Boarding Schools for Girls

Girls and boys express mean behaviors in different ways -- but a new study from Australia found that both boys and girls share a similar understanding and experience with mean behaviors.

Clinical psychologist Dr. Rhiarne Pronk of Griffith University studied relational aggression and victimization among teenagers, and found that both boys and girls experience unpredictable friendships, social exclusion, rumor mongering and gossip, some of which involves e-mail and the Internet. However, both groups used these techniques to enhance their social standing or acceptance.

Dr. Pronk found that certain characteristics put adolescence at higher risk for victimization in relationships. These factors might include a lack of social appeal or emotional reactiveness. Children who are too popular or too talented also attract relational aggression.

The study appeared in the Journal of Adolescent Research.

Labels: relationships, aggression, bullies

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The classic image of a school bully is a brutish boy who terrorizes other students for their lunch money, their homework, and whatever expressions of fear he can cause them to emit. And though faux-macho little monsters do exist - and continue to cause mayhem in hallways and schoolyards across the country - they're not the only bullies in town.

A 2005 report by the National Association of School Psychologists (NASP) examined a phenomenon of girl bullies who inflict pain not with their fists, but rather through a mean-spirited manipulation of scholastic social networks. In "Girls Bullying Girls," the NASP notes that this type of behavior is neither new nor benign:

The term "relational aggression" is used to describe a type of bullying primarily used by pre-adolescent and adolescent girls to victimize other girls - a covert use of relationships as weapons to inflict emotional pain.

Researchers have found that, contrary to popular belief, girls are not less aggressive than boys, they are just more subtle or covert in their use of aggression. ...

Acts of relational aggression are common among girls in American schools. These acts can include rumor spreading, secret-divulging, alliance-building, backstabbing, ignoring, excluding from social groups and activities, verbally insulting, and using hostile body language (i.e., eye-rolling and smirking).

Other behaviors include making fun of someone's clothes or appearance and bumping into someone on purpose. Many of these behaviors are quite common in girls' friendships, but when they occur repeatedly to one particular victim, they constitute bullying.

Whether conducted in person or via online attacks - using e-mails and popular social sites such as MySpace to spread malicious information and embarrassing (often digitally altered) photographs - relational aggression can inflict severe and lasting damage on the target of the abuse.

Parents who suspect that their daughter is being bullied - or is being a bully herself - are urged to contact school officials and arrange for their child to be evaluated by a mental health professional.

Labels: fighting, bullies, bullying

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Children who have two copies of a certain gene are more likely to experience emotional difficulties when they are bullied by other children, according to a new study from Duke University.

• Dr. Karen Sugden and her colleagues studied 1,116 pairs of same-sex twins ages 5 to 12 years. Half of them were identical twins.
• The children were tested at ages five, seven, ten and 12.
• 230 of the children children were victims of bullies.
• Those who carried two copies of the gene 5-HTT were more likely to experience anxiety, depression and social withdrawal when bullied.

Dr. Sugden used identical twins in order to rule out the possibility of pre-existing emotional problems. If both twins carried two short copies of the 5-HTT gene, but only one was bullied, only the one that was bullied had emotional difficulty. Previous studies have found that the short form of the gene intensifies emotional reactions to stress.

This study appears in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.
 

Labels: bullies, bullying

Posted By: Jane St. Clair 0 Comments

The children who bully others online and their victims are both more likely to have physical and mental problems, according to a new study from Finland.

• Dr. Andre Sourander and his colleagues studied 2,215 teenagers ages 13 to 16 years old.
• About 5% were victims of online bullying, and 7.4% admitted to being cyberbullies.
• They tended to pick children their age to bully, and they tended to be boys.
• Sixteen percent of the girls had been bullied by boys, compared to 5% of boys bullied by girls. They also were more less likely than average to be living with both biological parents.

The bullies in the study had frequent headaches and felt unsafe at school. They had emotional difficulties, and problems getting along with other children and concentrating. They were more likely to have conduct problems, abuse alcohol and smoke, and to be hyperactive. What was interesting was that the victims had the same physical and mental health issues.

One problem with the rise of cyberbullying -- a prevalent form of harassment that is acute among girls as well as boys -- is that victims who used to feel safe at home now have a harder time escaping the reach of their tormentors.

The study appears in the Archives of General Psychiatry.
 

Labels: cyber-bullying, bullies, internet

Posted By: Jane St. Clair 0 Comments