TACTICS commonly used by schools to deal with cyber bullies, such as asking them to show empathy towards their victim, are ineffective in dealing with some of the worst offenders, new research has found.
Despite the millions of dollars spent on programs to stamp out cyber bullying in schools, no research has been conducted to assess whether they are successful.
A pilot program designed to test the effectiveness of anti-bullying programs is finding that in up to one in five cases, the recommended strategy of encouraging the bully to think about how the victim must be feeling – to empathise – is pointless.
”Research has found that around 20 per cent of young people who are engaging in cyber bullying are actually pleased with how they are behaving and are not capable of showing empathy,” said Kate Hadwen, senior research fellow at the Child Health Promotion Research Centre, Edith Cowan University, in Perth. ”There is absolutely no point in getting a child in who is cyber bullying another child and saying, ‘Look what you are doing to this child, don’t you feel sorry for them?’ Because they don’t.”
I’m astonished to see Kate Hadwen quoted as saying that it is “pointless” to use a strategy that works in four out of five cases. Do you have more information on the context of that quote?
Quite right….we’ll try and get some more info for you
Bullying is a social issue rather than an individual issue – it is hard to maintain in a disapproving social milieu – so the answer is in working with whole groups of children over time to develop empathy and a sense of connection and responsibility to each other. What children say in a crisis by the way does not necessarily reflect their innate capacity for empathy. This will develop when it is nurtured.
I think we really need to see more strategies on how to target cyberbullying instead of pointing out what doesn’t work.