Teen Think Tank on

Teasing and Bullying

 

Saturday, February 23, 2002

 

 

 

This was the third Teen Think Tank conducted for the San Ramon Valley Unified School District in Contra Costa County, California.  Unlike previous sessions that dealt with broader issues, this session focused specifically on Teasing and Bullying.  This session was coordinated with the  ‘Parenting 2002 and Beyond’ Conference on Teasing and Bullying conducted at Charlotte Wood Middle School in Danville, CA on Saturday February 23, 2002

 

The objective of this Teen Think Tank session was to provide a forum for teen and pre-teens (6th- 8th graders) to anonymously identify, discuss, and rank issues surrounding the cause and affect of teasing, bullying, and violence in their lives.  The participants were then provided the opportunity to propose solutions for these issues.

 

The results from this session and previous sessions are reviewed and acted on by the San Ramon Valley Youth Safety Committee including local legislators, community and school district officials as well as concerned citizens.

 

 

 

The following summarizes participant activites and their recommendations to solve the key causes of teasing and bullying. The entire report is available for review on the San Ramon Valley Unified School District web site at www.srvusd.k12.ca.us/srvusd/District/thinktank2002.pdf  

 

Participants were led through several facilitated processes where they brainstormed responses to specific statements:

 

§         Describe teasing and bullying

§         Describe the causes of teasing and bullying

§         Recommend solutions to the causes of teasing and bullying

 

The participants generated 59 descriptions of teasing and bullying which were combined and prioritized to produce their top nine descriptions:

 

1.       Bullies are people who need control

2.       Verbally or physically hurting someone else

3.       Teasing and bullying is when a person picks on someone to make the bully feel better

4.       You can tease or bully someone in many different ways

5.       Putting down another person because of their differences

6.       Doing something to another person to get attention or popularity

7.       Cutting down another person's self esteem and self worth

8.       We all are bully's sometimes

9.       Bullying is when someone doesn't accept diversity and makes fun of you for that :)

 

They then generated 249 causes for the nine types of teasing and bullying.  These 249 causes were combined and narrowed down to 32.  From these 32, six key-causes were identified:

 

1.       Lack of Attention

2.       Popularity

3.       Establishing Power

4.       Home Life Issues

5.       Self-esteem

6.       Previous Experiences.

 

The participants then generated solutions for these six causes.  These solutions are in the participants own words.

 

1. LACK OF ATTENTION

·         Maybe the parent should be more opened eyed

·         Parents get more involved in their child's ideas

·         You can find a friend for the bully so they will not feel the need to pick on others

·         Peers of the bullies should try to make friends with them

·         They are not doing well in school and they don’t care, so they don’t pay attention

·         The parents can help the bully by spending time with him/her

·         Parents and kids talk together maybe through a councilor or on a scheduled time

·         All they get is negative attention- they need to get positive attention from anybody who sees something good in them

·         I think where ever the child is not getting attention that needs to be resolved. The child needs to be spoken to and they need to resolve why the child feels excluded.

·         Try to have parents go to more guest speakers about attention at home. Make sure that every child gets the attention that he or she needs. Teachers also at school should ask the kids, if they are willing to talk about it, about their home life.

·         Have an on-school councilor, possibly an older teenager, to talk with kids and give them positive advice

·         Kids should surround themselves by people who give them the attention they crave/need instead of people who ignore them and lower their self-esteem.  It doesn’t matter how many friends they have, just how many friends will be there for them to care about them

·         Lots of people have problems with maintaining attention

·         They have no one wanting to hang with them and their parents are probably ignoring them, so they result to beating people up to hide their insecurities.

·         A good way to get attention is to get good grades and for most trouble makers it is hard because of there social skills so I think that their parents should help them out with grades and never give up on them.

·         People do not pay attention so they bully people around

·         The family of the bully could give the bully more attention at home or sign the bully up for after school activities.  This way the bully won't have to pick on kids at school for attention.

·         There should be less kids in each class so that teachers can give them more attention and teachers should make sure that kids are getting the attention they need, both at home and at school

·         Find the bullies talent, and let him excel, and strive for attention, with that talent

·         Personally I don't think that you have to be mean to be popular and if they think that you’re not cool because you won't do something then they aren't your friends.

·         Lots of Bullies want attention. Since they are mean and disrespectful of others, all the kids try to stay away from them. We need to give them the attention and love them like we love are best friends. Then maybe they will learn to be a friend to other instead of picking on kids.

·         I know it’s hard to pay attention to anything especially other peoples feelings but that doesn't mean they still shouldn't try

·         People should pay attention to peoples feelings

·         Bullies totally lack attention in school from other kids

·         pArEnTs: At home parents should get involved in their kids life, and usually when they have other children, a job, and much to do around the house, it is hard....to make time for one child...but parents should try to make time each month just to spend time with each kid separately...when kids...are..young...or adolescents. This will make the child feel......like they have been given a type of special attention.

·         SChOoLs: Schools...already have many programs that give each student individual attention. I think teachers...should insist more often on shy, or unsociable students to join in the conversation in class, or share their...opinions, and answers.

·         STuDenTs: Students in general...should learn to be more kind and more excepting! .....Though..we are young....and not as responsible for our actions as our parents are, we should always be amiable to others!

 

2. POPULARITY

·         Want to fight to be popular.

·         Maybe the popular people can be more nice to people

·         Want to fight when other people are looky looky.

·         They pick on other people so that they can be popular.

·         Explain and teach a lesson that says that popularity is not all that matters in a course of the lifetime. You should not have to care about the outside of people, but what they re like on the inside and what their personality is

·         People should be more like themselves and nice to there surroundings

·         Be open to everyone, everyone is special in the own way!!!  :)

·         I think peers shouldn't recognize bullies

·         School sets up a system that allows students to meet other kids. Maybe become friends and get along

·         Teach kids that popularity will soon end and then they will