything more than how expensive lawyers are.
Even that is a lesson for their parents more than for them. An argument could be made that these criminal charges will put parents on notice that they have to try to monitor and control their kids' behavior, but that urgency will soon pass. Plus, it's harder than it sounds.
Particularly disturbing to me is my observation that parents often contribute to the problem by seeing this conflict through the eyes of their own 'teen and teen selves, rather than as fully actualized adults. If our kids seem popular and powerful at school, many of us secretly admire them and thank God that they're who we always wanted to be when we were their age. If our kids seem to be struggling to "fit in," we often use our adult power to address the childish need to be in the "in crowd."
We suck up to the popular kids and their parents, we join in our children's attempts to get taller, get thinner thighs, get straighter hair, get athletic and get clearer skin. It's as if we have learned nothing more from our own survival of these treacherous times than how to play the game again through our own kids-hoping this time we're better equipped to beat up a 16 year-old bully.
When we fail, yet again, to master the subtleties and nuances of 'teen and teen social hierarchies we turn to the schools to help us rescue our kids. We get primitive in our urgency to protect our kids and would be thrilled if bullies were publicly flogged or put in the stocks, and it's so frustrating to learn that our child's personal hell becomes just another aspect of the crowd control that educators must engage in before a single lesson can be taught.
Bullying has turned into Hydra with the advent of social networking. Tormenting has one head in the classroom, another head at the athletic events, another on Facebook and yet another on our kids' phones. Whom do we blame; Mark Zuckerberg, the teachers, the other parents, the kids? It doesn't even matter at this point because that is not where the solution will be found.
Our best bet is in ourselves because that's all we can really control. We have to be alert to the dangers and become activists in our children's lives.
I'm a divorced mom who was raised by a divorced mom, so I'm not pointing fingers here, but one thing that stands out to me about Phoebe's life was that she was living with her mother in the US, but she hadn't seen her father, who remained in Ireland, since the move. We have to at least consider that having a father in her daily life might have influenced her choice regarding the boy she had sex with. I'm just saying...
Another thing I do know is that my greatest insights into my kids' lives has been gained while driving, cooking or dining with them. These are time-consuming commitments for most of us and our kids often resist our attempts to hang with them, but those moments are worth fighting for-if only to keep them off the computer for fifteen extra minutes a day.
I have a hunch that creating a strong family identity helps our kids survive the times when their friends (or acquaintances) fail them. If they believe that their parents, siblings, grandparents, aunts, whatever, are consistently present and supportive of them, this sense of belonging somewhere might protect them in the fragile and vulnerable times. In the absence of blood relatives, trusted friends are just as good.
That means that we parents have to make the time to nurture and sustain relationships with whatever extended family we can muster. Our kids certainly aren't up to the job and our "family members" may not be as motivated as we are to get together regularly and stay involved. This is where we parents have to stop whining and do the heavy lifting. I don't care how crazy your sister drives you.
And the last thing I can think of tonight that has looked effective in helping kids to survive bullying is to MOVE THEM TO ANOTHER SCHOOL! I have scores of friends and acquaintances who eventually gave up trying to make the environment change to accept their kids and changed their kids' environment to suit them instead. It's never a defeat to decide that our kids can't thrive where they are. Social rules and hierarchies vary incredibly from school to school and if your child's school isn't serving them, you can probably find one that will. Be bold there and make a move because the bullying may be more circumstantial to a certain school than personal to your baby.
That's all I've got for now. Please comment and give me another other suggestions or observations to help us all out. I only have one rule: If you don't now and have never had a 'tween or teen, I don't want to hear what you have to say. No disrespect intended, but you just don't know what the hell you're talking about!
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Living well is the best revenge, I guess, I am making a good living and have a great wife and kid and a sweet house with a pool and a view, and a new car, so screw 'em. I hope they all end up destitute and living on the street.
I guess it was OK when so many GLBT teens were taking their lives. It was O.K. for the minority at the all white school to get harassed. Or the kid who needed a reduced lunch price. Or the kid who's disabled mentally or physically. Or the one who's new to the English language. Or the fat kid. I could go on and on. I'm not saying it's O.K. for anyone to be bullied. I'm just wondering why this particular girl seems to have lit everyone's fire.
This poor girl's death is perpetuating continued cluelessness and self righteousness.
About who she had sex with. Let's say she said "No, thank you." to the boy. I'm sure the boy wouldn't feel spurned and his clique would have left Phoebe alone. There would be no false rumours or harassment.
"If you don't now and have never had a 'tween or teen, I don't want to hear what you have to say."
I was intensely bullied in elementary/middle school. I vomited everyday before school. I guess I don't matter.
I don't want to hear about this issue from someone who didn't care about bullying until there was a bandwagon for her to join. But it's too late for that.
I believe I qualify since I'm a single mother of 4 ages 16, 12,10 and 9.
We had a more than a few different experiences with bullies. A bully is someone facing a series of issues that he either doesn't have the support to deal with or just have been raised in the atmosphere in each you are always preying in someone's weakness or opportunity.
There is no recipe in dealing with this issue. Every case i will require a different response, however the one recipe I have found to work every time is being close to your kids. Make the moments, stay put, face the issues. If something doesn't feel right, doesn't look normal, move closer. Sometimes the issue will come up in conversation, sometimes you just have to stay close till they ready to talk. Most times, the kids would welcome your help even if they feel the situation is helpless.It also helps bringing in my kids a sense of compassion for what the other child is going through and I often find that works when I help them somehow validate the perpetrator lack of support to deal with the brokenness at a more basic level. They get stronger and empowered to put an end to the abuse because the understand their advantage in having the support to confront the situation.
There isn't really any solution to this sort of thing except to give your child as much strength as possible to combat the bad behavior of others.
What helped me the most was developing a strong relationship with my guitar teacher. He was about four years older than me, old enough to have more experience than I but young enough to be approachable. He had also been through the same kind of hell that I had. After a lesson, we'd usually hang out. We'd go to a coffee shop or just stay home and jam together. Mostly we talked about music. Having someone I held in such high regard take an interest in me finally made me feel cool, and hearing that someone so intrinsically cool was beat up and picked on by bullies when he was younger made me realize, finally, that those people don't matter.
Adults also bully in the workplace, as coaches, teachers or as spouses (domestic abuse).
School is an idea place for bullies to find opportunities. There is a large population of children with different abilities. They look for the easiest targets. A child with a disability or who is quiet or perhaps is an exceptional student seems to fit the victim's profile. The girl from Hadley was different.
The fine line between bullying and "kids being kids" is this. Someone says or does something mean to another, gets called on it, apologizes and that's the end of it. Not bullying. When it goes on and on with no remorse, that is bullying. Parents, teachers and kids need to know the difference.
If I were Phoebe's Mom, I would not have sent her to school after Christmas break until the situation was resolved. Parents need to know they have the right to keep their child out and demand tutoring.
When it is costing the school department in the pocketbook, you sometimes get results.
We live in a society without personal responsibility. We decided somehow in recent decades that we didn't need it. Whatever happens, everyone seems to believe, "it's not my fault". Everything is either no one's fault (as if that's even possible) or someone else's fault.
Get pregnant, get an abortion
Get fat, sue McDonald's
Spill coffee on yourself, sue McDonald's again
More and more, we look for the easy out and the scapegoat. Yet we decry teens' inability to see the consequences of their actions. When do adults see them?
We also live in a culture that glorifies thug rappers, thuggish athletes, and mob "wise guys" as people to emulate but are surprised when our kids act like thugs.
Facebook, cell phones, etc, have turned a bullying problem that used to end when a kid got off the bus at home into a 24/7 problem, but parents don;t monitor what their kids are doing online.
And maybe the other lesson that needs to sink in - we may not want to believe it, but girls are just as bod as boys. Somehow we expect boys to bully the weak kids, but we don't beleive it when we hear of girls doing it. Welcome to the 21st century.