TAPLINK

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Pennsylvania
Adoptive & Foster Families

Taproot issue 40 - June 2001

Teasing is often part of the school experience. It lies along a continuum that ranges from friendly bantering to bullying to harassment. Dictionaries draw distinction among teasing, bullying, and harassment. Teasing involves pestering or making fun of someone. Bullying is when someone is cruel or overbearing toward another person who may be weaker physically or mentally. Bullying is also the constant teasing that makes life miserable at school. Harassment is the most severe of the three and involves severity, persistence, and pervasiveness of the behavior.

In real life…teasing, bullying, and harassment may overlap. A frequent scenario of unwanted teasing is when one student leads in “picking” on another child, and other children join in…If that happens schools can send a message that “we are a school family and need to show respect for one other, and we don’t make another’s life miserable by teasing. The leader may not quit testing, but many of the followers will, because most children do not want to get in trouble.

In the end, the expectation is not that schools can prevent all teasing, but that the adults at school consistently send a message that harmful or unwanted teasing will not be tolerated.

Parents can take steps if a child is taunted constantly or incessantly:

1. Listen to your child and observe any changes in behavior. Realize that each child is an individual. What may not affect one child may extremely distress another.

2. Discuss the situation with your child.

3. Teach your child specific words to use in response to the teasing.

4. Look at ways your child can stay away from the children doing the teasing. That may include sitting in a different location in the lunchroom, participating in difference activities on the playground, or sitting in a different place on the bus.

5. Keep a record of what your child describes as happening at school. Include a) dates, b) who was involved, c) what was said, and d) the name of someone who might have seen or heard the incident.

6. Discuss with your child what the next step might be, such as speaking to the teacher about what has happened. (Be aware that your child may not want you to tell the teacher for fear of retaliation or being labeled a “tattletale.”)

7. Inquire if your child’s school has peer mediation. If so, have your child request mediation with students involved.

8. If you speak to the teacher about the teasing or bullying and the issue is ignored, send the school principal a letter containing a) the date on which you spoke to the teacher, b) your concerns, c) specific information about the incidents, and d) the adverse affects of the taunting on your child. Ask for a meeting to discuss the situation.

9. Inform the principal that you expect school staff to send the message to all children that teasing and bullying will not be tolerated.

10. If the principal does not intervene, send copies of the letter you sent the principal to the chair or members of the school board and the superintendent of schools requesting a written reply on the action the school will take. Include the date you contacted the principal and his or her response.

If parents and school staff intervene appropriately, it is likely that teasing and bullying will not escalate to harassment.

PENews Fall 1999