MIND MOVES: A shroud of dread descends upon thousands of school-goers this week. As the schools reopen after the Christmas break, the bullies return to resume their game of taunting their chosen prey.
The recipients of this cruelty search for strength to return to school. They seek courage to continue the pretence that they are not wounded to the core of their being by this inane, inhumane cruelty. Involuntary participants in the pageantry of brutality, they return to take their place in the macabre practice, perpetrated by the deficient upon the defenceless that goes by the somewhat innocuous name of bullying.
Bullying is not innocuous. It is an assault. It stamps upon the psyche of receivers. Its imprint may last a lifetime or may end a life. Bullying, or being bullied, is not a normal part of growing up.
It is not the rough and tumble of the playground. It is not the competitiveness of childhood. It is not quarrelling among peers. It is not initiation into secondary school or a rite of passage into adolescence. And it is not something that young people can "sort out" among themselves. Bullying is internationally defined as "intentional conscious, persistent cruelty perpetrated against those who are unable to defend themselves".
Bullying is secretive. Its existence depends upon the silence of witnesses, the inaction of adults, the uncertainty of those in authority and total intimidation of the person being bullied. It relies on the sufferer to pretend that what is happening is not happening.
That is why, as they return to school this week, those who are bullied must pretend to their parents that school is fine lest the consequences of disclosure exceed the everyday misery they have learned to endure. Reprisal, they know, is always more vicious than routine violence. Those who are bullied must pretend to their teachers that injuries are accidents; that insults are of humorous intent; that isolation is selected; and, in some cases, that their inadequate academic progress is due to idleness rather than distress, depression or the very depths of despair at being bullied.
Being bullied may involve feeling despised, unwanted and worthless. It may mean having to bring protection money or objects of appeasement to school; being called names, jeered, mocked and humiliated. It may mean having your lunch spat on, your possessions stolen, being stabbed with a compass, poked with a pen, being pinched, hit or kicked on the playing field and living in fear. It may continue when the school day ends by being prevented from boarding the bus, bicycle tyres being slashed, being beaten up on the walk home and enduring public taunts or menacing mobile texts.
Mobile messages may be insulting, offensive, obscene or threatening. They may be hoax "emergencies" to say a pet has died, a parent has been injured, an arrangement has been cancelled or its venue changed. Or they may be accusations about sexual behaviour, insults and innuendo about sexual preference, orientation, promiscuity or incapacity. Unbelievably, but commonly, text messages instruct the recipient to "commit suicide" on the basis that the person is "a waste of space".
While it is unimaginable that such cruelty could pervade our educational institutions, the statistics from sequential Irish studies on bullying confirm the extent of this bullying behaviour. Teachers are acutely aware of the relentless invention of new forms of ruthlessness that characterise bullying modes. Many are immobilised by the complexity of the problem.
Evidence is problematic. In the absence of personally witnessing an event, discussion may consist of hearsay. Cohorts of bullies, or those intimidated into false witness by them, may swear one version leaving victims twice victimised. Untangling is time consuming and contentious. In the context of threatened litigation if they intervene or if they do not investigate, what are teachers and schools to do?
Some have devised policies to which parents, students and staff sign up every year: watertight documents that delineate procedures and leave little latitude for litigation by those who would challenge agreed process. Many schools struggle to find the practices, protocols and procedures that will protect their students and themselves and some remain without effective policies or have policies that are not enacted.
New research suggests that an adversarial approach may be inappropriate to tackle bullying in schools and that different interventions are required. Restorative rather than retributive procedures have been found to be preferable especially when guided by trained personnel and implemented by students who agree to protect and befriend the bullied person, each student choosing a way to do so and reporting back weekly on exactly what they did and how it achieved its purpose.
These new anti-bullying techniques initially require time, training and external intervention by those proficient in this practice model. But whatever is required deserves consideration. For we collude in what we do not challenge. Young people have the right to be protected and we must protect their rights.
Further information on bullying is on The Other side of Childhood, RTÉ Radio One tomorrow at 7pm.
Marie Murray is director of psychology at St Vincent's Hospital, Fairview and co-author of The ABC of Bullying published by Mercier Press.