Bullying and the Gifted Student
Changing School Culture with Conflict Resolution
While bullying in schools is almost a given these days, changing the way conflicts are handled can be the key to addressing bullying and teasing.
If you are a gifted child and you are being bullied, the problem can be twice as bad. Not only can you be perceived as an easy target, but you can also be more sensitive to the damage inflicted by the verbal or physical abuse. If this is the case, the question becomes for the school and the parents, “What do we do about this?”
Many schools have different plans to address bullying; although, every school should at least take a philosophical stance as being opposed to bullying and other forms of cruelty. While bullying is hurtful for all children who are being persecuted, because they can be so aware of themselves and others, gifted students are particularly vulnerable to this harassment.
First - Call Bullying What It Is
There is no easy solution to bullying, and many people will not like what they have to do to drive out bullying from their school. Like any other problem or illness, ignoring the issue is not a good idea; if bullying is happening at a school, the most important first step is to recognize and announce that it is taking place. This can be an elephant in the living room kind of situation, however. It might be too painful for one person or a group to admit there’s a problem even though everyone knows it’s going on. This might be the time where the parents of the gifted students need to take the lead and start the discussions with the principal and the parent groups to get the ball rolling on behalf of their children. If gifted kids are being harassed, regular education students are feeling the pain as well.
This should be done with every stakeholding group at the school – the parents, the teachers, the students, the administration, the coaches – everyone should be in agreement. There needs to be open and honest conversations about the nature and degree of the situation without ever allowing any specific individuals being named or used as examples.
Once a school community has come together and identified the bullying as an objective concern, then steps can be taken to address the problem. The important piece of the process is that the entire community has taken this first step together, because the next few steps will also require everyone’s support as well in changing the culture of the school that allowed the bullying to happen in the first place.
Turn Up the Lights
Bullying usually doesn’t take place when the spotlight is on. It happens when the teacher has walked away, or in the locker room, or at the back of the bus. By creating a culture or atmosphere that essentially says, “We’re watching,” it becomes more difficult for a bully to do his or her work.
Perhaps even more important than having the adults unite and take a stand, having the students rally together to expose bullying can be very effective. Bullies rely on an unwritten code that states it’s not appropriate to tell a teacher or a parent if bullying is happening – a code of silence that allows the behavior to thrive unchecked.
That is a recipe for disaster in a school.
Every child should be told over and over again that telling an adult that he or she is being bullied is a perfectly acceptable form of self-defense. This is not the same thing as tattling, where a student is reporting bad behavior just for the sake of gossiping; this is making an “I” statement and asking for help.
The next step, however, is critical. If the school adopts an aggressive stance on bullying, and if the children are informed that asking for help is both appropriate and brave, the school must be ready to respond immediately, and not just with discipline alone, but also with conflict resolution procedures including peer mediation.
