Boarding Schools for Girls

Having endured four years of torment by bullies at her former school, Brookhaven (Miss.) High School senior Kelsey Jackson knows all about the ways in which rumor-mongering, mockery and ostracism can impact a persons life.

It got to the point where I would be physically sick, Jackson said in a Nov. 3 article on the website of ABCs WPAT Channel 16. Sometimes you just don't know how to handle it. You get angry and you get sad and all your emotions are mixed up in one.

Instead of merely being thankful that the antagonism ended when she changed schools, Jackson has embarked upon an educational campaign that is designed to help other girls avoid what she experienced.

Jackson describes her efforts on her website, www.meangirlsnotcool.com:

I hope you have never been a victim of bullying, but, unfortunately, many of you probably have. I have, and I know how devastating it can be, but I also know (from experience) things that can be done to help. I have developed a program called Mean Girls Arent Cool, I am presenting in schools, clubs, organizations and to any girl groups. &

The program focuses on increasing awareness of bullying among girls and educating about how, when and why it occurs; understanding the difference between teasing and bullying; identifying bullying techniques and tactics; empowering the victims; and getting school officials and parents involved to help prevent the problem.

I feel the program is very effective because I am a teenager and relate to what girls are experiencing, because I have been a victim myself.

Labels: school, girls, bullying

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Already a published author at age 15, a Massachusetts girl is working hard to spread the message that bullying isn't acceptable -- and that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender teens face a particularly pervasive form of harassment.

Brigitte Berman addressed these topics in her book, Dorie Witt's Guide to Surviving Bullies, and has continued her advocacy through a string of personal appearances and media interviews. According to an article by Hannah Clay Wareham of the Bay Windows newspaper, Berman blends statistics and personal experiences when discussing the problem of bullying:

In the reference section at the back of the book, the author supplies some statistics: "In a national survey conducted on teens 12 to 17 years old by the National Mental Health Association, 78 percent of kids reported that gay or thought-to-be-gay teens are teased and bullied in their schools or communities. Furthermore, 93 percent hear derogatory words about sexual orientation."

"Unfortunately, people are using ’gay’ or ’lesbian’ as an insult, but it’s not an insult. It’s just your sexual orientation," Berman said. "It shouldn’t make a difference [to the way] people view their peers."

Berman’s 13-year-old sister Margot was the target of cyber-based LGBT slurs in the past year. "I remember that she was quite distressed because ... people have posted lesbian remarks about her and her friends, and hinted at them on profiles and on [AOL Instant Messenger]. She was really hurt," Berman recalled.

Labels: teenagers, bullying, gay teens

Posted By: E.B.W. 0 Comments

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

Parents are increasingly worried about the phenomenon of cyberbullying, and according to a New York Times report, some are asking school officials to help curtail the problem.

Cyberbullying can begin as early as fourth grade, and becomes more sophisticated as children grow older.

Although 44 states have passed laws about cyberbullying, these statutes often do not spell out what schools' responsibilities are, and most schools do not have cyberbullying guidelines in their codes of conducts.

Some principals are willing to talk to the bullies; others are advising parents of victims to go to police.
 

Labels: cyber-bullying, bullying

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Can a girl be bullied about her weight so often at school that she develops an eating disorder? A federal judge in Pennsylvania said yes, and awarded a teenage girl $55,000 in damages that her school district must pay.

The girl was only 11 years old when boys in her sixth-grade class began to tease her about her weight. Their taunts continued for two years. The child developed anorexia nervosa and had to be treated in an eating disorder clinic after her weight went down to starvation levels.

Her lawsuit named her school district as a defendant, and claimed authorities did not properly protect against bullying.

Once mistakenly believed to be a "boys problem," bullying also impacts many female students -- both as victims and perpetrators.

Labels: school, bullying, eating disorders

Posted By: CRC Health 1 Comment

An 18-year-old freshman at Rutgers University in New Jersey jumped to his death from the George Washington Bridge, after his roommate posted a video on the Internet of his intimate encounter with another man.

Authorities are now determining how to charge Dharum Ravi and his friend Molly Wei, also a college student. So far Ravi faces five years in prison for invasion of privacy, but that could increase to ten years if his crime is deemed a hate crime against homosexuals. The case is very high-profile, with activists demanding that Ravi and Wei be charged with manslaughter.

The victim, Tyler Clementi, was a violinist majoring in music, whom friends described as "shy and brilliant."

This latest incident is one of the high-profile cases of cyberbullying, but not the first suicide of a young person linked to that activity. A Massachusetts high school student, newly arrived from Ireland, hanged herself after being teased publicly on the Internet; in 2008, an 18-year-old girl committed suicide after her boyfriend circulated nude pictures of her; and 13-year-old Seth Welsh also killed himself after cyberbullying incidents.

Though many people mistakenly believe that bullying is a boys' activity, many girls are involved in bullying (as both victims or perpetrators), with cyberbullying an unfortunately common type of bullying among girls.
 

Labels: cyber-bullying, bullying, suicide

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In a Nov. 12 article on the Huffington Post, Lesli Rotenburg (Senior Vice President of Children's Media at PBS) called for additional efforts to educate young children about the dangers of cyberbullying:

We need to teach young children what it means to be a good digital citizen and how to deal with cyber-bullying before they become even more immersed in digital media as tweens and teens.

The elementary school years are the time when kids begin to recognize how they contribute to the world around them -- understanding their larger community and learning to make sense of what they and others contribute to it.

These are the developmental milestones that lay the groundwork for how children interact with others -- in both physical and virtual spaces -- which is why early education is critical for helping them learn how to explore the online world safely and respectfully

Cyberbullying is an unfortunate reality for thousands of U.S. students, and digital harassment is a popular form of peer abuse among female students.

Labels: school, cyber-bullying, bullying

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