Child’s (power) play

Popular culture has given us the more lasting portrayals of the “typical” bully—usually a boy, big and burly, from whom other kids generally stay away for fear of being harmed, taunted, or forced into submission into doing things against their will.

That is not always the case. Fifth-grader Bryan, for instance, is small and roundish, with thick eyeglasses that partially hide an otherwise adorable face. He is president of his class. But recently the class treasurer, Trish, revealed that she had more than once given money to Bryan from the class fund. Bryan had somehow found out who this girl’s crush was, and she was afraid that if she did not give him the money, he would reveal her secret to everyone in class.

President Bryan also does not have to line up at the canteen during recess. He makes sure that another boy, Tom, performs that errand for him—and spends his own money besides. If Tom is lucky, Bryan dismissively mumbles a “thank you.” On bad days, Bryan discards the food, says he does not like it, and makes Tom line up again to buy another kind of snack. Tom runs out of money, and of time to eat his own food if he can manage to get a little for himself.

(Bryan, Trish and Tom are not the kids’ real names).

Ma. Elena Carballo, deputy executive director of the Council for the Welfare of Children, a government office supervised by the Department of Social Welfare and Development, says almost all bullying cases have their roots in the home. She talks about girl in kindergarten kicking college-age students when she does not get her way. “It is weird because here you have bigger children being intimidated by this little girl.” School authorities eventually talked to the girl’s guardian, the grandmother—and soon realized where the problem stemmed. “The grandmother is also a bully,” says Caraballo, “and the child sees what the adult does to the maids and thinks this is all right. When we talked to the grandmother, she even got angry.”

In another case, two brothers aged 12 and nine beat their own five-year-old sister—to death—just because she did not follow what they were asking her to do. The children later said what they did to their sister was what their father did to their mother when she did not do as she was told.

Bullying is essentially power play. A bully believes he or she can make peers do as he wishes, or that he can make their lives miserable if they refuse. Not that anybody refuses, it seems, because bullies only bother those whom they think they can tackle.

Other forms of bullying include calling names, extorting money and other “favors”, grabbing of food and school allowance, threatening to harm with a weapon, and many others. Information technology has also made cyber-bullying possible, where the perpetrator uses social networking sites to make his target “feel bad.”

But bickering and clashing with peers are common among children, that’s why some parents or school authorities are reluctant to step in. The bullying incidents can often hide behind petty quarrels—“away bata”—and surviving them is sometimes seen as a rite of passage.

A lot has been said about protecting our children from bullies. Most likely, a child who feels confident and secure at home will be better able to resist whatever coercive power bullies may exert over him or her. Children are also taught that they should tell parents or school authorities about instances of bullying instead of bearing the burden by themselves.

The effects vary in degree and manifestation. Some bullying targets lose interest in school altogether, suffer from poor appetite, upset stomachs (especially in the morning when one has to get ready for school). They have limited social interaction, and become secretive and withdrawn. In worst cases, these bullying targets commit suicide. Most of the time, they just carry these scars all the way to adulthood.

A middle-aged woman, for instance, who now works in a non-government organization championing children’s rights, cannot forget the name of her tormentor—when they were in kindergarten! “I dreaded going to school. I would invent all kinds of sicknesses so that I would not have to see him,” she says.

“I wonder what became of him,” I ask. “Have you tried Googling him, since you remember his name so well?” We laugh.

But the concern is legitimate. How do bullies turn out, later on in life? Do they outgrow their behavior? Is the bullying tendency tamed or does it show itself in other ways?

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Sometimes parents are surprised when they are told that their children are bullies in school. “But he is so quiet and obedient at home!” they insist. Carballo says it is likely that children feel so repressed and stifled in their own homes—they could not challenge the authority—that it in school where they act out their frustration at being powerless.

Carballo says that theoretically, children with brothers and sisters are less likely to be bullies than only children. This is self-explanatory. Since it all begins in the home, a child learns to socialize, compromise and cooperate with siblings. On the other hand, only children are more pampered and more used to getting attention and preferential treatment from the adults around him or her. They end up demanding the same special treatment outside the home. Of course, all these are in the realm of tendencies, so the guidance of parents, teachers, other school authorities are crucial. “After all, it takes a tribe to raise a child,” adds Carballo.

She adds that the adults must talk to the bully at the earliest possible instance to tell him that what he has been doing is unacceptable. “The problem is that these kids are not aware that their aggressive behavior is wrong, so that has to be corrected.” Carballo also says that while violence is not an option in dealing with bullies, the way to talk to them is to be kind but firm. “These kids won’t take you seriously if they feel they can sway you or reason with you.”

More importantly, the same approach has to be applied by everybody around the child. If the teachers and guidance counselors talk to the child about his acts, and then the child’s parents counter this approach, the results can be more damaging. The child will be confused and this may lead to worsened behavior.

It is possible that the child will grow up and see the error of his ways, but without external support, he will likely go on thinking he has the power over others and exploit this power to the hilt. The school bully will then grow up to be the office bully, or the household bully, or the fellow you just don’t want to have around.

Imagine the psychological toll and cycle of violence—insidious or not—that this would perpetuate. –Adelle Chua, Manila Standard Today

adellechua@gmail.com