What Is Bullying?

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What Is Bullying?

There were a lot of responses to last week’s column – many of them negative. I would like to try to clear the air and re-explain my position – in the interests of clarity and not necessarily with any expectation of more positive responses!

Many readers pointed out that the “Kick Me” sign was…well…not nice. I agree. I didn’t say it was a positive action. I think I suggested that it didn’t reflect a highly developed sensitivity to the needs of others (to paraphrase). It’s not good character, nor is that type of behavior permitted under Jewish law. I didn’t advocate those pranks. I just raised the issue that perhaps it didn’t fit within the definition of bullying, that perhaps by including a one-time action like this in their zero tolerance policy, the New York City school system has diminished what bullying means rather than enhanced it.

One reader was vehement: Clearly you have never been bullied nor had a child who had been bullied, or you would NEVER have written this article!

You are right that, thank God, I haven’t. But I think you are mistaken in assuming that this is clear from the piece. You believe that if I or my child had been bullied, we would welcome this policy and advocate the boy’s suspension. That simply isn’t true. In fact, particularly if my child had experienced bullying – the day in-day out trauma of emotional and/or physical abuse that damaged their self-confidence, made them dread going to school and, at its worst, led to self-destructive behaviors – I would be even more adamant about my position. I would feel even more strongly that the one-time occurrence of posting a mean sign on a child’s back bore no resemblance whatsoever to real and serious bullying.

If rules are applied too broadly, they become ineffectual and void of purpose.

I would be outraged to include that child in the same category as mine. I would feel that this decision trivialized my child’s experience, not the opposite. If every act of cruelty is bullying, then the word loses all meaning. If rules are applied too broadly, they become ineffectual and void of purpose.

I can’t recall the exact details but I have a vague memory of hearing a news story about a boy who went camping with his parents over the weekend, Swiss army knife in his backpack. He forgot to remove it before going to school the following Monday and was suspended for violating the school’s zero tolerance policy on weapons.

But the boy wasn’t violent. He didn’t have a nefarious purpose. His real crime was a memory lapse. To lump him with the perpetrators of the Columbine Massacre is absurd. It makes everyone look foolish and distracts from the serious issues at stake.

So let me state it clearly for the record. I am NOT in favor of cruelty or meanness, of hurtful pranks or of jokes at someone else’s expense. I’m just saying that one-time non-violent act doesn’t usually fit the criteria of bullying.

We lose perspective when our children are involved. We let our emotions rule. We almost can’t help it; it’s in the hard-wiring. But a more hard-headed approach would, I think, demonstrate that if everything is bullying, then, in the end, nothing is. And that a thoughtful, narrowly applied policy accomplishes more than a broad catch-all system ever will.

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Published: March 13, 2011

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Visitor Comments: 14

(13) Anonymous, March 24, 2011 1:27 PM

I agree entirely

"a thoughtful, narrowly applied policy accomplishes more than a broad catch-all system ever will." That sounds logically correct, and I think your article has alot of merit. There's only one question; how do you define between severe bullying (which is usually more discreet) and practical jokes? Or, to be more clear, what is this "Thoughtful, narrow policy" that you are reffering to?

(12) Anonymous, March 17, 2011 5:16 PM

zero tolerance doesn't allow for anything to develop. "responsible parents"? you should seriously reconsider your relationship to a changing reality. you may be too old to learn new tricks, but the school policy has. go through your two articles and sort out the arguments and examples into "relevant" "irrelevant" and other various "ad hoc" and "ad hominem" argumentation. I'm surprised that an "educator" of Judaism and therapist with a law degree can sink so low and far away from a) common sense and b) lessons of the Torah... conclusion: you ought to be more responsible in your thinking/writing and above all your perception of the world around you, " I think that responsible parents could speak with their child and resolve this situation in a much less confrontational manner. But no one asked me…" quite right! no one asked you...

(11) Alan, March 17, 2011 2:38 AM

Zero tolerance or zero judgement

Lumping together a harmless prank with repeated bullying removes the need for judgement on the part of school officials. Detention and an apology is certainly more appropriate for the "Kick Me" sign than any type of suspension or expulsion.

(10) Anonymous, March 16, 2011 6:29 PM

Thanks, but I still disagree

Emuna, I do appreciate your clarification here. And I agree that a boy who simply forgot to take his knife out of his backpack should not be punished as if he were a violent offender. But I do wonder if perhaps his "forgetfulness" was more a feeling that he needed to protect himself. I also agree that smaller pranks need not be punished as violent acts, but they should still be punished. When we parents do intervene for our kids, even on the seemingly small things, we give them the confidence and security that will allow them to handle things on their own as they get older. Kids need to know that we parents will do everything we can to protect them. Finally, who is to say what's harmless vs. what's harmful? If I had gotten kicked and hurt because someone put a "kick me" sign on my back, it wouldn't be so harmless and silly.

(9) Anonymous, March 16, 2011 3:54 PM

From a bullying victim

I was bullied as a child. Emuna is not defending bullying; she is merely pointing out that not all antisocial behavior in schools qualifies. Having been on the receiving end, I can confirm that she is right.

(8) Shel, March 16, 2011 2:51 PM

You're 100% correct

It is intuitively obvious that you are 100% correct. There is no logical basis for disagreeing with your position on this matter.

(7) Anonymous, March 16, 2011 2:29 PM

sorry - as a former child, a current parent, and a current teacher - even first time offenders should be promptly stopped - ZERO TOLERANCE!!!

(6) Anonymous, March 16, 2011 2:44 AM

but still

I hear your clarification, but I still feel that zero tolerance is zero tolerance. In the situation of the boy who went camping and left his Swiss army knife in his bag, all I can say is, that's the story YOU (and the public) are hearing; too often the truth is a bit different... the family SAYS-- my kid is innocent, it was an innocent mistake; yet how often is it really not? and for all those "nots", it is imperative, in today's day and age, that zero tolerance be maintained and ENFORCED.

(5) L.S., March 16, 2011 2:40 AM

Just Disgusting

Education without character is a deadly sin in my book, and ANY unkind word or action should be intolerable and there is no such thing as a "small" or "innocuous" amount of bullying. What if someone were to torment YOU or one of YOUR children by writing "fatty" on their backs or by giving them a cruel nickname? You would be outraged and write an article about insensitivity. When I was bullied in school, I never got the help I desperately needed because the teachers thought "it was nothing...toughen up...kids will be kids" and instead of nipping it in the bud, the bullying escalated. In fact, several of my teachers bullied and abused students and it left a sour taste in my mouth about the teaching profession. As an adult I can now stand up for myself and am a successful and productive adult, but still have emotional scars from my school years. Mrs. Braverman--please develop some perspective on things and try to be more sensitive to peoples' suffering. Just as we would not tolerate "a little immodesty" or "a little traif" we should not tolerate "harmless pranks" either. Thank you.

(4) Joseph Marciano Bollinger, March 15, 2011 3:43 AM

Desagree

Mrs. Braverman I am sure you have good intentions. I am also sure you know many good things to share with us. But now, I am sorry, you are wrong! You cannot define feelings. Maybe a small paper saying "FAT" for one person could mean nothing, but maybe for another person this same "FAT" paper could be a cause of his destruction and 5 years in therapy and consequences forever. That is the reason the NYC law is clear. Bullying cannot be judge by you, or by the teacher, or by the parents. Bullying should be defined: If something is bad, even a small word, and this could be bad for a single person, should be forbidden to be said to everybody. Sorry about my English, I am not American Citizen.

(3) Renée, March 14, 2011 7:56 PM

Zero-tolerance

Braverman is unsure that "including a one-time action like this in their zero tolerance policy" is effective. But that's what "zero tolerance" means! Perhaps it would be better to say that Braverman's beef is not so much with the definition of bullying as with zero tolerance in general. I agree that it was an overreaction to punish a boy whose only crime was forgetfulness, particularly because if I remember correctly, the boy in question turned it in himself. But nobody puts a "kick me" sign on a classmate because he "forgot." There's a huge difference between an unintentional violation of the rules and a deliberate attempt to violate school policies and humiliate classmates. I still approve of zero tolerance toward bullying. If a one time offence is allowed there's no end to the damage that can be done to a child's psyche. There are about 30 students in his class so there's 29 opportunities to diminish this child's self-worth without fear of punishment. And that's assuming that none of the kids outside his class have it in for him.

(2) Anonymous, March 13, 2011 5:22 PM

2 Different Categories

I think that the main issue is that in your last article, you used essentially two examples- the pushing the bed into the hall and the "kick me" sign. They are really two different things. The bed in the hall is a prank- harmless, and while some people will find it upsetting, it's not a big deal. However, the "kick me" sign is a totally different ballgame. That just shows cruelty and terrible middos. That is really not a prank- that is total imperviousness to other people's feelings and considerations. For that, a student SHOULD be suspended, or even expelled.

(1) Alan S., March 13, 2011 2:30 PM

Reasonable people can always disagree about issues. Some of the comments to the initial article were downright mean. Berating someone harshly, unfairly and nastily in this forum for what is written could almost be considered a mild form of bullying itself. This said, no reasonable person could equate a silly prank type of bullying, or absent mindingly forgetting a pocket knife in a backpack, to the evils and horrors perpertrated by the Columbine students. The Columbine perpertrators may have also been bullies -- but they were murderers first and foremost.

Anonymous, March 16, 2011 6:22 PM

Columbine

Just a clarification... Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold- the Columbine shooters- were not bullies. They were victims of bullying. Not that that justifies or excuses the murders, but there it is.

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About the Author

Emuna Braverman

Please check out Emuna’s new book A Diamond for Your Daughter – A Parent’s Guide to Navigating Shidduchim Effectively, available through Judaica Press

Emuna Braverman has a law degree from the University of Toronto and a Masters in in Clinical Psychology with an emphasis on Marriage and Family Therapy from Pepperdine University. She lives with her husband and nine children in Los Angeles where they both work for Aish HaTorah. When she isn''t writing for the Internet or taking care of her family, Emuna teaches classes on Judaism, organizes gourmet kosher cooking groups and hosts many Shabbos guests. She is the cofounder of www.gourmetkoshercooking.com.