Dear Peer Pressure:

Girls at my school are verbally bullying. A couple of girls name-called another girl so many times, the girl punched one of them out. Kids don’t care if they get into trouble. We can fill out a counselor referral form, say what happened, and whether it needs immediate attention or can wait. But this is hard to do a form for.  A lot of people do verbal abuse, call another person “gay” and stuff like that, just to hurt people’s feelings.  Do you know why they’re like that?

—Puzzled

SR: I agree that many students today are not afraid of being punished. It seems as though the rules for discipline at school have changed and some students continue to “push the buttons” of teachers and friends just to get attention. I don’t know if they do not respect themselves or their parents enough to have the desire to do well and behave appropriately, or if they just believe nothing detrimental will actually happen to them.

Maybe the attention they receive from being bad is more beneficial to them than the severity of the punishment that is imposed on them.

If teachers notice a student being rude to their peers, they must gain the student’s attention, present a directive and make a request. The directives must be clear and specific. When pleasant behavior is observed, the student should be positively acknowledged. In addition, established and taught consequence procedures must be initiated for repeated noncompliance.

I believe ALL students need good role models as parents and friends. Therefore, find reputable friends to bond with and set good examples for those who obviously need to experience a “quality” friendship.

JPC: Verbal abuse seems to be a common occurrence for various ages of students at many schools.

It’s especially tough when the only place you feel you have left to turn is to fill out a piece of paper. It’s also unfortunate that this is occurring in an environment where you spend so much of your time.

It may be helpful to know that many times, when people say mean things about others, it has more to do with themselves than with the person they are criticizing. Many people put others down because of their own insecurities; they believe that if they put other people down they will feel better about themselves or appear better to other people. This is not true, however, and, as you have observed, bullying others only makes these people appear mean and cruel.

It helps to remember this when you see bullies in action, and hopefully the kids who are being bullied will realize this as well and learn to not let it affect them.