Countering the Harm of a Bully Culture

You may have known a bully or two at school or in your neighborhood as you were growing up.  Bullies – those who demean, harm, and threaten – have always been around.  What is happening today in our world is different.  We are living in a bully culture where there is broad acceptance of the bully mentality.  This acceptance, coupled with a gross lack of accountability, has created an environment that threatens our safety, throwing us into daily tailspins. 

I identify a bully culture as one in which force is condoned; there is little or no empathy; decisions are reached without forethought and without consideration of the long-term impact; those decisions cause harm; there is reactivity rather than responsiveness; people feel threatened; there is an “othering” and exclusion of those different from the bully; and there is a lack of predictability, stability, and safety.  Bullying is intentional and repeated.  It involves a power grab.   

Finnish researcher Christina Salmivalli has detailed the complexity of bullying. Her research “showed that the traditional view of bullying where there is a ‘victim’ and a ‘bully’ was much more complicated, and in fact bullying rarely takes place between a 'victim' and a 'bully' alone: it tends to be a group behavior”. 

She identified five roles beyond the traditional bully and target:

·       Ringleader, who may start and lead the bullying but is not always the bully

·       Reinforcer, who encourages the bullying by laughing or goading others on

·       Defender, who is confident enough to stand up for the target

·       Assistant, who is actively involved in doing the bullying

·       Outsider, who ignores the bullying and does not get involved 

It can be helpful to look for these roles in what is playing out socially today.  

We are all influenced by our culture and the things happening within it.  There is harm and stress.  Even if we are not a direct target, with social media we can play the other roles identified by Salmivalli.  Additionally, the intentionality of this onslaught has made us all indirect targets. 

What can we do to mitigate and eliminate the harm to our children and ourselves? 

Listen to yourself, your children, and your friends.  Knowing that we are heard counteracts a sense of powerlessness.  Do not write off what you or others feel as an overreaction.  Honor and acknowledge those feelings.  My twenty-seven-year-old daughter is feeling fearful that her job will be eliminated.  Her sharing is a time for listening, encouraging, and validating.          

Build community and belonging.  Belonging is another neutralizer of powerlessness.  Community builds resilience.  For more on connecting with community, please see our March column, The Vital Importance of Community. 

Stay steady.  Staying steady means that you know your system, you recognize the physiological state you are in, and you understand what returns you to calm, balance, and safety. 

When you are thrown out of safety, it is a physiological response meant to keep you alive.  With daily hits to your safety, it can be draining and even debilitating to your system.  Take the physiological shift as a notification rather than a dictate.  Assess your safety.  If there is an immediate danger, such as a car moving quickly towards you in a parking lot, take action.  After making sure that you are physically secure, discover what can return your system to a state of safety.  

If it is a feeling of unease, discomfort, lack of emotional security (not a situation of abuse), find practices that return you to safety.  Those practices can include a walk in nature, breathing consciously, receiving a loving hug, reminding yourself that you are OK, or having a meal with a friend.  Find the things that work for you. 

If you would like a weekly tip on how to stay steady, please email me.  I will put you on the list to receive our Tuesday Stay Steady text.  Catch the tips on all of our social media sites.    

Identify the roles.  Remember the roles in the bullying dynamic?  Observe them in what you see happening.  That can assist you in viewing what is going on from a plane above the fray.  Being a neutral witness of the social dynamic can protect you from the fall out. 

Recognize what role you may be playing and what role you want to model for your children.  Be conscious of what roles you are playing on social media because they may tax and even hijack your system.   

Know that taking action and feeling powerless cannot exist at the same time.  Ask yourself what action you might want to take.  What small actions do you want to encourage your child to take?  Action restores your sense of agency.   

Above all, go to the target first.  If you see someone harmed by what is happening in our world right now, attend to them first.  What do they need?  How can you assist? 

Through listening, building community and belonging, staying steady, and identifying the roles and actions, we can mitigate harm and turn this around.  We are powerful together, and our children deserve to know that.