Working with Trauma-Exposed Children and Adolescents

Evidence-Based and Age-Appropriate Practices

Joanna Pozzulo, Craig Bennell, Joanna Pozzulo, Craig Bennell

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781138099197
• eBook ISBN: 9780429750700
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Far too often, children and youth experience trauma, from rare events such as mass shootings, terrorism attacks, and school lockdowns, to very common occurrences such as bullying, exposure to drugs and alcohol, or various mental health issues. They can experience these events both directly and indirectly (from surfing the internet, watching television, or through their friends). Our children spend a large portion of their day at school interacting with other students, teachers, and school personnel, where these topics are raised and discussed. This edited volume addresses how our teachers and school personnel can help students deal with these potentially traumatic events to reach the most positive possible outcomes.

This collection brings together leading experts, including academics and professionals working in the field, to provide the most current evidence-based practices on how to help students who may have experienced or witnessed trauma. It presents research and advice on how to respond to traumatic events regarding bullying; drugs and alcohol; sexual abuse; mental health; lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) safety; stranger danger; childhood disruptive behaviors; school shootings and lockdowns; and terrorism. It also includes a chapter focused on how to implement a school safety program. Schools cannot deal with these issues alone; effective strategies must engage family members and the broader community. Hence, the collection includes a chapter on how schools can partner with families and the communities they reside in to bring about positive change. All this work pays close attention to cultural and religious sensitivity, socio-economic variabilities, diversity issues, and developmental stages.

1

Talking About Bullying in the Classroom and Beyond

Tina Daniels and Nicole Summers

Bullying has become an important topic of conversation with youth today. It is not a new phenomenon, but how we perceive and deal with it has changed extensively over the last 20 years. Today, bullying is understood as harmful behaviors and interactions that cannot be ignored.

A recent meta-analysis of 80 studies analyzing bullying involvement rates (for both bullying others and being bullied) for 12–18 year olds found on average 35% of peers were involved in traditional bullying and 15% were involved in cyberbullying (Modecki, Minchin, Harbaugh, Guerra, & Runions, 2014). Despite these high rates of bullying behavior, many who work with youth are not sure how or what they should do when bullying situations arise. Professionals are hesitant to talk with youth about bullying for fear of making things worse and because they lack confidence in their abilities to deal effectively with these behaviors. One research study asked 735 US teachers and school counselors “What do you think you might do?” in response to the following bullying scenario (Bauman, Rigby, & Hoppa, 2008):

A 12-year-old student is being repeatedly teased and called unpleasant names by another, more “powerful” student [i.e., possessing greater or enhanced social or physical power such as greater physical strength, access to embarrassing information, higher peer status, or popularity], who has successfully persuaded other students to avoid the targeted person as much as possible. As a result, the victim of this behavior is feeling angry, miserable, and often isolated.

(p. 839)

Before discussing what others thought they might do, take a minute to think about this situation:

• What would you do? Do you have a clear idea of how to handle this situation?
• Are you sure that this is what you should do?
• Do you have confidence in your abilities to address this issue in an effective way?

The teachers and counselors who completed this survey most often reported they would “discipline the bully”. Although this strategy may be considered justifiable in some cases of severe bullying, it is not applicable in this situation, which is relatively low in severity. In fact, punitive approaches are currently not considered best for dealing with bullying behavior (APA’s Zero Tolerance Task Force, 2008). Teachers had the least agreement about what should be done to help the victim. Many said they would “teach the victim to stand up to the bully”, a strategy that places the targeted youth in danger, and others said they would “work to increase the self-esteem of the bully”, a strategy that is not supported by research (Rigby, 1996; Seals & Young, 2003). Thus, it appears that, despite the best intentions, there is a lack of knowledge as to how best to address bullying behaviors.

A study by Fekkes, Pijpers, and Verloove-Vanhorick (2005) found that among the 58% of children who had been bullied several times a week and reported the incident to a teacher, only 28% reported that their teacher was successful in stopping the bullying; 20% said the teacher tried to stop it to no effect; 10% said the teacher tried to stop the bullying but it became worse; and 8% responded that the teacher did not try to stop the bullying. Findings from these types of studies provide grounds for concern regarding the ability of professionals who work with youth to effectively address bullying behaviors. Most adults have the same concerns that children express regarding dealing with bullying: they are not sure what to do, are fearful of making it worse, and hope that if they just ignore it, the bullying will stop. Unfortunately, the nature of bullying behavior is such that just ignoring it, or telling kids they should learn to solve their own problems, will not reduce bullying. By definition, bullying starts off as small insidious acts that over time escalate if nothing is done.

This chapter focuses on the nature and impact of bullying and cyberbullying on youth and how those who work with youth can help reduce these behaviors. To make changes in the rates of bullying behavior requires knowledge, motivation, self-efficacy, attitude change, school climate change, and cultural change. Bullying is a complex social phenomenon and because of these complexities, it is not easily eradicated, but that does not mean it is impossible to effectively intervene and even prevent such behaviors from occurring. In fact, the most important variable in producing change is buy-in from school staff and administration (Limber, 2004; Rigby, 2011). The more invested agencies are in addressing bullying, the more successful they will be. Because you are reading this chapter, you are already on your way to effectively addressing bullying for the youth you work with. At the end of this chapter, you will find that additional bullying prevention resources have been provided in Appendix 1. Where relevant, they have been noted in the text using an asterisk and the corresponding number from Appendix 1. Please refer to these for additional information regarding tools, resources, and support.

Establishing a Common Definition of Bullying

Youth have multiple ways in which they are able to hurtfully engage with their peers. They might say mean things in face-to-face interactions, use indirect actions such as exclusion and eye-rolling, or use the vastly expanding cyberworld to hurt each other by sharing private pictures or messages with unintended recipients, sending mean texts, or writing nasty tweets or other social media posts. The definition of bullying has changed over the years to account for the growing number of environments and mediums in which bullying may occur. Recently, in an effort to establish a uniform definition of bullying, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Violence Prevention Division) and the United States Department of Education engaged in a consultative process with leading bullying experts and practitioners (Gladden, Vivolo-Kantor, Hamburger, & Lumpkin, 2014). These organizations have recommended that the following definition be used universally:

[Bullying is] any unwanted aggressive behavior(s) by another youth or group of youths, who are not siblings or current dating partners, that involves an observed or perceived power imbalance (i.e. physical size, social status, high influence on the peer group) and is repeated multiple times or is highly likely to be repeated. Bullying may inflict harm or distress through many behaviors intended to cause physical, psychological, social, or educational harm.

(p. 7)

Bullying is a learned aggressive behavior and is not a reflection of the child’s innate nature. It is important not to label children as “bullies” or “victims”, as these labels are stigmatizing and can lead to children being perceived and perceiving themselves as nothing more than this label (Reiney & Limber, 2013; Swearer & Espelage, 2004). These labels also do not reflect the dynamic nature of bullying, which often involves a group of children who sometimes bully others and are sometimes victimized and often are witnesses to these acts. Regardless of the role played, addressing bullying must involve changing the way youth understand, perceive, and react to bullying behavior. Adults who work with youth must support and help them develop effective strategies for developing healthy relationships, interacting with peers, and dealing with conflict (1, 2, 6*).

The environment in which bullying behaviors may be used is not restricted to the school or school yard. Bullying is not only a school problem, but also a community and societal problem that requires community effort, including teachers, parents, and peers, for prevention and intervention to be effective. Moreover, bullying is not a normal part of development and is not a problem that children can solve on their own (Pepler & Craig, 2014). Youth spend a large amount of time in school, where adults can model positive behaviors and positive relationships; however, to effectively address bullying behavior, children need to receive a consistent message from all those they interact with that bullying is not ok and that adults will be able to effectively help them address these behaviors to develop positive relationship skills. This begins with understanding what bullying behavior is and looks like.

What IS and Is NOT Bullying?

It is important to distinguish bullying from other hurtful behaviors such as accidently hurting someone’s feelings or saying or doing mean things. Bullying and violence are subcategories of aggressive behavior that overlap and there are situations in which violence is used in the context of bullying. Importantly, not all forms of bullying (e.g., rumor spreading, online bullying) involve violent behavior (Olweus, 1996). Understanding what bullying is and recognizing that not all hurtful behavior is bullying is an important step towards addressing this problem (Hinduja & Patchin, 2014).

What differentiates aggression from bullying? Sometimes, youth reactively aggress against another person because they are unable to control their anger (e.g., a child is accidently hit with a ball in the hall, they infer negative intent, and react in the situation by hitting the person who threw the ball). This type of situation is referred to as reactive aggression. It differs from bullying in several important ways: (1) it is not planned, (2) it is not directed towards a particular person, (3) it does not occur repeatedly over time, nor is there the perceived threat that it may, and (4) there is not an established power differential between those involved. These are hurtful acts of aggression and may be mean, but they are not considered bullying. Not all aggression is bullying.

Although relationships can involve a level of conflict and teasing, it is important to identify and intervene when teasing becomes bullying. Teasing can be a playful interaction used to evoke a response from a peer, provide feedback to a peer regarding their behaviors, or resolve a conflict in an indirect manner; however, teasing also can be used to cause harm by embarrassing, criticizing, or isolating a peer. The words “just teasing” also can be used to cover mean or hurtful intent from the adults who are present. Teasing becomes bullying when the teasing causes stress, hostility, and harm to the person being teased, when it occurs repeatedly, and when there is a power imbalance between the peers. Further information can be found in an informative article written by Dess, White, Jaffe, and Jaffe (2011).

The Nature of Bullying Behavior

There are many different forms or ways that children can be bullied. Bullying is often defined using four categories: physical, verbal, social, and cyber/online bullying. Physical bullying involves hitting, kicking, shoving, spitting, damaging someone’s property, and/or stealing. Although certainly not limited to boys, boys are more likely than girls to partake in physical bullying and this form of bullying is most prevalent during preschool-early elementary school years and tends to decrease over time (Silva, Pereira, Mendonça, Nunes, & de Oliveira, 2013; Veenstra et al., 2013). Verbal bullying includes name-calling, mocking, hurtful teasing, humiliation, threatening someone, making racist comments, and sexual harassment. Boys and girls are equally likely to verbally bully and these behaviors can start as early as preschool, but also tend to gradually decline over time. A more indirect form of bullying is social or relational bullying, which is characterized by using the peer group to harm another individual’s social status, relationships, or reputation. Examples of social/relational bullying include excluding others from the group, gossiping or spreading rumors about others, and damaging friendships (Coyne et al., 2006; Galen & Underwood, 1997). Girls tend to partake in social/relational bullying more when they are younger, but by high school, boys and girls engage in social bullying at equal rates (Crick, 1996; Crick & Grotpeter, 1995; Li, 2006). By adolescence and into adulthood, social bullying becomes one of the most frequent forms of bullying, with a focus on manipulating social relationships.

A newer form of bullying, labeled “cyberbullying”, has gained attention in both the media and research. Cyberbullying occurs through modern technological devices, specifically mobile phones or the Internet (Slonje & Smith, 2008). Cyberbullying may take the form of mean or nasty messages or comments, rumor spreading through posts or creation of groups, exclusion by groups of peers online, and the posting of embarrassing photographs. Cyberbullying has been found to be less prevalent than traditional bullying; however, Pornari and Wood (2010) have found that high levels of traditional bullying and victimization are related to high frequencies of cyberbullying and becoming a victim of cyberbullying (Merrill & Hanson, 2016). Cyberbullying has been argued to be similar to traditional bullying in intent to harm, and the behaviors used to cause harm (Dooley, Pyz·alski, & Cross, 2009; Smith et al., 2008); however, it differs from traditional bullying in three important ways: (1) it can reach the victims without requiring face-to face interaction, (2) it has the potential to reach an infinite audience, and (3) because of the perceived anonymity, youth report that they would engage in more hurtful and harmful behaviors than they would face-to-face (Felix, Green, & Sharkey, 2014; Li, 2006). What is posted online is permanent, has the potential to reach a vast audience, and can victimize a peer across many different environments (e.g., school, home, the mall). The permanency of cyberbullying posts enables them to re-victimize a person over and over as each new person sees/reads it. One of the defining features of cyberbullying is the inability of victims to escape it (Slonje & Smith, 2008). Because it also does not include any face-to-face interaction, those who engage in harmful behavior do not receive any immediate feedback in regards to the target’s emotional reaction to the hurtful behaviors. This lack of feedback may contribute to youth reports that bullying is more hurtful online than face-to-face. In addition, some researchers have found that cyberbullying may be less planned than traditional bullying and may be more fluid, shifting between engaging in bullying behavior, experiencing victimizing behaviors, and witnessing bullying online (Shapka & Amos, 2012) (3, 7, 22, 23, 24, 25*).

Despite these differences in bullying behavior, research to date suggests that it is the content of the bullying that causes the harm, not the delivery method that is most detrimental to youth (Bauman & Newman, 2013; Modecki et al., 2014; Vandebosch & van Cleemput, 2008). In addition, there is a strong relationship between involvement in traditional bullying behaviors and involvement in cyberbullying behaviors. Research has also shown that cyberbullying decreases after the implementation of anti-bullying programs that contain no cyber-specific content (Salmivalli, Karna, & Poskiparta, 2011). Thus, at this time, it appears that strategies to address traditional bullying behaviors also have a positiv...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Contributors
• Introduction
• 1 Talking About Bullying in the Classroom and Beyond
• 2 Addressing Problematic Substance Use in Adolescence: What Works?
• 3 Talking to Young Children About Sexual Abuse Prevention
• 4 Talking About Mental Illness in Classrooms and Communities
• 5 Promoting Safety for LGBTQ+ Kids in School Communities
• 6 Reframing Stranger Danger: Online Child Sexual Exploitation
• 7 Using a Trauma-Informed Lens to Understand and Implement Evidence-Based Practices with Children Experiencing Disruptive Behavior in School and Beyond
• 8 School Shootings and School Lockdowns
• 9 Exposure to Terrorism and Political Violence
• 10 Implementing School-Based Programs
• 11 Schools: An Ideal Setting for Talking About Trauma
• Conclusion
• Index