SCHOOL BULLIES, SCHOOL VIOLENCE & HATE CRIMES

Inspired Counseling Speaks Out About School Bullies, School Violence, Hate Crimes, Guns and Knives in School, and the causes of and cures for these urgent major problems in our families and our schools.

Please print this page / explore this web site and tell others who are concerned and want to make a difference.

Especially, refer any parents you know — either whose child is a victim of bullying, or whose child is a bully...

There is a cure!

Is Youth Violence on the Increase? Or Are We Just Hearing More About It?

We are hearing so much in the news about violence in schools, bullying of children at school, the War Against Violence, Hate Crimes, children bringing guns or knives to school, threats of violence, threats to kill other students, teachers, or principals; teenagers killing their parents; bomb threats, and more...

Yes, we do have a major problem! And those who are speaking out, being interviewed, and talking of solutions which get at the problem “at its roots”, of solutions they might be able to implement at school, and so on, are not getting at the root of the problem if they stop there — if they attempt to implement only at the school level.

School violence, hate crimes, threats of any kind, are all rooted in one’s family environment/what one grows up with. Yes, there are elements which contribute in the school environment (sometimes including the teachers), and in the neighborhood. The bullying, put-downs, teasing, competitiveness, and many other factors in the school environment are definite contributory factors. And that includes feeling left out, being belittled by other students, or not measuring up to whatever someone else’s standard is!

However, the primary place to begin — for every child involved in the problem — is in the home. Identify the Schoolyard Bully, and then look at the home environment. It may take deep scrutiny, because unless the dysfunctional patterns have worsened to the point of becoming visible to the general populace, they may/could be well-hidden. And they may/will be denied.

But dig we must. Find the original problem in the home, we must.

Identify the victim of the taunts, the bullying, the put-downs, the teasing, and you will also find a child with low self-esteem, who is readily identified as a likely target by the bullies, but who virtually always has had low self-esteem in the first place, due to factors in the home which have not given that child what s/he needs; or perhaps due to some deformity / disfigurement... a physical feature slightly out of the ordinary, or a handicap. Even the child who is shorter than average can be a target; or one who is exceptionally tall.

Identify the bully, and you will find a child who is him/herself from a home where there is abuse. Children learn what they live.

The schoolyard bully virtually always comes from a home where there is physical violence/abuse, verbal battery and put-downs of one form or another happening in the home.

The abuse at home may be directed at the child(ren), at the other parent, or both. This child will usually become a bully of other children, or the object of bullying at school. In the extreme, this child(ren) may kill the abusive parent(s).

Contributing factors (usually learned in the home environment) will include: attitude toward others, prejudice, unhealthy values, and low self-worth. Competition as opposed to cooperation is another learned behavior which may contribute to the problem.

Solutions which stop at the school environment do not fix the problem. They will be surface ‘bandages’, not permanent fixes.

These are causative levels (and where the cure must begin):

• Dysfunctional Families, abusive parents (verbal/emotional and/or physical), inattentive parents, parents who are not there for that child in one way or another (emotionally, physically, sometimes financially, etc.) are contributory factors.

• Parents who support their children financially (maybe too well!), but that is the only way they know how to show ‘love’, come under the heading of emotionally-absent parents.

• Parents who are too permissive, behaviorally or financially, are also contributing factors. Parents who can’t say no, who enable, who excuse bad behavior, who bail their offending child out of jail.

  A parent who defends their regularly acting-out child, and denies they are creating any problems is enabling that child in a major way and the parent is not a healthy disciplinarian. They will frequently shift the blame for the problem elsewhere.

• Under the heading of verbal/emotional abuse we must include put-downs, unreasonable expectations or limits, ‘limiting’ messages related to the child’s abilities or expected accomplishments (“you’ll never...”, “you’re only...”, “you’re stupid”, etc.), and all manner of lack of success and earnings expectations for that child or teen’s future.

• Low self-esteem, festering emotional wounds, inner turmoil, unresolved and/or unexpressed anger all create situations which must be addressed and healed for the problem to get fixed — for the causes to be healed.

  Negative feelings which are stuffed down do not go away; they create some version of unhealthy reaction — which will find its way out at some point... in one or many ways.

  Very often these feelings will be fed by further abuse, and there will grow a yeast-like reaction — which can fester, and explode as we have seen in many of these school violence situations/family murders.

This does not have to be. There is a solution. It is not free, it is not instant, it is not super-easy – it is also not extremely complex, nor is it impossible, or that difficult. It just takes getting started and staying with this therapy until one is healed and the life scripts rewritten!

Yes, it will take a little money and it will take a bit of time — but an investment well worth it’s small price — and giving benefits so all-encompassing, and immeasurable — they are truly beyond description!

I see 180-degree turnarounds in those who do this growth work, and complete it.

It will take honesty at every level. So often abuse in the home is hidden and denied (including by those being abused, out of fear of further abuse).

Others (including teachers and neighbors, other family members) must be very alert for the signs of it. And they must report abuse to the proper authorities, and enlist the help of all involved with those children (family, teachers, principles, school counselors, Child Protective Services, Police, whomever can/will help).

What About a Situation Where Everyone is in Denial?

Where the immediate family is in denial, very often, so is the extended family. There are instances where the abusive person is either in law enforcement or the military. These can be among the most difficult cases to identify and correct / help, due to the cover-up / support abusers receive from their peers. Do not be fooled; pursue the case to its rightful conclusion. NOTE: Be careful if the abuser is in the military or police force; they often are 'protected' by those with whom they work, and the abused may be further persecuted. Document and get other witnesses, if this is the case.

On other pages of this web site, I address related aspects of parenting and domestic violence.

Inspired Counseling/Life Directions Counseling Center offers you the most effective solution for dysfunctional patterns... and for the behaviors, attitudes, and events they cause.

The details of how to get this help are right here, on this web site, and for the healing to happen, they must be used — in the whole family, in the whole school, in the whole community, the whole state, the whole country — in the whole world — wherever needed.

This help is / I am truly
easy to find! Please look in the
upper right corner of this page —
Chat with me when I’m Online.
or Call me during my open phone hours —

Can We Heal Ourselves? Can We Heal This Problem? Can We Heal the World?