As a PhD in the field of anti-bullying programs for schools, camps and other organizations for more than 15 years, I'm proud to report that Americans are finally addressing bullying as a social crisis. In the vast majority of schools from coast to coast, we're working on bullying response, intervention, and prevention via important new legislation.
Just ten years ago there were few laws on the books anywhere in our country regarding the deliberate cruelty of bullying in our schools. In the spring of 2011 however, nearly all states have some kind of law regarding protection from bullies. We've come to see bullying as the form of inter-social terror it really is though we have mountains to climb, especially in the large public schools of America's big cities where violence is more prevalent today than ever.
The key point to remember is the issue of rampant bullying has found its way to center stage. Administrators, teachers, parents, students and school districts are working to implement new laws and policies which prevent bullying and help those in authority protect the bullied child. Even President Obama sponsored a bully conference on bullying this year in the White House, putting the issue squarely in the national spotlight.
We've come to understand what happens if we turn away from the tough task of monitoring and dealing with bullies and bullying. We've all read the headlines. From Columbine to Rutgers to Binghamton, the consequences have been central factors in national stories of horrific violence and bully-cide.
There may be no headlines when it happens to your child, but the individual and family repercussions are just as grave. Ask any group of parents about bullying in their own lives and you'll hear how the legacy of these painful memories carries on into the future.
Of course, we all know that bullying is not a problem in our society that ends at high school graduation. The problem is embedded in our culture. But it's a good thing that our first laws about bullying focus on middle and high schools. Our children are the most vulnerable members of the human family. It's the job of our society to protect and cultivate young minds. Anti-bullying legislation is one of our most powerful tools if we can follow it up with consistent action.
We must accept personal responsibility for protecting our youth from bullying.
For as long as I've been in practice, I've been working towards the time when bullying in schools, in whatever form, would be on the defensive. Because of concrete action, bullies are on alert in many places. For adults, either in the home or the workplace, intimidation is against the law. And so it will be, universally, in schools and any organization where our youth thrive, in the near future. This is what I hope for and work diligently towards every day in my practice, in schools, and in summer camps throughout the country.
Though we're now fully engaged in the battle to stamp out bullying violence and intimidation in the hallways of our schools, we have huge obstacles before us. This would not be an honest briefing on the state of the war against bullying not to admit it.
Sometimes it seems as though our culture encourages bullying behavior through the media, reality shows, and even the content of many popular video games. But we must not let the shallow values of the few set the moral compass for the many.
The broken nature of families amidst deep and unending poverty in the big cities is another seemingly insurmountable hurdle in the battle to stop bullying in schools. Where there is violence and bullying in the streets, it will make its way to the school cafeteria. In Philadelphia, for instance, nearly 33% of students in the intercity have suffered from violent bullying or witnessed it firsthand on the playground or in the classroom.
Again, we've only begun to deal with bullying. For the most part, this start is only in those neighborhoods unencumbered by social despair. But we'll fight this war to the end, I believe, and we'll have an impact on bullying in the toughest high schools in the poorest school district if we increase our convictions and put our minds to solving this crisis.
We're also reacting to the explosion in cyber-bullying. A text and social media assault on your child can happen in seconds. With cyber-bullying, it's not a punch in the stomach. It's a blow to the heart and soul. It comes in HD video and high-resolution photos and it arrives with an internet audience of hundreds or even thousands. The bully doesn't have to witness the hurt he or she causes, and it's as easy as the click of a button.
Did you know that 35% of 11 year olds and 72% of 15 year olds in America have mobile phones? What percent of those phones have parental controls in place? You'd be shocked to hear the statistics. Puberty and adolescence is a time of poor judgment and ignorance of consequences. This makes cyber-bullying fertile ground for modern bullies.
However, at this moment, I'm very encouraged. School staff and our lawmakers are working together to save lives because they know the stakes. Laws are being written every day that directly address bullying, cyber-bullying and the rights of the individual no matter a person's age. As I travel around the country as a speaker on bullying in schools, I see real progress on stopping bullies. I would not have thought possible only a few years ago.
Of course we can't eradicate bully behavior completely from all school and camp environments, the home, or the workplace. Human nature is intractable. But what we can do we are doing, state by state, district by school district, and camp by camp.
As a people we have now earned a passing grade when it comes to stopping bullies in our schools and other places children are at risk, with many and more rigorous tests before us.
