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<p>Kelsmom, your kids sound like the kind of kids who can truly influence others in a positive way. Kudos to you for encouraging that! I’m always impressed by kids who are confident enough that they’ll risk their own “stature” to shield, or even elevate, another. I think this is the most effective anti-bullying strategy out there since nothing beats peer influence in schools. I wish there were more parents who did that, and that we could figure out how to make it universally cool to be kind.</p>
<p>I have observed and questioned my kids pretty carefully over the years about how kids are treated in our schools. Bullying seems to be a fact of life on the elementary school buses, but that is probably due to the K-6 composition and the immaturity of the “top dogs”, who are only 10-11 years old. It never escalates beyond a punch or shove. S tells me that the bullying in middle and high school is mostly done among the less popular, weaker kids…jockeying for position in the same pack, as it were, but rarely physically engaging each other…and a few “mean kids” that just have always been bullies. Those are the ones to watch out for apparently, as they love to engineer sneak attacks on their targets (like the kids in the Oneida story). </p>
<p>S and his close friends, male and female, are the athlete crowd and have “adopted” most of the truly weaker kids, including the physically or mentally impaired, and the other kids will not even speak unkindly of them within earshot. I have seen the “mean kids” back down from even teasing someone when given a look by S…though they certainly weren’t deterred by the presence of a teacher and a parent! As S says, “people just know I don’t like that c–p”. He said he’s never had to actually demonstrate the lengths he would go to protect his little buddies other than a few “accidental” bumps in the hallway and gym class (well, maybe they were checks…he is a hockey player) and ignoring the perpetrators for awhile, which has a detrimental effect on their little social lives. I asked S, who is a senior, what will happen next year when he and his buddies have graduated and he said he has it covered…they’ve been grooming the sophomores and juniors on his teams to “stand up”. </p>
<p>Imho, we need to find a way to recruit the “stand up” kids to initiate, or at least lend their approval to, any formal anti-bullying campaigns if they are going to be of any real use in dealing with teenagers. Do any other parents think your kid would be willing to participate in such an endeavor at a grass-roots level?</p>