Bullying

I pondered over a title for this piece and after about an hour, it's apparent that there's no other title that's appropriate; one word says it all "Bullying". This is a much more lengthy and heavy piece v. all of my other publishing's. The example used is sadly from a situation involving children; the relevancy and parallels in a child's day is not dissimilar to an adult. I will set the stage prior to moving on. We are part of an organization or school, we are part of a department or grade, we have leaders or teachers, our groups or classes are chosen for us and finally we spend a majority of our time at the organization next to our house and in many cases, the majority of our awake hours are spent at the organization or school/daycare.

Alberta’s provincial legislation defines bullying as: repeated and hostile or demeaning behavior by an individual in the school community where the behavior is intended to cause harm, fear or distress to one or more other individuals in the school community, including psychological harm or harm to an individual’s reputation. It can focus on: disability; sexual orientation; gender identity; sexuality; race/ethnicity/religion; or other issues (Prevnet).

I don't consider myself old; however, I'm definitely not new. Bullying has always existed, however our awareness and the programs and effort that has been put into eliminating bullying is something we believe has “taken care of the problem”. Let’s fast forward to this last week. A member of our team has a little girl who is 9 years old. Her orbit consists of 5 main spaces: home, school, school bus, after school activity studio and daycare. Since she has started school, she has had the same kids around her with one or two that leave/enter throughout the last 5 years (kindergarten to grade 4).

I've gone over the parallels between an adult and a child (organization v. school) so now, let's think about the last 5 years of your life. How many places are in your orbit and how consistent are the folks around you? Your orbit likely doesn't differ much from hers: home, work, public transit/car pool, after work activity, i.e., the gym, and if you have children you are taking them to and from their activities.

These spaces are where you need to feel safe to reach your potential personally and professionally. This is why many organizations have adopted a zero tolerance policy or some form of sanction or penance. Check your HR Handbook for the organization you work at and if you have children, check out what the school and daycare have for a policy. If you have someone in your life that begins to intimidate and/or threaten you, would you stay? How would you feel? What would you do if you were a witness? What if there were multiple witnesses and it was discussed openly in the workplace? You can't just quit work, you have bills to pay. Equally the same, the student must continue to attend school as education is your ticket to knowledge and eventually work and ... pay your bills :)

A little more about the children involved in this story. The boy is older by at least 1 year and is one of the biggest physically in his grade. The girl is younger and is the smallest physically in her grade. He lashes out and hasn't learned how to deal with his anger. The teacher has the little girl work on projects with some of the special needs children because she is patient and kind.

These children have never had a serious altercation however, he had begun being an unkind person on the playground over the last year and a half and steadily, it has escalated. Her parents told her to just stay away from him and go stand by an adult where she feels safe and also stay in a group. This seemed to be a great solution - but you and I both know this was a short term solution and was not a solution, it was a Band-Aid.

Just before Christmas, ~3.5 weeks ago, everything changed. That was the day that the boy decided that after they got off the bus and went to daycare, he would physically hurt her. He decided that he bodycheck her; he did this multiple times. The children that were witness to this didn't help her out of fear, presumably out of fear she told her mom; she got away and ran to the daycare leaders where he was written up and all the parents were spoken to. The little girl required medical attendance and thank goodness she didn't have a broken clavicle, ribs or wrist as was suspected. The parents continued to follow up with the school and daycare and were assured that it was being dealt with.

On Thursday, just a few days ago, the boy decided that he was mad again. He leaned into her on the bus and told her that he was going to hurt her again. He was going to bodycheck her again, break at least one of her legs and he may do worse, he hadn't decided yet. I want to remind you that this young man is only 10/11 yrs old himself. Regardless, when they got off the bus, she stayed with the adult until her parents picked her up and she told them what had happened.

Clearly, something has been missed here. He had continued to verbally bully not only her, but was doing it to others as well. The other children had planned that if he was going to attack the girl again, they would use the mats laying in the center to block him. Yes, you heard me right. The other children were the ones that had created a protection plan for the little girl. All of this came out the more the parents dug into the issue. There has been 1 assault and now there was not only being mean on the playground, it's escalated to another level to where the girl's life had essentially been threatened. The parents ultimately decided that the school, the bus driver, the daycare that were all "dealing with it" were in fact not dealing with it so they contacted the RCMP to help.

The story in itself is interesting to me thus far, but here is where it gets even more interesting. When the mother called the RCMP, an administrator took the initial statement. The administrator concurred that this was a case that should be escalated and a Constable was assigned to the case. Within an hour, the Constable contacted the mother for the statement and asked "what are you actually expecting from this". The mother indicated that she wanted her daughter to feel safe in all of the places she goes to where this is happening. The Constable indicated, quite curtly, that there is actually nothing that they can do beyond talk to the school, daycare and maybe the family and the young boy. The mother indicated that this is an ideal start and told the Constable that she herself doesn't believe that a child is born violent, it's a learned behavior. Her and her husband didn't want "punishment" for the boy, they want help as it seemed to them that something has happened for this behavior to come out and he is young; the parents of the girl figured that with the proper help and tools now the quality of his life may change. It was at this time that the Constable loosened up and understood that they were on the same page; the parents didn't want punishment, they wanted the boy to have the help he needed.

The Constable assured the mother that by days end, all of the parties would be visited and a follow up call would be made so that the parents understood the plan of action and from the mothers understanding, moves would be made from there in a coordinated effort. This is not what happened at all. Post RCMP visit to the school, the little girl was the first one called into the Principals office and the parents had no idea that this meeting was occurring. She had done nothing wrong and was already traumatized; she should have had her parents with her. The young man was called into the office as well and he WAS allowed accompaniment by his mother. I will agree all day long that the young man should have his parent(s) with him but how was the victim the one that was alone and isolated. She told her mother that night that when she was called into the office she was shaking and sweating and thought she was in trouble for telling. Take that in; whether you're a parent or not, you must be feeling the little 9 year old's anxiety right now. As the bus driver hadn't been prepped and the parents hadn't heard back by school days end, they left work early and went to pick her up versus her going on the bus and then daycare.

The father went in to pick up his daughter and asked to speak with the Principal. Not knowing that the child had already been met with, they went through the plan of action and found out that the Principal has taken the responsibility on to work with the child and the parents of the boy. While the government offers formal assistance with highly skilled professionals, the Principal has determined that it can be dealt with in house. Here's another tidbit that, as a person who studies people surprised me, the Principal made excuses for the boy and assured the girl that there would be no more challenges. A definitive promise. There is no counselor at the school and while I'm certain the Principal is good with people, the Principal is not formally trained to actually analyze and offer tools to the parents and this little boy who is clearly struggling and getting progressively worse.

In our business, we do investigations, offer conflict management lunch n' learns, bullying in the workplace seminars, have mediators on staff and would never recommend nor expect the CEO of the organization to manage this very complex bullying situation. Bullying in the workplace is a real thing. It can happen in any size of organization and the range of result is significant. The person can simply quit and move on through to the person being bullied coming into the workplace and doing some real damage; damage that ends up on the news. We always recommend a professional to analyze and develop an action plan. If something preventable happened because this extra step isn't taken, could you live with it?   

As a business owner or leader of an organization, what would you do if you found that there was bullying in your workplace? Have you scanned your environment or conducted any educational seminars to ensure there isn't workplace bullying in your organization. It's one of the most cited reasons for people leaving their positions - what's happening in your workplace? If something preventable happened because you didn't take action against bullying or reporting the bully, how would you deal with knowing you may have been able to stop it?

References

Prevnet. Retrieved from https://www.prevnet.ca/resources/policy-and-legislation/alberta/for-parents