Algo Nulo Y Malo

Bullying in schools
Worried about going back to school? Worried about school bullying? Intimidation, threats, taunting, violence?
Recently there's been much increased awareness of bullying in schools and whilst it may appear that bullying is on the increase, I suspect there's been little change in the amount of bullying that goes on in school. What has changed is that society is at lastbeginning to recognise just how vile bullying is and that the myths and misperceptions are just that - myths and misperceptions. Those who perpetuate these myths are choosing to be part of the problem, not the solution.
It seems that children bully for a variety of reasons and when dealing with child bullying it's essential to identify who is the bully at the centre of the violence - there's usually oneperson who's the gang leader - and the reasons for bullying which include:
• frustration - a child is impaired in some way and is frustrated and resentful because the source of their difficulty has not been identified - problems can include deafness, dyslexia, autism, allergy, being left-handed, undiagnosed PTSD or some unidentified learning difficulty - nevertheless the child is expected toperform at the level required by the school and no attempt is made to identify the source of the frustration
• the child is being bullied, the responsible adults have repeatedly failed in their duty of care, so the child slowly and reluctantly starts to exhibit aggressive behaviours because that's the only way to survive in this bullying-entrenched climate
• poor or no role model - thechild has no role model at home, or a poor role model for one or both parents and has never had the opportunity to learn behaviour skills
• abuse at home - the child is being abused and is expressing their anger through bullying
• neglect at home - similar to abuse as the child's emotional and behavioural development is being retarded
• undue influence - the child has fallen in withthe wrong crowd
• conduct disorder - the child has a conduct disorder, the precursor to antisocial, psychopathic or other personality disorder
Whilst much of this web site on workplace bullying is relevant to child bullying and school bullying, there is one significant difference. A child is still in their formative years, and if a child is exhibiting bullying behaviours, then if youintercede in the right way, many child bullies - with the exception of those with a conduct disorder - can be helped to learn better ways of behaving and interacting with other children. At present, this is not possible with adult serial bullies, especially the sociopathic ones. Psychopaths comprise at least 1% of society and that's only the ones who have been identified. When socialised psychopaths arecounted, the percentage could be 2-3%. Psychopathic personality is a lifelong condition and the only thing mental health professionals are agreed on is that it is not caused by bad parenting. For more information on psychopathic personality read The Mask of Sanity by Hervey Cleckly and Without Conscience by Robert Hare. All psychopaths have been through school. Society has no solutions fordealing with psychopaths. [More on psychopaths]
There are very few programmes that will actively help an aggressive child learn to deal with their aggression. Many schools, under pressure of budgets, lack of time, overburdened with work (especially tick sheets and tests), lack of leadership, lack of local education authority support, lack of government support, and rising class sizes [click here forthe real picture of education today], either ignore the problem (in which case it gets worse), punish the bully (in which case it gets worse), punish the target of bullying when they stand up for themselves (in which case it gets worse), or expel the bullying pupil (in which case the problem is passed to someone else). All of these are short-term, short-sighted non-solutions which do not address...