S4 E3: Understanding Childhood Bullying w/Drs. Holt & Grief Green
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Dr. Jennifer Greif Green is a professor in special education and a child clinical psychologist at Boston University Wheelock College of Education & Human Development. Her research focuses on supporting students with emotional/behavioral disorders and bullying prevention. Within these lines of research, she studies teacher identification of students with mental health needs, racial/ethnic disparities in mental health service access, and youth bullying involvement. She also co-directs the Social Adjustment & Bullying Prevention Laboratory. Dr. Green has developed surveys to assess bullying in schools and has evaluated school-based bullying prevention and mental health promotion programs. She collaborates with a number of local schools and districts to support student social-emotional well-being and reduce bullying. Her work has been funded by the National Institutes of Health, Spencer Foundation, and MetroWest Community Health Foundation.
Dr. Melissa K. Holt is a professor of counseling psychology at Boston University Wheelock College of Education & Human Development and a licensed psychologist. She is also director of the Kilachand Honors College at Boston University and the Arvind and Chandan Nandlal Kilachand Professor.
Dr. Holt’s research explores how adolescents’ exposure to violence—particularly bias-based harassment (i.e. harassment based on one’s identity)—influences mental health and well-being; ways in which school-based prevention programs can play a central role in reducing students’ exposures to bullying and bias-based harassment and improving school climate; and the experiences of gender-diverse adolescents, with an emphasis on the ways in which contexts and systems can better support gender diverse youth and amplify youth strengths.
Social Adjustment & Bullying Prevention Laboratory | Boston University
"Potential Harms of Hazing," by Gerald Reid, Ph.D. (Massachusetts General Hospital Clay Center for Young Healthy Minds - October 2018)
Reid, GM, Green, JG, Felix, E, & Holt, MK (2018). Perceived consequences of hazing exposure during the first year of college: Associations with childhood victimization. Journal of American College Health.
Grills, AE, Holt, MK, Reid, GM, & Bowman, C (2022). Bullying and Peer Victimization. Newburyport, MA: Hogrefre Publishing Corp.
Bullying and Peer Victimization – Hogrefe Publishing - Bullying and Peer Victimization, a volume in the series Advances in Psychotherapy, Evidence-Based Practice (Advances in Psychotherapy: Evidence-Based Practice, 47): 9780889374089: Medicine & Health Science Books @ Amazon.com
Reid, GM, Green, JG, Holt, MK, Espelage, DL, & Bowman, CE (2016). Perceived social support and mental health among first-year college students with a history of bullying victimization. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 1-11.
Holt, MK, Vivolo, AM, Polanin, JR, Holland, KM, DeGue, S, Matjasko, JL. . . . Reid, GM (2015). Bullying and suicidal ideation and behaviors: A meta-analysis. Pediatrics, 135(2). -
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Bullying has been defined as interactions between peers in which there is intentional harm, an imbalance of power, and these actions are repeated.
Bullying is differentiated from other forms of interpersonal issues in that bullying is a relationship in which one person has more power over the other and the targeted individual cannot defend themselves.
Additionally, bullying happens within a relationship and occurs over and over, rather than one time.
Power can come in many forms, including popularity, in-group/out-group (minority) status, etc.
Conflict resolution could be inappropriate in cases of true bullying, since there is no conflict to resolve necessarily as the targeted individual simply cannot defend themselves from intentional harm. Conflict resolution can be helpful when there is peer conflict. Bullying could require a different intervention, and schools have their own mandates of how to respond.
Dr. Green’s research suggests that children may or may not identify as having been “bullied” due to the implications and perceptions of the word itself. However, they may be more likely to identify as having had bullying experiences happen to them, without using the word “bullying.” Additionally, children may have a skewed idea of what bullying is and is not. Therefore, it can help to provide a context and space to open up honestly about their experiences of bullying (being targeted or bullying others). Psychotherapy can be a great space for this to come out in a more natural way.
It can be difficult to identify is a behavior that hurt someone else was ‘done on purpose’ (i.e., the intentionality).
There is literature that suggests kids who bully others could morally disengage, such that they downplay the impact of their behavior on the other person. It may be difficult to know if the child is morally disengaging on purpose because they are ignorant to the harm it could be doing or if they are getting caught up in the norms of the culture around them and think it’s ‘normal’ even if it’s harmful.
Certain individuals can be more affected by interpersonal behaviors that are normalized because of their own personal challenges that go unnoticed, such as traumas, mental health difficulties, other relationship troubles, etc. Developmentally, it can help for the child to get feedback that certain behaviors are actually causing harm.
The ‘normalization’ of certain behaviors that could harm others can happen in many contexts, whether in the classroom, school, family, team, group, community, exposure on the internet/social media, etc.
Individuals who are hurting themselves, may act out aggression toward others if they are unable to deal with their own pain.
Given that bullying involves using power over another person to put someone else down, this may imply the person bullying others has deeper insecurities and a weak sense of self such that they only gain a sense of self by treating someone else down. This can imply that the person doing the bullying could learn other ways to get what they need (i.e., feel good about oneself, a sense of self, friendships) rather than the maladaptive way of getting what they need by putting others down.
Research shows that kids who bully others and exhibit ‘acting out’ behaviors could also have their own mental health issues, even including suicidality. It’s not just those who are targeted by bullying.
There could be different reasons for why kids bully others and not necessarily one factor for all individuals. It could be modeling from school culture or family; being more impulsive; generally being more aggressive overall; one’s own mental health issues or traumas. Conversely, there are many protective factors, like being surrounded by peers who do not bullying leads to being less likely to bully others. Kids who are part of peer groups who are aggressive tend to become more aggressive over time.
It can be important to support the smaller group of kids who engage in bullying over a longer period of time across grades and years and across contexts. Additionally, the kids who both bully others and are also targeted by bullying over a long period of time are very vulnerable in terms of mental health.
There is fluidity in terms of bullying others and being targeted by bullying over time for individuals.
Jerry hypothesized that perhaps not having only one identity and also being exposed to and developing relationships with individuals from a diverse range of people, groups, and cultures could build empathy and reduce bullying behaviors. Jen considered being part of both minority and majority groups could also help build empathy and reduce bullying.
Social media bullying may feel different. Even if it happens once, it could be seen by many people making it feel repeated over and over even though it happened once.
Jerry suggests that kids who bully others as a way to have power and gain attention by bullying others may not really understand a real relationship. Getting attention and gaining ‘popularity’ for bullying others is not a real relationship. As such, kids who do this may need to learn and experience real relationships to understand how to build real relationships rather than just getting attention by bullying others.
Cyber-bullying is not necessarily happening more than in-person bullying, and it tends to co-occur.
People on the internet could be more likely to say way more harmful, malicious things compared to in-person.
Bullying prevention programs have shown modest results in reducing bullying. And so, it can help to consider how to improve the overall school culture despite the possibility of bullying. Additionally, improving school climate can reduce bullying. Programs that are whole-school that gets everyone in the school involved in creating a climate of safety and belonging for everyone tend to be more effective to reduce bullying.
Changing school culture can take time. On the other hand, even one teacher can really make a positive impact on the climate of their own classroom and even for specific individuals.
Perceived social support (simply knowing that someone cares about and supports you) and having a positive connection with even one school staff member has been shown to have a positive impact for children who have been bullied.
Sometimes the cure to a bad relationship is a good relationship.
For schools, it could help with addressing bullying when the whole of the school is ready for change and wants the change, and has built a consensus with what the challenges are and what they want to do to move forward.
Melissa and Jen’s new research suggest bias-based harassment and bullying (i.e., being targeted based upon one’s identity and who the person is) is associated with worse mental health outcomes compared to bullying that is not based on identity. Even students who were not targeted by bias-based bullying were also showing negative effects. This suggests schools can find ways to improve the way in which all groups of students are welcomed and feel appreciated.
Positive bystander behaviors can be helpful and reduce bullying and/or at least support the targeted individual. It may be nuanced in terms of how to be a bystander rather than the traditional idea of speaking up in the moment. For example, checking in with the targeted individual later on could help. Students can also tell the person who did the bullying how they feel about it or give them feedback about how harmful it could have been.
Children may feel too embarrassed to tell others they are being targeted by bullying. They may also fear that it would be ‘made worse’ if they were to disclose the bullying.
Parents can feel very activated if their child is being targeted by bullying. However, it can be important to manage their own reactions in order to model for the child and also to provide a context for the child to enact clear thinking, collaboration, and flexible thinking to figure out options for how to address the bullying and its impact.
Closing thoughts:
Jen: Take bullying experiences seriously and listen closely to the children involved. Try to understand the perspective of those involved in the relationship. Establish contexts in school where young people feel like they belong, are seen, and are valued.
Melissa: Provide education to help understand what bullying is and to help schools to intervene. Learn about signs that could indicate bullying is happening. Learn ways of speaking with young people that can be effective and supportive.
Jerry: There are psychologists like Jen and Melissa who are dedicating their careers to understanding and addressing bullying. Bullying peaks during the middle school year, due to developmental changes, increases in social hierarchy, and more of a concept of sense of self in relation to others. Things can change over time and despite strong emotions that are felt during challenging times, it can get better over time. Take care of yourself and allow others to help you as you are going through the hard times so that when your context and relationships change as you get older you will have the opportunity for a better life.
Alexis: It is definitely a journey. Despite the darkness, we can try to continue to shine a light and bring positive relationships to those who are struggling.
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Gerald Reid 00:11
Welcome back to season four of the ReidConnect-ED podcast. This season is all about connection, connection with others, connection with something outside of yourself, and connection within yourself. And today's topic is childhood bullying. It's a topic that has garnered a lot of attention in the past two plus decades. And bullying is such a big topic that we couldn’t just bring on one expert. No, we had to bring on two. And so today, we're going to bring on to the podcast two psychologists who are experts on the topic of bullying in their own right. And you might be asking, How did Jerry get two of them to come on the podcast? Well, let's take a trip down memory lane.
Back in 2011 I was accepted into and just started the doctoral program in Counseling Psychology at Boston University. And the stars really aligned for me because our program recently just hired a new faculty whose specialty is in bullying research and her name is Dr. Melissa Holt. And she was smart as a whip had a heart of gold and she welcomed me with an open mind and open arms. And as time went on the Social Adjustment and Bullying Prevention Lab, which is currently at Boston University, took shape at BU and Melissa joined forces with Dr. Jennifer Greif Green, whose specialty is in School Psychology and who I had an equally positive experience with throughout my time at BU. I could not be more fortunate to have these two as my mentors over the years of my doctoral training. And now to introduce my two mentors as a doctoral student at BU.
Alexis Reid 01:34
Dr. Melissa Holt is a professor in Counseling Psychology at Boston University, Wheelock College of Education and Human Development and a licensed psychologist. She is also the director of the Kilachand Honors College at Boston University. Dr. Holt’s extensive research portfolio, which includes countless publications, editorial review positions, and even funding from the National Institute of Justice explores the way in which adolescents experience bias based harassment and bullying which is aggression that targets another person's identity and how schools can improve their overall culture and climate to reduce these negative experiences and support those who experience it.
Dr. Jennifer Greif Green is a professor in special education and a clinical child psychologist at Boston University, Wheelock College of Education and Human Development. Her research focuses on supporting students with emotional behavioral disorders and bullying prevention. Within these lines of research, she studies teacher identification of students with mental health needs, racial ethnic disparities in mental health services access, and youth bullying involvement. She also co directs the social adjustment and bullying prevention laboratory with Melissa. Dr. Green has developed surveys to assess bullying in schools and has evaluated school based bullying prevention and mental health promotion programs. She collaborates with a number of local schools and districts to support schools social emotional well-being and reducing bullying. Her work has been funded by the National Institutes of Health, Spencer Foundation, and Metro West Community Health Foundation. We're super excited to have them both here with us today.
Gerald Reid 03:17
Okay, so bullying and interpersonal aggression of all forms did not just start in the past 20 years or so, when schools and society as a whole began talking about this topic and really taking it seriously. Human beings have always hurt each other, in one form or another. It's a timeless sad tale. Unfortunately. However, over the past 20 years or so our field, and society as a whole really has tried to study and better understand these dynamics to make them better. It is an honorable pursuit that these two psychologists have dedicated their entire professional lives in pursuit of helping people get along, treat each other better, more respectfully, and to really reduce bullying and to support those who are bullied. So let's dive in and learn as much as we can today from these experts.
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So I think what we do here in our episodes is we really try to start broad with topics because the people listening may or may not have been exposed to the topics that we discuss. So, let's start broadly, with this topic of bullying. We can really go in any direction, but let's just start in general with, you know, what exactly is bullying? People ask this question a lot, right? It's kind of the timeless question of, is this bullying? Is this not? And families, kids, teachers will kind of come up with examples and say, This was or this wasn't and so can we be clear about you know, what the definition of bullying really is? And also, where did that definition even come from? Like, how to how do we formulate that as a field?
Jennifer Greif Green
04:52
Can we just can we just start by thanking you for having us here today and just saying how great it is as faculty to be Well to watch your progression through the program and as a professional, and leading this podcast together, and just what a pleasure it is for us to be able to come back and hear and work with you on this podcast two years later.
Melissa Holt
05:13
Absolutely. To echo those things. It's just amazing just to see that progression. And also, that you're taking on this topic, which I do think is so important. And to see that it's, it's been something that you started taking on as a student, and are now still taking on both in this capacity. And also, I know it comes up in your clinical work. So just kudos to both of you.
Gerald Reid 05:32
Thank you so much.
Melissa Holt
05:36
Well, I can take that question, Jerry about what is bullying, I think it's an important one. And I think when we're working with schools, that something, as you said, comes up a lot about what is bullying, and did what my child experience, for example, meet that threshold. So when you think about bullying, the initial definition really came out…again, like you said quite a long time ago. We think about a few components. So it's typically thought about as interactions between peers in which there's intentional harm. There's an imbalance of power. And often these actions are repeated. Interestingly, there have been some new thoughts around the definition that were first presented in 2023, in the fall at the World Anti-Bullying Forum, and a group of scholars collaborating with UNESCO put forward a slightly more nuanced definition on bullying. And I wanted to just talk about a couple of those elements that came out. So they talked about school bullying to be a damaging social process, driven by social, societal and institutional norms, that is manifested as unwanted interpersonal behavior among students or school personnel. So you can see to some of the additional nuance there. The definition also calls out the harms that come to those who are targeted by bullying. And importantly, both at the individual, group, and community levels, so harms that are occurring across the ecology.
Gerald Reid 07:02
Interesting. Okay, so so just to kind of summarize the, the, the intent. So there's three elements that were originally formulated the intent, the power imbalance, and the repeating nature of it. So as an example, the intent meaning the person, you're saying that the intent to harm somebody like to actually make someone feel uncomfortable discomfort, pain, or some sort of suffering. And is it that the world bullying association?
Melissa Holt
07:33
Well, the World Anti-Bullying Forum is essentially a conference group of scholars and practitioners that come together every couple of years at that forum; a group of scholars that have been collaborating with UNESCO so but that international group was working with a group of scholars around the world to think through what a new definition might look like. And what they came out with kept some of those elements that we have thought of always as the key elements of bullying, but I think really added some nuance to it in terms of thinking about what it's driven by those norms and different levels of the ecology. And also, I think that the harms really can occur both to the individual but also to groups and communities, which is a bit different, I think, than our initial definition and how we're thinking about it. Now, this has not necessarily been picked up widely. But I'd attended that conference and made note of how some of the elements have stretched a little bit in terms of how the international community of scholars may be thinking about bullying at this point.
Gerald Reid 08:35
Why do you think that they added that element of the environment reinforcing it; that must come from a lot of the literature on like the dynamics that that happened within bullying? I imagine.
Melissa Holt
08:47
Yeah, that's a good question. I can't speak to specifically why that group decided to but I think, based on the research, we do know that bullying is reinforced by various aspects of the environment, you know, both at the group level, the classroom level, the school level, and so forth. So it makes sense to me at least that this is now integrated into the definition of, of our understanding of bullying.
Gerald Reid 09:10
Right. And that power dynamic part that you said, just for the listener to understand the power differential, which is big part and part of the questionnaires that come about for bullying, which Jen created one of them. So the power that the power differential would be any type of power that one individual has over the other. And there's a lot of different forms of that. Jen, do you mind speaking to the different forms because I know that's part of your questionnaire as well looking at the different forms of the power differential.
Jennifer Greif Green
09:37
Yeah, and one of the most important things that distinguishes bullying from other forms of pure aggression is this idea of a power difference. So it's not two friends who are fighting one day and then friends the next day and then fighting again. The idea is that bullying is specifically a relationship where one person has more power and the other person can't effectively defend themselves against the person who's been bullying them. And as you mentioned, this power can come in a lot of different forms it might be; it's, it's often social power. So it might be that someone has more popularity or more social success behind them. It could be structural kinds of power, we know that youth who are minoritized are more often, in some contexts the target of bullying than their peers are. So there are a lot of different formats that this power can show up in. But it's it's important in terms of distinguishing bullying from other types of peer relationships.
Gerald Reid 10:34
Interesting. Yeah, that popularity piece from what I've from what I've learned in the literature, too, is that bullies actually can be quite popular that it's not a kind of stereotypical image of a, like a movie scene of some bully, who just like nobody really likes, but they're just bullying everyone that actually they can be kind of the ringleader of their social group, and be quite popular as well.
Jennifer Greif Green
10:53
Yeah, for some, for some students, bullying serves the function of increasing their popularity. So by putting someone else down, they're able to gain more social support and gain more popularity among their peers. And so bullying can be kind of a catalyst or a bit of a leverage point for more popularity for some students.
Gerald Reid 11:13
And then that goes back to the repeating nature that bullying has to be repeated, that really explains why the repetitive nature of it is that to maintain it, things have to keep happening to maintain the status.
Jennifer Greif Green
11:24
And the idea there is that bullying is a relationship is not a one-time interaction that it's happening over and over again. And that makes it different from kind of a one-off problem or an assault, which might happen just once the bullying is a pattern in a peer relationship.
Gerald Reid 11:42
And it's not necessarily like, like a conflict in terms of, we have a disagreement, or my friend is not letting me play a game that he wants to play, necessarily, like there has to be like, I want to make this person feel bad. I'm doing it on purpose where because sometimes I think the tricky part, maybe we can try to clarify that like when it's peers can have conflict that is part of growing up and learning how to navigate differences or, or to communicate in a way that can find compromise, or like they have a hard time because developmentally, maybe they don't know how to resolve conflict; that's actually a skill that even adults have a hard time with. Right? So. So maybe we can talk a little bit about that, before moving on just about the difference between kind of conflict resolution. And also, for what I learned about the literature to when it is really bullying, conflict resolution is actually the opposite of what you want to do to help somebody right, can kind of bring them in as well.
Jennifer Greif Green
12:39
And the idea behind the power imbalance is that the person who's being bullied can't defend themselves and can't be an equal and conversations around conflict. And when you think about conflict between peers, and teaching conflict resolution skills, a lot of the strategies that we use, assume an equal footing so that people can discuss their conflict and resolve a conflict, as equals. And one of the challenges of bullying is that the person who's being targeted is not able to successfully manage that conflict or stop bullying from occurring.
Melissa Holt
13:11
Yeah, I think that's right. So I think among friends generally wouldn't think of there as being a power imbalance that of your friends, there's generally equal set of power and you may experience conflict. But if you're in a friendship group, you both maintain similar levels of power and could potentially have the capacity to engage in conflict resolution.
Alexis Reid 13:29
I think it's such an important distinction, because I hear all the time from kids that will throw this terminology around. And I think in our, our world where a lot of clinical terms are used just in common vernacular, I think it's really difficult to pull apart actually what bullying is, because a lot of kids who do end up in some conflictual situations, they might feel as though they are being targeted in that moment, just because that is kind of their experience that they're hyper-focused on, especially individuals in my work where they might not have like fully developed executive function skills, and it's hard for them to zoom out and see the bigger picture of what's happening from their perspective. So I think it's so important. I wonder if there's anything before we move on from the definition of bullying that you would offer to parents, caregivers, or educators just to think about how language and semantics around these different situations is so powerful and important, because it really can dictate the trajectory of what happens next in these situations.
Gerald Reid 14:29
Jen, you can certainly speak on this word, your research about identifying as being bullied, right? And so maybe I can summarize it, you could tell me if it's accurate, but your research has suggested that if kids read something that says “Were you bullied?” they may or may not say yes, but if they have a definition of being bullied without the word bullied, and it's just these things happen to me, which is essentially bullying without saying the word bullying that they may more likely be able, they may be more likely to identify those behaviors happening to them, but they’re going to say “no, I wasn't actually bullied.” So maybe you can speak about that language piece that I think I guess Alexis is referring to?
Jennifer Greif Green
15:07
Yeah, the idea is that the word bullying is used so commonly in our society and in news sources and to describe a whole wide range of different relationships, including adults to children, children, to adults, adults to adults, and you know, in all different contexts, that when we, as you mentioned, Jerry, ask students “Have you been bullied?” we don't; if just use the word we don't necessarily know what they're referencing, when they're answering that question what they're imagining bullying is, so in our work, we have tried to ask about all the defining characteristics of bullying without using the word bullying. So we asked students have you experienced aggression that's repeated? Have you experienced aggression, where there's an imbalance of power? Where and we asked it in more child friendly ways, of course; and where there's intentional aggression towards you. And if we don't use the word bullying, as you noted, different students will say yes to those questions, then if we say, “Have you been bullied,” and we suspect that's because, again, when you ask them, “Have you been bullied,” they might be picturing something that they've heard on the news, or that they saw in a movie or that they've heard from their friends, but it may not be the same definition as how we as researchers have learned to think about bullying.
Gerald Reid 16:20
Yeah, it makes me think of how important psychotherapy is and like how, like, the more the more you do psychotherapy, the more you realize, don't make assumptions about what's going on in a person's life until you actually ask them about it, until they have the opportunity to open up and express like things that maybe they have a hard time even talking about. So I think to all of our points here is like to really understand what's going on, if this is happening in your school or to your kid, like certainly helping someone feel comfortable to open up giving them that space, whether that's, you know, whoever that's what that maybe it is a psychotherapist that creates that context to really open up and share specifically what's going on and how they feel about it also, because how they feel is equally important, right? Because people can be in denial about how things affect them, right? You know, and not really admit because they don't want to feel vulnerable. Or maybe they're afraid of the consequences, like any type of trauma people experience, like a lot of the fear sometimes is, well, if I say something about it, it'll get worse because of the fear of that power imbalance. Right? So I think this is just a plug for psychotherapy, how important that context is for people.
Alexis Reid 17:29
I think it's also so challenging to I speak so much about how like children often don't have the language to describe how they're feeling, right. And oftentimes, they might read a book or hear about, like, the bully character in the book or in a cartoon. And that's their point of reference. And we talk a lot in the podcasts about how, as you get older, you have different data points that like, inform how we think about the world, how we see the world, or the schemas that we form in our brains, that help us to better describe things. So I wonder if like, I imagine that's probably a challenge in your work to be able to like tease apart, like, like you were saying, like the characteristics of the experience versus the word itself. And maybe I'm jumping ahead a little bit, because I know that you've also designed some programs to help school systems and thinking about how we can better support individuals who have been bullied or to try to defuse some of these aggressive behaviors. I wonder if there's like anything that has come from your work that allows for you to better help even the young person if they aren't in therapy to describe some of their experiences?
Melissa Holt
18:35
Yeah, we can definitely speak to that I was just thinking about one piece, just to circle back a little bit that you were both alluding to in terms of sort of the child's experience, and then versus the label. I think the other important thing to keep in mind is, you know, sort of a child could or could not be bullied. But for example, if they're experiencing a lot of conflict with friends, that still may warrant time with a counselor to address the conflict with friends. It's sort of just that the particular intervention at a school level where schools have mandates to address bullying in a particular way, may look a little different if it's meeting the criteria for bullying. But you know, the child's feelings, of course, are going to need to be addressed regardless. So I think that's also where it can get a bit murky in terms of how schools may want to be providing support, or would need to be providing supports for students, regardless of what kind of experience they’re having and what label is associated with it. And I think that often when we think about the kinds of programs to your point, often, you know, we can think about bullying prevention programs, but they often have that social emotional program lens that's going to capture a wider range of experiences that students have that include but also extend beyond bullying that get at just, you know, again, a wider range of experiences that students may have within school that then can link them to the appropriate supports.
Jennifer Greif Green
19:57
I think this question of person whose perspective you're listening to and how you how important it is to understand youth perspective is really key. You mentioned, the characteristic of intentionality before and one of the things that's tricky in defining bullying is - who gets to determine if it's intentional or on purpose is that the person who's doing the bullying? If I think I'm doing it on purpose is that the person who's being targeted? Do I feel like it's happening to me on purpose? And even things that may seem simple, like figuring out if something was done on purpose can actually be pretty complicated to try to understand because different people may have different perspectives or understanding of the situation.
Gerald Reid 20:35
That's so true. So even the bully, the person doing the bullying may not have a clear idea of what they're doing, or if kind of is bullying or not. That's true. And that also goes into the literature on moral disengagement, which is basically suggesting that people who do bullying behaviors could continue the bullying because they're diminishing the effects that it’s actually having. And whether that's intentional or not, is to be determined by the individual, right? We don't really know what's going on through the kid's head who's doing the bullying, but that idea of like, they'll say, Well, it's not that bad, or they deserve it, or we're just fooling around. It's not a big deal. Is what moral disengagement is. And so, again, so kind of alluding to here is the context matters, the individual matters, and trying to really understand what's going on to help make it better is important. So trying to understand like is, is the kid really diminishing the impact that could be having and is that intentional? Or is that just ignorance that they don't really understand or, or they're just caught up in the culture, like, you've alluded to the culture so important that they just feel like it's normal.
I think, again, back to the individual, I think we always try to bring it back to the individual. Some kids may be fine with it, and then the more vulnerable kids are going to be really affected. And nobody would know because when the culture is one size fits all - Oh, well, it's fine, because everyone's doing it and we all, quote unquote, agree that it's fine. You're missing the point, like not everyone's the same. There could be kids who have like really horrible things going on in their personal life. And that it makes them way more vulnerable to something that seems innocuous, meaning that it just seems like it's not a big deal, when really, it is a really big deal. So I guess, you know, I'm always emphasizing the individual because people are different. And you got to try to understand what's going on to help the situation on individual levels as much as we do on the collective, and see how those two things interact, the collective and the individual.
But again, there may not be that power imbalance, but they're very much could be. And also people could, even if there isn't an empowering balance to your point, people could be affected whether or not there's a power imbalance, we don't have to say, this is bullying, or not to say this is not helpful for certain people as well. So we also shouldn't get too caught up in like, as Melissa said, is exactly bowing or exactly not because kids can be affected just depending on the context and the person that we're talking about.
Melissa Holt 23:00
Yeah, I was also gonna say, I think the piece that is also helpful to think about is from the kids engaging in more of the perpetration of behavior side of things, that developmentally it's important for them to have opportunities to, to learn that maybe what they're doing is not appropriate. And so I think getting that feedback that for this given child who experienced the behavior from someone engaging in perpetration that that did not feel good to them, and it was harmful. And so, you know, that's why we think about - not zero tolerance is not always good because it gives, you know, someone who developmentally maybe doesn't, you know, understand that back to their behavior, the opportunity to say, okay, I can take that in understand and, you know, ideally then not engage in that behavior moving forward. Right. So, for all kids, they’re, you know, they’re kids are young, they're learning things, learning how to interact, they, maybe they’ve had modeling that suggests that behavior was okay, so on both sides sort of learning how to support someone being targeted to get the support to say to someone this happened and it didn't feel good to me, how can I get support; and for the person engaging in the behavior to get the feedback, this hurt someone can we think about, you know, how to engage differently.
Alexis Reid 24:10
That's such a good point, I am frequently reminding educators from an executive function perspective that all these behaviors are oftentimes telling the story of some needs some skill that still needs to be developed. And to your point, a lot of hurt people, or potentially individuals who are impulsive, who might not have the correct language to describe what they're experiencing, might actually project their what comes out as aggression onto somebody else unknowingly, while they're still developing their social skills; are still understanding the discrepancy between what is and is not, you know, socially acceptable are harmful or helpful to other people.
Gerald Reid 24:50
And even developing a sense of self. So like the first thing that bullying manifests as a power imbalance, to have power over another person to make yourself feel better to have popularity or whatever the power is. I mean, to me as a therapist that inherently suggests you don't feel good enough about yourself to just be who you are without feeling good by putting someone else down. And that is like we're focusing so much on like helping the bully, we got to focus on helping the kids who are also being victimized; but to help the person who's being bullied is like how, how can that person realize that this is not the way to feel good about yourself. There's, there's a whole different way that you can feel good about yourself, which is so much of what therapy is for literally everybody I work with? How can you feel good about yourself in more healthy ways; it's a maladaptive way of feeling good about yourself. And Melissa's point that she said earlier, like there are risk factors that lead kids to bully in the first place. It can be modeled, right, if they're just an environment, maybe their overall community and where they grew up, or their family or something; that they just don't see models of having more positive ways of relating with each other. And so, as you said, Melissa, the zero tolerance policy may not work for everybody, perhaps because maybe the kid, maybe it's not the negative punishment, that's going to help, it's going to be the positive reinforcement, of shifting and maybe becoming, you know, realizing that being a positive leader is actually also a good way. And that can become, you know, hopefully the school can reinforce being a positive leader. Or, you know, that's why the bystander interventions are so much more helpful. Because they get other people to positively reinforce more positive behaviors, where I mean, if we want to feel good about ourselves, why not do it in a more positive way than a negative way. By the way, treating someone poorly is so easy. You know, I think this is, I don't know how else to say this. But it's the easy way to get to feel good about yourself. Anybody can just, like talk badly about someone and make someone feel badly. It's one of the easiest things in life to do, right. You could just you just make someone feel badly. To be nice to people and be respectful. And to find ways to get along with people, even if you don't like them or disagree with them or, or want to feel good about yourself, that takes work because you might have to work on yourself, you might have to work on learning how to get along with different types of people; that takes work. It's easy to make someone feel bad. So you know, let these you know, I'm really focusing on trying to understand the mind of the bully to the person doing the bullying, to. Really just thinking out loud here, but.
Jennifer Greif Green 27:15
I think you're gonna get the idea that for a lot of people, bullying works, I mean, bullying works to get people what they want, and they keep going because it works to get them what they want. And I think you're speaking to the importance of figuring out what function does the bullying serve? And is there other ways that we can meet that function for our students so that they don't need to bully to get what they need, and to get what they want. And, Alexis, as you're talking about earlier; I was thinking that for some students, they bully for the function of gaining power or gaining prestige. And for others, students who might work with they might be bullying, because it's kind of impulsive or reactive and not as proactive. And we want to be responding really differently to that, depending on the reasons why. It's important to tease out why someone is involved in bullying other people because the intervention for someone who's planning ahead and figuring out how to bully someone and doing it as a way to purposely gain power, it's going to look very different than the intervention for someone who's kind of impulsive and saying things that maybe they don't mean to be hurtful, but they're, but they're saying things that are hurtful over and over again, anyway.
Gerald Reid 28:25
Totally. Yeah. There's nothing more powerful that I've seen in my practice than someone who truly is like, struggling so much with their own mental health, that they're really affecting the people around them, whether it's their family, their friends, their significant others, where it's just everybody's walking on eggshells around them because they're just so irritable and just because they're their own suffering. For them to change that and to get along with people again, because they've done the work on themselves is one of the most incredible things I've ever seen, like in my practice, and I give the person who does that so much credit. And hopefully this is a model for, for hope that that can happen for other people too.
Alexis Reid 29:00
I think this is such an interesting discussion, because as you said, your we don't usually focus on the bully, we usually focus on the victim and how it impacts the greater ecology of the community around them. I wonder, from your perspective, in your work, what have you seen in like, again, some of the indicators of what might lead to bullying? If we can kind of break that down a little bit further, I think it'd be interesting for the audience to hear too.
Melissa Holt
From the bullying perpetration perspective, or from all?
Alexis Reid
Kind of like the profile of those who tend to bully.
Melissa Holt 29:35
Well, I guess one thing before just to talk about sort of the profile piece, because it because I also think that's really nuanced, I don't think there's one profile. But I guess I also want to highlight just in the conversations and think one of the pieces in my work around kids who bully that's been important to me is, we can generally; generally there's this conception of bullying perpetrators as kids who are more externalizing and perpetrating. And I think the piece that to know about those kids is they also have high levels of internalizing behaviors, and they're more likely to consider suicide and, and things like that, which I think can be lost along the way. And I think to Jen’s point earlier about thinking about interventions and, and supports, I think that's a really important piece to think about when we think about kids who believe that they're not just needing support for the perpetrator behaviors, but they also are often suffering in terms of the internalizing concerns as well. So that's just something to think about. Again, I think that who we think about somebody who might engage in bullying can look just really different. I think there's lots of reasons both of you have raised some before. I mean, it may be someone who's doing it more impulsively, it may be someone who's, you know, premeditated, it could be someone who's seen it modeled at home, or there's a school culture that's modeling it, someone who's higher in moral disengagement. Someone who just generally tends to be more aggressive. We know that peers matter. If you're in a peer group that's more aggressive, you will become more aggressive and engage in more bullying over time. So I think it's not one factor, I think it's sort of a constellation of factors, multiple levels of the social ecology. So in other words, your individual, your peer, your school, family, community level, that combined and you as an individual that may increase your propensity. And then I think that is in tandem with potentially protective factors. So what factors might, in the face of these risk factors reduce the likelihood? So you know, maybe, then you also have some really good maybe even if you have a family that modeled some more aggressive behaviors, but you have a group of friends who really doesn't engage in bullying, you may be less likely to engage in bullying. So I think that's what the complicated piece is; it's really so many factors. And you're looking at how they would both increase or decrease your risk. Trying to think Jen, would I?
Jennifer Greif Green 32:10
I will just add, one of the things that we thought a lot about, and Jerry you were involved in a study on this, is stability of involvement rivaling over time. So we are more concerned about students who are involved in relationships as a bully in multiple different contexts. So like in school, and an after school, and in summer camp, or wherever they're kind of in all the different spaces where they are. And over time, when we see students who are involved consistently, that's more concerning than when someone's in a particular context that pulls that out of them. So that's another just layer to think about when we're thinking about how to support students. And similarly with students who are being targeted. The students who are more concerned about are the students who are targeted across multiple years and classrooms in different settings that they're in than the ones who kind of are in an environment where that has come up for them. But it doesn't extend beyond that environment.
Gerald Reid 33:10
I just had a random thought I'm gonna run by you. Hypothesizing for a study, maybe. Do you think that people who have one fixed identity are more prone to being a bully, or are more prone to bullying others? Meaning that if, on the other side of that, conversely, if you have multiple identities, meaning that like, you're exposed to different types of people, and you have friendships with different types of people from different groups, whether it's racial, ethnic, sexual orientation, gender, all that stuff, different cultures, do you think that by nature of having relationships with different types of people that makes people less prone to bullying other people? Just hypothesizing.
Melissa Holt
it's a good question. I can't think of any research that really speaks to that.
Gerald Reid
Because it probably builds a lot of empathy and the ability to like, appreciate different types of people rather than look down on other types of people.
Jennifer Greif Green 34:04
It’s an interesting question. I think we, we all probably have multiple identities, and that, especially for young people, that they’re evolving and dynamic over time. But I'm also not familiar with any research on it. But I would think that maybe having the experience of being both in a majority and a minority context may be an important piece of that in terms of understanding different social dynamics and, and experiences. So I would just add that to the research question that you were already thinking of posing?
Gerald Reid
That's a good, that's a good point.
Melissa Holt 34:37
And I think, to Jen’s earlier point, I think there is a relatively small group of kids who remain engaged and high levels of perpetration or remain in high levels of victimization steadily over time. That's just a smaller group of kids. And those are the ones we're most concerned about, for sure. And the kids who are both perpetrators and victims, are the smallest group generally. And those who remain in that group over time, are the very most concerning group of kids. But there's a fair amount of fluidity in in the in any of those roles.
Gerald Reid
Yeah, that's a good point.
Alexis Reid 35:17
I imagined too Jer, the exposure to different people getting to know different people who have had different experiences, across different points of their life, there might be some more cognitive and psychological flexibility that those individuals are starting to develop, which might be a little bit more expansive, and how they think about different situations and relationships. And I love that Jen, you're talking about bullying in the form of a relationship, because I think that's the key point that it's something that's sustained. It's not just a one-off experience. And I think, I think in especially; I’m gonna bring it up - in this digital world, I think people have a different perspective on what relationships are. Right? There might be a lot of children, especially who, you know, their frontal lobes aren't fully developed, they can't actually see the bigger picture of things. They, they don't actually understand that, you know, having somebody follow you on social media app, and having a few exchanges or interactions, isn't necessarily a relationship, though it can be incredibly influential on them. And I think from a developmental perspective, to thinking about how young people are defining relationships, and how that can potentially lead into these more vulnerable situations where bullying could potentially be more present, whether they recognize or realize it or not.
Jennifer Greif Green 36:40
Yeah, and the issue of social media and cyber bullying has presented challenges and thinking about how to define what bullying is even. So this idea of repetition - whereas when you're thinking about in person bullying, you think about repetition, meaning, they're multiple interactions that are negative when you're thinking about social media, if someone posts something once, but then 100 people or 1000 people view it. Does that feel does that have the same impact and feeling repetitive even though the action only occurred once? And so I think your question about how does social media shift how we think about what relationships feel like to young people is a really important one.
Gerald Reid 37:20
That's such a good point. And I think Lex, too, you're suggesting that if you're bullying someone, and people are liking you, like, Oh, you're popular in life, because you're bullying other kids, you're so cool, or whatever, right? That that relationship with the person who's telling you you're cool, or on social media, liking your posts, when you're bullying someone else, because people are looking at it and giving you like validation because or whatever; attention basically, it’s just attention - that that's not actually a real relationship. Right? So the person doing the bullying, as you're suggesting, and we're all suggesting, maybe really has a really skewed view of what a relationship is. It's not just people fawning over you and saying, Oh, you're so cool, because you're bullying someone else. Like that's the opposite of a real relationship. And that's what as human beings we all crave in life is a real relationship and, and perhaps the kids who are doing the bullying, just, you know, sometimes this stuff is modeled and they maybe in their personal life hasn't had a model or have the experience of having a real genuine relationship to understand what that really means.
Alexis Reid 38:23
Well, I think to the point of the theme of this this season is about connection. And, and I think bullies especially they feel connected when they are oftentimes perpetrating these behaviors and putting down different individuals who become victimized. But I think to your point too, Melissa, what you were saying before that when you see this model, so many kids have access to see a lot of this modeled all the time at their fingertips, whether it's directly in their direct community in their physical presence or not. Oftentimes, they're seeing this happen in the videos that are displayed on social media, where they might not have a direct exposure, but then becomes direct exposure. So it's so interesting to think about all of these influences. And I'm focusing on the influences because I actually think that that's a big proponent of what we could potentially control and help, especially through mental health, like Jerry was referring to, through having these conversations with young people to help them just to understand like how this impacts you and the people around you, and how we can maybe this is a bigger question that we're not going to be able to tackle today, how can we maybe influence you know, this, this whole idea of social media in a more positive way where maybe it's not as accessible? Maybe it's not as; maybe how can we like diminish that power that it has over so many young people and adults alike that we have so much exposure to so much positive or negative. And sometimes it's hard to distinguish, which is which? It's not really a question. They're just like, a lot of things. I mean, a lot of questions, I think, built into that one statement. Kind of picking on all that you do, and all that you think about, because I'm sure these are conversations, you're having your lab all the time.
Jennifer Greif Green 40:10
All the time, and with schools and school staff all the time, too, who are trying to figure out how do you support young people are navigating these contexts that are different from what the adults around them? In many cases, we're navigating themselves as, as youth? And I think, I think the questions you're asking are really critical. And also the answers to them will keep shifting as the nature of what we have access to is shifting quickly.
Alexis Reid 40:35
Yeah, definitely, I think, you know, I guess what I'm really getting to, and I hear like countless parents that I work with, in the back of my head, you know, just frustrated over, you know, the phone use the social media is because they're fearful of others bullying and taking advantage of their child, and also potentially some impulsive moves that a child might make, that could come across as something that is aggressive or negative or harmful. And, you know, I think it's, I think this is a conversation, I always say, you know, it's not all or nothing, can't just have zero tolerance, and just take everything away, because they're gonna find a way to have access, or it might come out in a different way. What are the basis of the conversations that you think are most important and relevant to helping young people especially understand how their behaviors and actions impact others? From a bullying perspective, obviously, because it can, you know, metastasize, I guess, into bullying, even if it is just aggression or frustration that might be coming out.
Jennifer Greif Green 41:40
I'm happy to. I think that on the basis of it is talking to, to our young people about what it looks like to be a friend, and what friendship means, and what bullying is and what it is not. And to talk to them explicitly about what it looks like, in different contexts. And what it looks like in person is just by his nature, different from what it looks like, online, and many parents monitor their child's cell phone use, or social media use, I think that's really important, especially for young teens, for parents and other adults to be involved and helping youth to navigate their use of these platforms. And to know what it looks like when someone is, is posting something that might be bullying and how to respond to that and giving them real time coaching around those topics. And you mentioned concern about what their own kids might post, too. So showing examples and talking about, not if you see something that's concerning, but when you see something that's concerning, how are you going to manage that? How will you come and talk to me about it? How are we going to process this together, and being willing to build those lines of communication with, with children so that they feel like they can come forward and process them with the adults around them.
Alexis Reid 43:08
That's such a great point, I was imagining in my head, you know, walking down a beautiful street and like suggesting to the child like, oh, this might make for great post; versus like letting them kind of go for it, like the educational coaching piece and helping them to understand what is applicable, what is appropriate and what is not. Because I think, you know, the way in which they present themselves as Jerry was describing, like finding out who they are, I think is so important.
Melissa Holt 43:37
And I’m just gonna add, I think all these points are so important. And just to add for listeners, I think there also can be a perception that cyberbullying is so much higher than in person billing. So I think we always also like to know, that interestingly, in person bullying still remains, the more common form. Now to Jen's point earlier, that doesn't mean cyberbullying is not necessarily reaching more people, given the way in which it can extend or could have its own set of consequences. I think that's also important to note. But I do think sometimes families wonder about if that is occurring at such higher rates. And interestingly, unless Jen can speak to this.
Jennifer Greif Green
They're kind of merging.
Melissa Holt
They are now merging a bit. But again, it's not; I think there can be a perception that cyberbullying is like, five times as high. And that that's not. But again, I do think it's also important to contextualize that in terms of what it can feel like or the experience of it like and cyberbullying is different than in school bullying. So that was to your earlier point, Jen, that I think that's a that's an important piece. That cyberbullying can reach many more people in an instant. So it has a different quality to it.
Jennifer Greif Green 44:50
Yeah. There's, there's some evidence that since the pandemic, there's been a decline in in person bullying, but an increase in cyber bullying. And that that has continued even with schools back in session.
Gerald Reid 45:02
Well, it's like the more access people have, the vulnerable ones are the ones who are affected most right. Those who are more prone to that impulsivity to do something to hurt someone else. It's like access, access always makes things harder. I mean, WBUR interviewed me about online gambling and how it's legalized now. And my suggestion was, like, I've seen gambling, like, ruin people's lives. And like, as much as we're celebrating the tax revenue, there's plenty of people who are more vulnerable to having their lives ruined from this. And so I think we always have to think about like is there's more access to something; doesn’t mean… there's pros and cons to everything. And the con usually is the vulnerable people, that population of the vulnerable are more likely to be negatively affected by something.
Alexis Reid 45:46
I will also say I love that you brought up the bullying aspect in that too, that sometimes athletes or the coaches might have other influences on people like, like, you know that the chirping I guess from this social media, Twitter, what do you call them, trolls that are like going after them being like, oh, you should have done better, because there is a different kind of investment in the relationship with especially sports and athletics. And, there's a lot of pieces to that, too.
Gerald Reid 46:12
Yeah, that’s what I referred to in the interview is like, people are willing to say literally anything online because there's like a mask, it's like you don't you're not face to face with someone. So there's plenty of things that you would never say to someone face to face, because you'd be too afraid to. But when you're online, you say like the worst things. And that's why I feel like maybe I'm biased thinking like, Oh, like this generation growing up with a social media is more malicious than in the past; the ones doing the bullying. But I'm wondering if that's true, just by nature of like, you're more, people are more willing to do things that are worse because of the anonymity of being anonymous behind the screen, and not having to confront someone. That's what I said about these athletes, these poor athletes are online. And the guy doing the gambling, whoever's doing the gambling is like, you lost me $1,000 I'm angry at you. I'm gonna like, say the worst things that can ever possibly say to you online. They would never say that to their face, or if they would mean that things might happen.
Jennifer Greif Green 47:12
Yeah, I mean, certainly see that. Certainly see that kind of across the board that people post things that they wouldn't necessarily say in person, because it's it's easy in person to see the or easier in person to see the impact that it has on someone else, if I say something. But you're right, when you post on social media, even if you know who the person is, you're not observing their reaction to it, and you don't get the same feedback about how hurtful potentially something you say has been to somebody else?
Gerald Reid 47:37
Definitely. So I know that you both focus a lot on like the school climate and the environment of the school, maybe we can focus a little bit about that. You know, certainly kids feeling like there's a belongingness within the school system. There's not this hierarchical structure where like this group is considered more important, more powerful than these other groups. Like there's kind of an equal, I think this is probably where my other comment came from, if you can relate with different groups of people where you treat them as equals, rather than, like, this group is better than that group or more important, whatever, that that can maybe reduce bullying. So maybe you can talk about that in terms of addressing bullying, because I know, as we said, it's super complex to address bullying and the research suggests there's some progress in helping it but it's such a complex issue that there's not really this silver bullet, that's going to make it stop.
Melissa Holt 48:34
Yeah, I guess just to start with what you said from the big picture, you know, there have been quite a number of studies looking at bullying prevention programs. And while overall, there's evidence of some effectiveness it, there is not as much effectiveness as one would think if you look at the collection of studies overall and take a look at the change, but there are some programs that have shown to be effective at improving school climate, reducing some bullying, and so forth. I'd say it's a very small handful of programs that do that. But those to your point generally do have an impact on climate, which in turn will then start to address the behaviors. And I think it's important, as you said, those, those programs sort of start to address the whole school climate. So we know the programs that address sort of that our whole school in nature that get everyone involved at the school, so that everyone can be on board in creating that climate of safety are the ones that are going to be more effective. So everyone from folks who are working in the lunchroom, to you know, teachers to counselors to if there's bus drivers in the community, those are going to be more effective, because it needs to be everyone on board in terms of having those set of shared values that are created to create, you know, spaces in which kids feel that sense of belonging, feel that they can come to school safely, and so forth. That is definitely a key element of programs that we know are effective.
Gerald Reid 50:00
I'm going to kind of relate this to almost like a metaphor for people who are involved in sports, like a new coach comes on to a team to coach the team, and they want to change, quote, unquote, change the culture, that it like takes a lot of time to do that, to build that. And I think Melissa, your point is, like everybody getting on board with shared values of respect. I always think respect is like, in my opinion, should be the word that everybody uses. When we talk about this. I think everybody can agree that respect is important. To some degree, I think everybody, people from different sides can agree respect is kind of a common value that we can agree to. But I'm imagining, like, if you're a school staff, it might be hard to think that anything you're going to do is going to help it to make it better. It's almost like, you know, being a therapist, right? Like, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna help someone's mental health problems in one session, or even with one thing I say. So I've had to learn to step back and see the big picture and to say, this is a whole process that has to take place. And it's a collaborative process. And I had to be in tune with that process. So, I'm wondering like, how important it is for everybody to kind of understand that it's a process rather than like, we have to fix this or, you know, like, that kind of way thinking about it.
Jennifer Greif Green 51:11
I think you're right, that change takes time. But I personally can think about teachers who had a really huge impact on my life, even in in one year. And I think that teachers may not always see that day to day, but I hope that they can over time or and have enough former students coming back and sharing with them know that they do really have an effect on the climate of their classroom and the students experiences for that year, at least, and in many cases going on much longer past the time in their classroom, from the things that they've learned and the skills they've developed in the classroom. And I just think another point that I wanted to raise is that it's not just about, as we were saying before, it's not just about reducing bullying, or stopping bullying, really, we want our students to walk into school every day feeling like feeling connected, feeling like they belong, feeling like school is a place for them and reflects who they are as a whole person and that they are valued. And that what they're doing in that setting is meaningful. So reducing bullying is important. But it's it needs to be part of this bigger picture of the kinds of places where we want our children to be spending their days every day.
Gerald Reid 52:28
I love that. Yeah, you're so right, though, like one comment, a teacher can make one relationship you have a one student can be humongous. And like we all remember our favorite teachers. And that's a special thing. Yeah. And in the research on perceived social support for people who are being bullied, from what I recall, right, even our research with that college study that we did, just thinking that you have support, even if it's not happening in the moment, just thinking, oh, this person really cares about me and is going to support me is powerful for mental health. It actually really is a really important factor for people's mental health and even if they're being victimized by being bullied.
Melissa Holt 53:07
Well I think everything, particularly the elementary school level, if you're in a class for most of the day, I think that teacher can have a lot of sway over your perceived climate, you know, I think it gets I think even at high school level, though, if you have one teacher that you can find a connection to that's also really important. That teacher may have less of an impact over your overall experience of climate, but we know that having connection with one school staff member is really, you know, vital to how you're going to experience school as well.
Jennifer Greif Green 53:35
We have a paper where we were working in a school district and we were doing as kind of a social emotional survey for students and we asked them to list the teachers who they felt most connected to or felt like they could go to if they were having a problem, an emotional problem that they wanted help with. And then we compiled that list for the school of the top teachers who students were going to and we said, to the school staff - Why don't you reach out to these teachers, a lot of students are going to them, and asking them, why don't you reach out to the teachers and hear about what they're doing, how they're supporting students, and whether there are other supports that they need. And not surprisingly, to all of us who have gone through this is at high school who've gone through high school, there were a few teachers who over and over again, students that they would go to and who were really important to them. So we wanted to make sure that those teachers felt like they, they had support, and that they knew that they were serving really valuable role within the school environment.
Gerald Reid 54:28
So one of the cures is relationships, when there's a bad relationship, a healthy relationship can be the cure sometimes, for one individual.
Alexis Reid 54:36
Yeah, it's definitely a protective factor. And it's so nice to hear the stories from the different schools, and I'm thinking about my experience and helping in school change, I do a lot of work training educators around the world about Universal Design for Learning and executive function, social emotional learning, in particular. And you're right, it is such a process. But the changes that end up getting implemented, and the ones that I have found both from a teacher professional development perspective, and also in working with the students that I work with, and hearing their stories, the thing that most really is the most powerful is beyond just the relationship is the adults in the room who show up embodying the things that they're teaching, embodying the programs that have been implemented in the schools, those who not only are doing the strategies are teaching the lessons, but really try to be more curious and open about improving themselves, to be able to allow for the children and the students to be able to improve themselves to an imagined to and I'd love to hear more about your recent work in the schools, thinking about what you have seen as like, one of the biggest factors or one of - I hate boiling it down to one thing, it's never one thing, it's so nuanced, I get it. But like what was been most profound in your research and work that you've noticed in the schools that you have seen the most change in the culture and the climate, to be able to, again, not to reduce bullying, but to improve the sense of self and idea of community?
Melissa Holt 56:18
Maybe it's more of an organizational point. And then Jen maybe has some more nuanced to add to this. I mean, I think for me, when I think about our work with schools, I think one of the biggest factors that will promote success in terms of working towards change, or just sort of be the school being ready to want to change. So our partnerships have emerged, and started in various ways. But if we start worrying, as a school, who says, we've noticed there's a challenge, we'd like to address it, and we're ready to address it, then the partnership tends to be more successful. And the collaboration around what happens moving forward, tends to be more successful that may not directly answer your question. But that's the first thing that came to mind.
Jennifer Greif Green 57:05
Yeah, that's such a great point. And I'd say having a community of people who are ready to make change, we've, we've certainly been in schools where there's been a champion for the change. But it is so helpful when groups in the community have come together or, or even done work around building consensus around what the challenges are and how they want to move forward.
Gerald Reid 57:28
So Melissa, and Jen, maybe you can share a little bit about your research regarding the bias based bullying and also eventually kind of segueing into the bystander. And how important that is with helping.
Melissa Holt 57:38
Yeah, so I can start out and then can turn over to Jen. So Jen and I, along with others have been collaborating on a project with the National Institute of Justice, where we're looking at bias based harassment. So in other words, we can think about that as bullying based on someone's form of identity, whether that's their race, their religion, their gender identity. And we've been following adolescents longitudinally to understand sort of the prevalence of this kind of exposure, as well as how it relates to functioning. But there actually haven't been a lot of studies even looking at the prevalence of bias based harassment. And so that was one of the first things we want to take a look at. And Jen actually took the lead on the paper that is about to come out, I believe, generally just for looking at the page the other day, so I thought it might be interesting for listeners to hear about just some of those initial findings. So in this study of about 650-ish adolescents across the United States, we found that 20% reported bias based harassment victimization, so it's about one in three, which is not surprising to the extent that we know in our country generally paralleling the rise in hate crimes, we might expect that these things are also going on in schools. And similarly 12% reported perpetrating bias based harassment, as well. And just to note, the most frequent forms of bias based victimization were those targeted at race, sexual orientation, and gender identity. And also importantly, when we took a look at whether these forms overlapped, in other words, did kids who reported one also tend to report another, we did find that there is substantial overlap and forms of victimization. In line with bullying, generally, we did find that students with minoritized identities were generally more likely to report bias based victimization. And often, you know, not only just based on their particular identities, so as one example, we found that gender diverse use reported more victimization not only due to their gender identity, but also as well because of their religion. Something that Jen may want to expand on more. One of the particularly interesting findings from this study were that students with disabilities reported high rates of bias based victimization, and four of the six forms we looked at. So they reported higher rates based on national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, and immigration status. And they were also more likely to report perpetrating bias based harassment across multiple forms. So this was an important, this has been an important study for us, because again, we feel like just sort of, you know, country wide with these higher rates of hate crimes. And we see this all the time in the news. This is similarly going on in the schools. And it's really important for us to be thinking about what's going on and how to address it, but Jen I don’t know if there's other pieces that are important to think about in the study and from our work.
Jennifer Greif Green 1:00:30
Yeah, just research has consistently shown that bias based bullying is associated with worse outcomes than general bullying. That feeling like you're being targeted because of who you are, because of your identity is just a really awful, awful experience for youth to have. And so we've been really very interested in learning more about this experience. And some research on bullying, including some research that we've done, has kind of looked at bullying in general and not focused on the content of the bullying. And so we've been really interested in delving into what is the content of the bullying? What is it targeting? How does it making people feel? And how that impacts different subgroups of youth. And, and I'll say that the finding about disabilities, which you highlighted, Melissa, is one that we have seen in other forms of bullying. So students with disabilities are disproportionately involved in forms of bullying, generally, and in all different roles as targets and as aggressors in bullying relationships. And so we're able to show here that the same is true for bias based bullying and harassment and kind of leads us into conversation about how schools and how communities support students with a range of abilities. And, and also in thinking about, again what are the functional skills that students need to have supported in terms of building their skills around peer relationships?
Melissa Holt 1:02:03
Yeah. There is, there's one more thing that I thought it'd be important to highlight in this study is that another thing we looked at was sort of what we call witnessed biased based bullying. In other words, if you're a student who hears comments that are derogatory. When we looked at that group of kids, and we took out kids who had experienced it directly, and we looked at whether kids were just hearing these comments if they're affected in terms of their mental health. And we found out that they were affected. And we thought that was really important to say that if you're in a school in which you're hearing these comments, this affects you, this affects all kids, which, again, you know, it makes sense. But it's important for schools to keep in mind as they think about providing programs around identity based bullying, bias based bullying and how to support the kids within the school context presently.
Gerald Reid 1:02:55
So in light of that, maybe you can share a little bit about the bystander based interventions and kind of how they function within this system of supporting kids who have been victimized or targeted by being bullied. And what you know, even peers can do. We didn't focus too much on what peers can do.
Alexis Reid
So can you also just define bystander for the audience.
Gerald Reid
So, bystander meaning anybody who is witnessing or is aware of the fact that the bullying is happening. I always think of like the number one thing being like, who's the popular kid, who's like a good kid or like has the potential to be like a leader to speak up and to use power for good because if power can be used for maliciousness power can also be used for benevolence. And I'm always thinking about, about that and creative ways of doing that. Because it's, you know, there are times when I've heard I've heard a patient, multiple patients sometimes say, like - Well, I tried to stick up for someone and then like, I got bullied and just kind of like didn't help and like, they just kind of irritated them. And maybe that's, there's so many nuances as to why that happened. It could have been like, you know, the context of school, it could have been the way it was done, like, who knows? Like, there could have been a lot of reasons for it. But it's just, I'm just thinking of just ways that people can use their power for benevolence, in creative ways too. There's probably a lot of different ways it can happen.
Melissa Holt 1:04:23
Yeah, I think to your point earlier on peers, Jerry, it's a good one that you as soon as I think that kids can get the message that the only way they can proactively be a bystander or help appear is to stand up in that moment. And I think that for lots of reasons that may not be safe for a child or really lead to good outcomes for their child or their friends. So I think, you know, we think about how kids can help someone being victimized, we can think of, if they feel like they have the agency, and they're safe of intervening at the moment, but there’s other ways that kid can help, you know, supporting the kid in the private moment, going with a kid to the office to report it. You know, so there's other avenues. So, not only providing the message that you can stand up in the moment, but here's the other ways you can help a friend who's experienced that I think it's important because most often we're going to find that kids aren't going to feel comfortable saying something in the moment. And that's okay. For good reason.
Jennifer Greif Green 1:05:14
Going up to someone after and saying, I saw what happened back there. That wasn't cool. Yeah, I mean, that's a way that you can support as a bystander. Walking with someone, to the teacher, to the nurse's office, to the principal's office are all ways that students can support each other.
Gerald Reid 1:05:30
Yeah, we always say on the podcast, like complex problems, don't really; like a simple solution, sometimes is not the answer to a complex problem. Sometimes you need to think creatively and collaboratively with people. Like I'm even thinking some people I've worked with, like kids where like, the solution was, it wasn't like, it wasn't like, a silver bullet where everything became better, but things just got a little bit better, or, you know, it just took time to figure that out. And, and certainly the parents being kind of calm through the process, too, I think is helpful, because I think this is very activating for a parent, you know. You got to think of the perspective of everybody involved. And like to think that your kid is being bullied is, is scary, sad, upsetting, you know, you want to be protective over your kids. So, I think, you know, the advice to parents too, is to kind of manage how you're reacting to it, not only to model the kind of clear thinking, collaboration and flexible thinking that it might require, but also to encourage the kid to do the same. So there's a lot of nuances that probably could be helpful, which is why, you know, I always advocate, access a psychotherapist, therapist, psychologist, counselor that could kind of create the context to have these conversations, because Alexis and I always say, like, communication is the fundamental; is the foundation of a lot of stuff that goes through go through in life, you know, we need to practice communicating, and it's hard to communicate, nobody likes to communicate about things that they're suffering with. So you know, I think the school, you know, even as a coach, you know, parent, sibling, and older sibling, like, create context, where kind of these validating, calmer, creative thinking, collaborative conversations can happen to figure out the nuances of what to do about it. And the answer is may not be one thing, and it maybe a couple of different things. And it might be trial and error, too.
Alexis Reid 1:07:26
I think to the communication piece is key, because not everybody can really understand even what they're experiencing in a moment, they might or in a series of moments, which could compound and become something more. So I think it's, you know, to summarize some of the points that were made that, you know, bullying as a whole is about a power differential that happens multiple times over time. But it's not just the individual, it really is about the community and the ecological structures around it. And I think from a protective factor, we can also consider how the community and the communication and the connection and the authenticity to show up and to support each other, and to be open about things that may come up and be confusing or aggressive or frustrating in a moment to help to kind of diffuse that proactively might actually be one of the antidotes to this bigger systemic issue that we're seeing in bullying. And thinking about how we can all play a role in the ecosphere, the thinking about the entire; the entirety of a child's life, and to be able to practice compassion, empathy, curiosity, listening. To not just be about those big moments that don't always go well or things that feel really hard. But to really think about both sides of the same coin. And, you know, I think often about those who struggle most because they often are the ones who will aggress. And how can we soften their experience so that it doesn't impact others as much. And I wonder if this is kind of the big points that I'm pulling from the conversation, and I'm so grateful for you sharing. First of all, for doing all the work that you do, because it's so impressive and amazing and empowering for so many, not only in the field, but in school systems, families at home, and for the children you reach as well. But you know, from everything that we kind of pulled together, any closing thoughts or big points that you think are really crucial to be able to communicate and share?
Jennifer Greif Green 1:09:28
I think the importance, and I think this is happening; with the importance of taking experiences of bullying seriously and for adults to listen to the perspectives of children and hear what they're saying about how they're experiencing peer relationships and being willing to support youth and to help to really figure out and investigate what's going on, what is the young person's perspective in their relationships and what can be happening, not just as you're saying, at the individual level to support the student, but have to shift the context and the culture around them to support them and their development, socially and emotionally and also in establishing contexts that are caring and supportive, and places where people feel like, very young people feel like they belong and are seen and valued.
Melissa Holt 1:10:25
And just to echo to some of what Jen said, I think, just as this podcast is doing, I think providing opportunities for education, both to understand exactly what bullying is, so that schools can better intervene and also to help families understand sort of general what Jen was saying, when a child is coming to you that it makes sense that they're experiencing X Y and Z symptom. This is very common when you're experiencing bullying, or here's the signs of a family member might look for if their child is not feeling comfortable coming and telling them that this is happening, you know, this is what your child might be displaying. And maybe here's the kinds of questions you may want to ask to find out if they might be victimized that they might be perpetrating. So, I think education is key. Similarly, for the schools, how can we think about programs to create that kind of safe and nurturing environment that allows all students to feel connected?
Gerald Reid 1:11:18
I am so appreciative to have Melissa and Jen here. It's like a dream that I like we all started together, I started with you both. And we have this conversation. And it just feels so natural to talk about this important topic. And for all those who are listening if you had been bullied, or if you've been engaged in it, or you know, someone, like I hope it feels good to know that like these two psychologists are dedicating their career to figuring this out. And hopefully that feels validating to you. My closing remark, maybe would be - bullying peaks during middle school years. And so, I think most people in life will think of middle schools a very, like strange tumultuous time. And there's developmentally a reason for that - everybody's like growing up and starting to think about relationships, starting to think about who they are in relation to other people. And that's where that social hierarchy starts to become developed more potently, which is why we see bullying more often is because people are more thinking about who they are in relation to other people, because their brains are developing to think that way. And so, for those thinking about this developmentally, just know that like, it does decrease over time. And I'm a big, you know, hopeful person in terms of hope that there is, you know, things can change over time. We all experience strong emotions when bad things happen. And it feels like this is going to happen forever, or it's always going to happen or things are always going to be terrible. And just want to shed some ray of hope that things could get better and certainly take care of yourself. Because if you take care of yourself along the way, while you're going through hard times, and after them - your life could get better, right? But don't be passive in that process. We all need to help ourselves and access help and allow ourselves to be vulnerable to let people help us and to help ourselves. Because, you know, as you go graduate from high school and get older, right, your life will change. Your context will change, the people in your life will change. And you can have new opportunities. And I'm just really advocating for that. proactivity take care of yourself. Get helps us help. Love yourself, you know. Have optimism for the possibilities there is change, and so forth.
Alexis Reid 1:13:48
I will say that it is definitely a journey and like I always say, I don't ever feel like I can get rid of the darkness. But I can continue to shed and shine my light as brightly as I can to hopefully mute some of the darkness that exists. So hopefully we can try to find that balance and equilibrium by sharing and shining our lights a little bit brighter each day. So, thank you for contributing to that. We're so grateful for you both.
Gerald Reid
Thanks for tuning in to the Reid Connect-ED podcast. Please remember that this is a podcast intended to educate and share ideas, but it is not a substitute for professional care that may be beneficial to you at different points of your life. If you are needed support, please contact your primary care physician, local hospital, educational institution, or support staff at your place of employment to seek out referrals for what may be most helpful for you. ideas shared here have been shaped by many years of training, incredible mentors research theory, evidence based practices and our work with individuals over the years, but it's not intended to represent the opinions of those we work with or who we are affiliated with. The reconnected podcast is hosted by siblings Alexis Reid and Dr. Gerald Reid. Original music is written and recorded by Gerald Reid (www.Jerapy.com) recording was done by Cyber Sound Studios. If you want to follow along on this journey with us the Reid Connect-ED podcast. we'll be releasing new episodes every two weeks each season so please subscribe for updates and notifications. Feel free to also follow us on Instagram @ReidConnectEdPodcast that's @ReidconnectEdPodcast and Twitter @ReidconnectEd. We are grateful for you joining us and we look forward to future episodes. In the meanwhile be curious, be open, and be well.
Bullying is a term that has become commonly used as a part of conversations among young people and their peers both in real life and online. In the past few decades there has been an uptick in recognizing, researching, and naming bullying in public and private sectors while striving to support those who have been impacted by the aggressive behaviors related to bullying and peer victimization. This is especially prevalent in schools as the CDC currently reports that 1 in 5 teenagers report being bullied in school and 1 in 6 teenagers report being bullied online. That percentage increases when we discuss students who are a minority in their community. Most schools will report that they have some kind of anti-bullying precedent or curriculum, but repeated perpetrations and the damage caused by such behaviors still remains.
Episode 3 of Season 4 provides a very nuanced and detailed discussion about the topic of childhood bullying. In this episode, Jerry and I are joined by Boston University professors and bullying prevention experts, Melissa Holt, Ph.D and Jennifer Greif Green, Ph.D. Topics discussed include clarifying what bullying is and is not, what contributes to kids bullying their peers, how bullying could affect an individual, and how we can help children who are involved in bullying either as a perpetrator or a target. Drs. Holt and Green were Jerry’s mentors during his time at BU during his doctoral training and this episode is a testament to their work together as it comes full circle in the discussion of bullying research.
Be curious. Be Open. Be well.
The ReidConnect-Ed Podcast is hosted by Siblings Alexis Reid and Dr. Gerald Reid, produced by and original music is written and recorded by www.Jerapy.com
*Please note that different practitioners may have different opinions- this is our perspective and is intended to educate you on what may be possible.
