Memorandum submitted by Parentline Plus
PARENTLINE PLUS
Parentline Plus is a national charity that works
for, and with, parents. We are the biggest independent provider
of parenting support in the country. We encourage parents to see
that asking for help is a sign of strength, and work with them
to offer practical solutions and to suggest ways to manage their
particular situations and difficulties. We deliver this support
through an innovative range of free, flexible, responsive services—shaped
by parents for parents. Our flagship service is our free, confidential
line for parents—Parentline. Our integrated face to face
services are delivered in our area offices located in: London,
Essex, East Midlands, North East, North West, Oxfordshire, Gloucestershire,
Bristol and North Somerset, Hampshire and Hertfordshire.
Parentline Plus has a long-term commitment to
supporting parents who are worried about bullying and to enable
them to tackle the problem, often in partnership with their child's
school. Many of the parents who contact our free confidential
line for parents—Parentline—or access other face to
face services delivered by the charity, are concerned about their
child's bullying. Nearly a quarter of calls to our helpline in
the last year were from parents worried about bullying.
In response to these concerns, Parentline Plus
has produced a range of information materials, in partnership
with the Department for Education and Skills (DfES), developed
a special section on our website (Parentlineplus.org.uk/bullying)
and continues to offer a listening ear to parents needing to talk
about bullying. In the summer of 2006 we launched an awareness-raising
campaign called Be Someone to Tell which uses the media and information
material to give guidance to parents who are worried that their
child is bullied or may be bullying.
During the last two years, we have produced
a number of briefing papers on parents and bullying and the evidence
contained in them is reflected in this paper.
We have also included quotations from parents
to illustrate points made in this submission.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This paper focuses on the issues raised by parents
who contact Parentline Plus concerned about their child and bullying.
We also consult parents on a regular basis via focus groups, mailings
and website surveys about bullying.
The following recommendations have been drawn
up as a result of Parentline Plus' work with parents whose children
are bullied or are bullies themselves.
Recommendations
1. Anti-bullying policies and work should
be based on a whole family approach, should involve and engage
with parents of those bullied as well as parents of bullies, and
the policies need to ensure that all these parents are supported
and enabled to talk through the issues with their children and
get further help and support for themselves and their children
if needed.
2. As a preventive measure, schools need
to work in partnership with appropriate independent organisations
to equip parents with strategies aimed at identifying and tackling
bullying. The core offer in extended schools is a welcome opportunity
to deliver this information and advice for families.
3. Children and young people need to be
fully conversant with the outcomes of bullying. They need to be
informed within school and community settings about the necessity
for an inclusive and accepting attitude to others and to understand
the implications of racism, sexism and homophobia.
4. When bullying becomes an issue, the lines
of communication between parent/child and school or community
need to be improved. This would enable parents to trust and want
to share their concerns with headteachers, teachers and other
professionals. Ideally, good links between school, parents and
community should be established as a matter of course, so that
these can be built upon if problems such as bullying arise.
5. Head teachers, teachers and other school
support staff should be trained as a matter of course and have
the relevant information to signpost vulnerable families to other
sources of specialist help for their family problems.
6. Where the lines of communication between
parent and school have broken down, the family must have appropriate
advocacy or mediation-based support from independent organisations,
to which the school is able to signpost and refer.
7. There should be good links between school
and community services to ensure that all children have the right
to a safe environment—at school or in the wider community.
8. Anti-bullying policies and programmes
must reflect gender differences around bullying. Currently there
is a tendency to focus on boys and their more overt bullying behaviour.
9. Those working with young people, particularly
with girls, need more training on how to spot the symptoms of
bullying and be more aware of how girls tend to internalise their
feelings, and to have strategies to break down this barrier.
10. Schools need to be more proactive in
making children and young people aware that bullying is not merely
a physical activity, but also consists of excluding people, teasing
or spreading rumours.
11. Because of the interconnected and cyclical
nature of bullying by girls, work to prevent bullying should include
addressing children's difficulties outside the confines of school—looking
at circumstances within the home, and in the community.
12. Schools must build good home school
communications apart from any difficulties of bullying, so that
parents are able to trust the school, and communicate openly.
13. There needs to be much more work done
on raising awareness of definitions of bullying and what is being
done to tackle bullying in schools and in the wider community.
Parents feel that work on what to look out for and where to go
is key.
1. EXTENT AND
NATURE OF
THE PROBLEM
1.1 Parentline call data
The following data is the result of Parentline
Plus looking at 25,000 calls to Parentline to ascertain patterns
and concerns. This has shown:
— Verbal bullying is the most common:
over 11,000 parents talked about verbal bullying.
— The age group of children being verbally
bullied are: 4-8: 2,210, 9-12: 4,368, 13-15: 4,452, 16-19: 1,408.
— 11,000 calls mentioned school as
the key location although a worrying 3,750 talked about bullying
in the home.
— Nearly 3,000 calls were from parents
of bullies.
1.2 Definition
Parentline Plus uses the following definition
of bullying when talking to and with parents and we included this
definition on all our materials about bullying:
"Bullying is when someone is deliberately
hurtful to others over a period of time. The person being bullied
usually finds it difficult to defend themselves."
There are different types of bullying:
— Physical: hitting, kicking, taking
belongings.
— Verbal: name calling, insulting,
making offensive remarks.
— Indirect: spreading nasty stories
about someone; not including them in social groups.
From the evidence we have gathered, we can define
the types of bullying in relation to gender:
Boys
— Taunting, name calling, rumour spreading.
— Flicking, throwing, shoving.
Girls
— Taunting, name calling, rumour spreading.
— Graffiti in toilets and other areas.
— Blanking ("skanking"),
exclusion, alienation of friends.
— Use of SMS, email, Instant Messaging,
defamatory websites, phone calls.
— Fighting or other physical aggression.
1.3 Reasons for bullying
Parents are very clear about why their children
are bullied—the vast majority put it down to "difference".
The role of the peer group is key here.
"She is `different', she possibly has ASD
or dyspraxia and isn't skilled in how to be around people. She
is very loving and trusting and this makes her vulnerable. Other
children see they can torment her. She doesn't complain—in
fact she goes back for more because she is desperate to make friends.
Other children think this is funny. I have tried to teach
her not to trust so easily, tried to build up her self-esteem,
but it isn't easy when she is treated this way."
1.4 Why children are bullied as defined by
parents
Child factors
— "Difference" from peers,
such as being of a different ethnic group, looking different,
disability, shyness or being new to a school can cause children
to be isolated and a target for bullying.
— Reputation: a child may overcome
the initial causes of peer problems, but research shows that peer
attitudes can remain negative across school yearsi.
— Sexuality—early puberty, looks
and image can trigger bullying.
Family factors
— Problems at home can lead to difficulties
with peers. For example, divorce and separation can lead to emotional
and behavioural problems, ii and children may be unwilling to
invite friends home where there is domestic violence or substance
abuse.
Race
Relatively little is known about gender differences
in racist bullying, with more research needed in this area. However
this form of bullying is widespread. In a study of bullying in
England in 2003, a fifth of pupils in Year 5 reported that they
had been called racist names. iii A study by the NSPCC suggests
that children from ethnic minorities are more likely to experience
bullying than their white counterparts. iv
The common characteristic is that racist bullying
was likely to hurt not only the victim but also other pupils from
the same ethnic minority group who perceived that a particular
child was being bullied who had similar characteristics to themselves.
The most common expression of racism is through
racist name-calling, which is often viewed by adults as trivial,
although its impact on children can be profound, and that racial
bullying frequently involves the use of violence.
Racist bullying is not only white on minority
ethnic but, as Eslea and Mukhtar note (2000),v it is at least
as likely to be by other minority ethnic children of a different
ethnic group as by white children. It is likely to relate to some
religious or cultural difference such as the animal forms of some
Hindu Gods, the clothing worn by Indian Muslims or the language
spoken by Pakistanis. Bullying between members of the same ethnic
group was found to be comparatively rare, although a number of
Hindu children reported insults relating to the caste system.
Cyclical causes
— Being bullied can hamper the development
of friendships, which makes the child more vulnerable to further
bullying.
2. SHORT AND
LONG-TERM
EFFECTS
2.1 Long-term effects
Parents are convinced that bulling has long
term effects. A recent poll on the Parentline Plus website asking
parents whether they believed that the effects of bullying persisted
into adult life resulted in 97.6% of parents who responded agreeing.
Victims of bullying experience various forms
of distress and disruption to their lives. The effects on mental
health of being bullied are serious—young people who are
bullied more are more likely to be depressed. Popular concepts
of bullied children are that they are anxious, scared and have
low self-esteem. However, meta-analysis shows that the largest
effect on children is depression, and the smallest is anxiety.
vi
"She would often hide around a corner of
the playground or go to where the younger children played. She
became very distressed at home and changed from being a bright
bubbly girl to being quiet, intolerant and verbally aggressive
sometimes. She didn't want to go to school most mornings. It was
not only distressing for our daughter but for us as parents too
as we watched her change from a very mature well-balanced, funny
and confident individual to a quivering wreck in front of our
eyes in a matter of weeks. We sought help eventually from the
school psychology department."
Children who are depressed may become part of
a negative reinforcing cycle. Young people who are more introverted,
less assertive and over-involved with their families are particularly
vulnerable to bullies. vii Or, because a young person is depressed,
he/she may also attract more negative attention from their peers.
Victims of bullying are likely to be lonely. Bullied children
have lower self-esteem, and a more negative view of their social
competence. All these negative consequences occur amongst both
boys and girls, in all age groups and as a result of all kinds
of bullying.
Parents fears for the future demonstrate the
complexity of the issue:
— Some parents were understandably
concerned that their children would themselves turn into bullies.
— Their more immediate worry was about
how their children would be affected by the bullying, not just
in terms of self-esteem and confidence but also retaliation.
— Some children had clearly "snapped"
as the bullying continued, to the point where they became "the
villain".
2.2 Bullies
The number of parents ringing Parentline because
they are aware that the child is a bully, is relatively small,
but the picture painted is one of dysfunction, conflict and anger.
viii The statistics, when compared with the average levels of
all calls, show families losing control, with their child demonstrating
a range of antisocial behaviours. Violence within the home was
reported on a number of occasions, including fighting between
siblings and between child and parent.
"I am beside myself with stress and weeping.
My son is bullying me for money and we are locked in a vicious
circle. I don't feel as if there are any avenues open to me but
am more afraid my husband will not take much more abuse and will
thump him shortly."
We analysed nearly 900 calls from parents over
a one year period—April 2003-March 2004. In over 80% of
these calls parents talk about the levels of conflict between
parent and child, whilst 69% mention their child's levels of anger.
77% of these parents talk about problems at school as against
the average of 28% of all calls. Over half as many, when compared
with the average, talked about their children being excluded or
truanting.
72% of parents who call to talk about bullies
express anxiety about the situation they are in, with 78% reporting
they are stressed.
Key findings from calls about bullies
— Most of the calls are about sons
(62%) and the most quoted age group is 13-15-year-olds, although
there is a worrying level of 9-12-years-olds cited as bullies.
— 77% of parents talk about problems
at school as against the average of 28% of all calls. Over half
as many, when compared with the average, talked about their children
being excluded or truanting.
— 43% record conflict in the home between
siblings—the average percentage of calls about this issue
stands at only 11%.
— Parents report their child as lying—three
times as many parents mention this than the average, whilst well
over half as many parents—when compared with the average—mention
stealing, smoking and drug abuse.
— There is a much higher level of concern
about conflict with peers 18% as against 4% whilst 20% talk about
their child being in with a bad crowd—well over twice as
many as the average.
— A quarter of calls are from lone
parents and nearly a third raise issues about lack of contact—perhaps
showing how worried a non-resident parent is about their child's
antisocial behaviour.
— Over half as many calls as the average
say that divorce and separation has impacted adversely on their
child's behaviour.
— Children and parents registered much
high levels of involvement with other services—such as GP's,
police and of course, schools.
3. TACKLING THE
PROBLEM
3.1 Government policy
We welcome the Government's determination, and
the work being undertaken by the Department for Education and
Skills, to stamp out bullying but are concerned that the emphasis
remains focused on the school and on enhancing anti-bullying policies
and actions.
Parents are increasingly concerned about bullying
that takes place outside the confines of school, especially when
talking about "cyber bullying". The findings from our
study on girls and bullying showed that girls were suffering from
sophisticated and increasingly cruel bullying via text, instant
messaging, email and so forth. Parents did not know who to turn
to when they found out and where the bully was not at the same
school. If a child is set upon physically, parents can report
such actions to the police. But when the bullying is delivered
via texts—where can a parent turn to?
We are also concerned that there are plans whereby
parents of bullies may be penalised if their child continues to
bully. All our findings on families of bullies demonstrates a
high level of family dysfunction and fragmentation. ix Resources
would be better spent on ensuring early preventive work with these
families and would reap better results than punishment.
3.2 How schools deal with bullying—from
the point of view of parents
Parents consulted by Parentline Plus felt very
strongly about the role of the school. Most of those consulted
had gone to the school and those who did not go did so because
they felt the bullying was not related to the school environment.
Many said that where the school was involved, and especially where
it worked in partnership with parents, bullying could be resolved
more quickly and satisfactorily.x
Where the schools took a partnership approach, parents
believed that the school had tackled the problem well. This usually
meant that the school did what it could to separate children and
monitor behaviour, while parents were asked to talk to the children
and communicate back.
"They rang me to say it was settling down
and it was really good to hear that."
Parents who took this view felt it was important
to establish direct lines of communication with the school—ideally
not via their child. They wanted the school to keep them informed
of progress and to be contacted once the problem was resolved.
"The school have been fantastic and they
have all talked about what should be done. Of course the other
children denied the threats etc and are now verbally abusing her
for going to see the teacher. But the school are helping in any
way they can."
However there are a significant number of parents
who feel the school has not handled the problem effectively. The
greatest sense of frustration and disappointment occurred where
parents thought the school was refusing to acknowledge there was
a problem.
Parents thought that whatever they might or
might not be able to achieve at home, they had absolutely no control
over the environment in which the bullying occurred. Some clearly
believed that the behavioural problem resided largely at school,
where their child had the security of the group and the ability
to intimidate others.
Where schools didn't acknowledge the problem,
despite evidence to the contrary, parents felt they had no "official"
recognition that the problem existed, which made their task so
much harder. Worse than being unsupported, these parents felt
actively undermined. Some had been blamed by the school for their
children's behaviour whilst others felt they were being patronised.
Not surprisingly, they were extremely cynical about school bullying
policies and the school's real agenda.
Another cause for concern amongst parents related
to gender issues around bullying. Research indicates that anti-bullying
support services and policies which aim to prevent exclusion and
stop antisocial behaviour within the school, tend to be dominated
by boys. This not only makes girls less willing to take up help,
but also means that schools and support services are less likely
to refer girls in the first place. Even when girls' behaviour
problems were recognised by schools, they were often overshadowed
by the difficulties of managing greater numbers of boys with challenging
behaviour.
Parents of bullies and their relationship with
schools is a highly complex and difficult problem. Not only are
parents of bullies telling us that they are losing control, but
the statistics demonstrate the very high levels of conflict both
within the family, the school and the community. It is essential
that when schools and communities develop policies to cut down
on bullying and to ensure community safety, the families of bullies
are recognised as needing responsive and appropriate help with
their family life and are not further isolated.
Parentline Plus has recently been developing
and delivering face to face support for parents through our 14
local offices. Such support involves individual and group work
and contact was made with local schools to encourage them to allow
us to offer events to parents. It is of concern that a number
of schools were reluctant to do this, stating that there was no
bullying in their school. We therefore recommend that all schools
should be instructed to run events for parents around bullying
and to nurture the partnership approach which more than anything
else can stamp out bullying.
3.3 The role of parents
Parentline Plus has developed a range of strategies
for parents and the material produced for the Be Someone to Tell
campaign promote these via a wider audience. Feedback from parents
indicate that these strategies help them support their child and
to work better with the school to tackle the specific problem.
We would welcome Members of the Education and
Skills Committee recommending that these strategies are referred
to by any of those working with parents within the context of
bullying. Specific training for the staff who come into contact
with parents over bullying would facilitate a positive partnership.
We would also recommend that each local authority
or school appoints a single point of contact for parents who can
work with the parents and where necessary are able to defuse situations
where communication has broken down between parent and school.
The strategies Parentline Plus recommends to parents:
"What to do if you think your child is
being bullied or is bullying
— Listen and talk to them. They may
feel out of control and ashamed—whether they are being bullied
or bullying. Let them know you love them and want to help.
— Be clear that it is important for
the bullying to stop and that the school will need to be involved.
— If your child is bullying others,
think about what might be behind it—are they trying to get
attention or fit in with the crowd, or are they unaware of how
they are hurting others?
— Talk to the school as soon as possible.
Try to stay calm when you talk to the teachers—it helps
to write down what you know and what the school says to you about
what they are going to do.
— If you think things are not getting
better, ask to see the school's anti-bullying policy and make
an appointment to see the head teacher.
— Take care of yourself. Coping with
your child's bullying may be very stressful—especially if
it brings back memories of your own experiences. Try to take time
for yourself or talk over what you feel with friends or family."
3.4 The role of other organisations
Where parents are involved, organisations such
as ourselves and our partners—especially the Advisory Centre
for Education—have a key role in offering non-judgemental,
responsive information, advice and support. It is vital that these
sources of support are promoted to parents via schools and via
local communities.
Such organisations can take an independent approach,
or mentor, and work with the parent to defuse potential antagonism
between parent and school. They can also deliver high quality
accredited training for teachers on successful approaches in involving
parents and communities in anti-bullying initiatives. Independent
organisations can also contribute appropriate and targeted signposting.
In this, the role of other organisations is
pivotal. Over and above any work being done with the school, family
support services need to be involved and to reach out to these
vulnerable families to offer support, particularly if the bullying
is now involving violence within the home. Without such targeted
support, the lives of those bullied will continue to unravel and
the families of those doing the bullying will not be in any position
to prevent this destruction.
Independent organisations can also be the key
point for parents whose children are being bullied outside the
confine of schools. Currently there is little done by schools
to tackle this element of bullying, especially if it involves
children or young people who are not attending their school. The
support given by a free, confidential line such as Parentline,
and other sources of support, should be actively promoted as the
place to go for support with this issue in the same way as a child
can ring ChildLine.
Recommendations to the Education and Skills Committee
The following recommendations have been drawn
up as a result of Parentline Plus' work with parents whose children
are bullied or are bullies themselves.
1. Anti-bullying policies and work should
be based on a whole family approach, should involve and engage
with parents of those bullied as well as parents of bullies, and
the policies need to ensure that all these parents are supported
and enabled to talk through the issues with their children and
get further help and support if needed.
2. As a preventive measure, schools need
to work in partnership with appropriate independent organisations
to equip parents with strategies aimed at identifying and tackling
bullying. The core offer in extended schools is a welcome opportunity
to deliver this information and advice for families.
3. Children and young people need to be
fully conversant with the outcomes of bullying. They need to be
informed within school and community settings about the necessity
for an inclusive and accepting attitude to others and to understand
the implications of racism, sexism and homophobia.
4. When bullying becomes an issue, the lines
of communication between parent/child and school or community
need to be improved. This would enable parents to trust and want
to share their concerns with headteachers, teachers and other
professionals.
5. Head teachers, teachers and other school
support staff should be trained as a matter of course and have
the relevant information to signpost vulnerable families to other
sources of specialist help for their family problems.
6. Where the lines of communication between
parent and school have broken down, the family must have appropriate
advocacy or mediation-based support.
7. There should be good links between school
and community services to ensure that all children have the right
to a safe environment whether at school or in the wider community.
8. Anti-bullying policies and programmes
must reflect gender differences around bullying. Currently there
is a tendency to focus on boys and their more overt bullying behaviour.
9. Those working with young people, particularly
girls, need more training on how to spot the symptoms of bullying
and be more aware of how girls tend to internalise their feelings,
and to have strategies to break down this barrier.
10. Schools need to be more proactive in
making children and young people aware that bullying is not merely
a physical activity, but also consists of excluding people, teasing
or spreading rumours.
11. Because of the interconnected and cyclical
nature of bullying by girls, work to prevent bullying should include
addressing children's difficulties outside the confines of school—looking
at circumstances within the home, and in the community.
12. Schools must build good home school
communications outside any difficulties of bullying or behaviour,
so that parents are able to trust the school, and communicate
openly about their worries for their child with head teachers,
teachers and other professionals.
13. There needs to be much more work done
on raising awareness of definitions of bullying and what is being
done to tackle bullying in schools and in the wider community.
Parents feel that work on what to look out for and where to go
is key.
REFERENCES
i Hymel, S, Wagner E, and Butler L. Reputational
bias: view from the peer group, in S Asher & J Coie (Eds).
ii Bream V, and Buchanan A. Distress among
children whose separated or divorced parents/carers cannot agree
arrangements for them Bristol Journal of Social Work. 33,
227-238 (2003).
iii Oliver, C and Candappa, M. Tackling Bullying:
Listening to the views of children and young people, Department
for Education and Skills/Thomas Caorma Research Unit, Institute
of Education (2003).
iv Barter, C. Protecting children from
racism and racial abuse: a research review. NSPCC Publications
(1999).
v Eslea, M, and Mukhtar, K. Bullying and racism
among Asican schoolchildren in Britain. Educational Research,
Volume 42, Number 2, pp 207-217 (2000).
vi Hawker, D S J, and Boulton, M J. Twenty
Years' Research on Peer Victimization and Psychological Maladjustment:
Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry and Allied Disciplines,
4 Parentline 441-455, (2000).
vii Bowers, L, Smith P K, Binney, V, Perceived
family relationships of bulies, victims and bully/victims in middle
children, Journal of Social Personal Relationships, 11 Parentline
215-232 (1994).
viii Parents of bullies. Parentline Plus 2004.
ix Ibid.
x Girls and Bullying: the experiences of parents.
Parentline Plus 2006.
September 2006
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