Bully for you

Here are just a few facts to show how widespread bullying is:

Sonia Sharp, an expert on bullying, said in a speech for the Brighton and Hove education authority in the United Kingdom that one in two students experience occasional bullying during any school term.

In the year 2006, according to US government statistics, bullying was widespread in American schools, with more than 16 percent of US school children saying they had been bullied by other students.

Being the literary nut that I am, I checked my dictionary for just what bullying means. It associates bullying with harassment, intimidation and coercion. It involves browbeating and abuse. Not very nice, is it? No caring parent wants their child to be mean-spirited. Except for a few exceptions, most people don’t want to be mean either.

Here are some facts from other British experts on the Coastkid Web site:

“Between 15 and 25 children every year commit suicide because they are being bullied (there may be more we don’t know about, and many more than this attempt it because bullying has made them so unhappy. More than a quarter of students get threats of violence whilst at school, and half of these threats have been carried out. Attacks on boys accounts for 75 percent of these incidents. Around 10 percent of children have missed school because of the violence. Up to 40 percent of secondary school students feel that their teachers are unaware of the bullying which goes on. About 17 percent of calls to ChildLine are about bullying. For five years running it’s been the most common reason people call. More 12 year olds call ChildLine about bullying than any other age group.”

Bullying among Turkish high school students is a serious problem, according to Yasemin Karaman Kepenekçi and Şakir Çınkır. The results of their research show that of the total of 692 students they interviewed, everyone reported having been bullied. Of those interviewed, 33.5 percent had been bullied verbally, 35.5 percent had been bullied physically, 28.3 percent had been bullied emotionally and 15.6 percent had been bullied sexually at least once during the academic year.

Equally shocking is the setting -- in urban centers in Turkey, expats struggle with their children being bullied at school for being different. Expatriate kids are not immune to bullying. Children who are different from their peers in some way are the most frequent targets of bullies. People are often surprised to hear that bullying can occur anywhere -- be it at expensive private schools or in a government school. Needless to say, the fact is that bullying is a growing problem across Europe. Parents, teachers and child psychologists are now coming to grips with how widespread bullying is and are trying to combat the problem, whether it is physical violence, threats of violence, verbal abuse or just socially isolating a victim.

One American mom, who is married to a Turk and is the mother of two American-Turkish children, told me that she had to take her children out of the local Turkish school and put them in an international school as her children were always being picked on for being different. Growing up in Turkey now after having lived for a short time in America and then moving back seems to have made it harder for the kids to readjust to Turkey. The mother said that though the kids liked it better now that they were not in a government school, it did not seem to help them feel integrated into the local culture. Unfortunately, kids tend to band together in nationality groups and never integrate properly. This mom added that every day she asks her kids about their day at school and monitors them to ensure that they are not being bullied.

A phrase that can be confusing for students studying English is “Bully for you.” It usually is a term indicating praise, sometimes it may be used with a hint of sarcasm, but often not.

Here is a wise tip: “Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one’s definition of your life, but define yourself.” Harvey S. Firestone