Mean girls are girls who bully other girls. I was very surprised to learn the unassuming profile of the mean girl bully. She presents herself as well mannered to adults but is very mean and hurtful toward her peers. Often it's girls with high self-esteem who are mean to others. It's the cute, popular girls who do this. They do it because they can, not because they need to.Mean girls use backbiting, exclusion, rumors, name-calling and manipulation to inflict psychological pain on targeted victims. Mean girl bullies' victims are often harder to detect.
While boys come in wih a black eye, girls usually are under the radar carrying their scars inside, hidden even from their parents. With boys, bullying incidents can be intense but they are short lived and easily forgotten. If a boy doesn't get invited to the movies by his friends, he might be angry initially. But, the next day they are all out skateboarding!
Not so for girls, who tend to use a kind of slow torture that is manipulative, calculating and sometimes even brilliant. For example, one group of girls invented a fictitious rock band and told their victim that the group was real. The victim, desperately wanting to fit in, claimed to be a fan of the band. The bully who led the group invented a video she had seen, created songs and sang lyrics in the hallway, all as a way of eliciting responses from the unsuspecting victim such as, "Yeah, I heard that on the radio yesterday." The ruse went on for months, with the bully and her group entertained by the victim appearing more and more foolish every day.
Yet another example, "They made it seem like something good, like an invitation or something," a middle school girl says. "They were smiling. I opened it and it was written in all different colors of inks and handwriting, saying we don't want to be your friend, don't look at us, don't call us, don't come near us. Everyone put it a different way -- they all wrote it."
In the middle school setting this is becoming more and more evident on our campus and classrooms. I am committed to help resolve the incidents of bullying and I feel like we have had major success in redirecting the students involved with bullying to more appropriate social behavior.
More information is needed to guide parents and adults to effective solutions to mean girl bullying prevention. Do you have any ideas or examples you would like to share?
3 comments:
Hi clement,
As a counselor, do you recommend having the bullies stand in front of the entire school and be bullied at? That would be constitutionally unacceptable, right? If so, then how about inviting the bullies to a speech contest which talks about "why I feel the need to bully other girls?" and at the end of the contest, open for questions and answers where other girls are able to express their views and speak up to those in the audience who would have caused them pain.
Invite all bullies to a bully's parade and get their reactions when they are through. I am sure their attitudes would change.
Bullying is another form of terrorism, and this must stop now before another innocent life is taken.
Powerful stuff, clement. I need to read more about this topic. Thanks, Mac
I like to educate the bystanders and victims on how to redirect bullying behavior.
I enjoyed reading your comment but way sure fire approach is to engage the children and clearly let them know that I am available and willing to listen to whatever concerns them.
Thank you for your comment!
Your blog about mean girls is very informative and very true and evident in schools. It is unfortunate that girls are susceptible to this kind of treatment based on their skin color, weight, socioeconomic status, hairstyle and many other reasons. A lot of this ridicule and mean treatment is at the expense of one girl in order to benefit another. Social interaction with other girls can be a very cruel world for a young girl to experience at a young age. There seems to be so much pressure and emphasis put on the physical appearance of young girls that it almost seems as if cloning is an option that the media would like to offer to young girls. There is not typical body frame that should be required of young girls and no particular style of hair or clothing that these individuals should aspire to emulate. I think this message should be clearly delivered to these young girls so they know uniqueness is perfectly fine and being different does not mean wired, odd, or less of a person. The comic that you have posted depicts the interaction of girls at any given age or grade level at any given time. The pain that some people endure is indescribable and very unfortunate. People in general should be very cognizant of the impact of social interaction has on the lives of young girls and inquire as to how these individuals are being treated and feel interacting with others. Without a conscious effort, the mean girl” syndrome will continue to spread and negatively impact countless numbers of young girls.
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