Study: Bullying Common In Grade School

(WebMD)  Many elementary school students report being bullied by their peers and bullying other children, a new study shows.

The study included 270 children in grades 3 through 6 at two schools in California and one school in Arizona.

The students completed an anonymous survey about their experience with bullying.

The survey included 22 statements about bullying, which included emotional and physical bullying.

Some survey statements focused on being bullied. Those statements included "Other students make me cry," "I want to stay home from school because students are mean to me," and "I am hit or kicked by other
students."

The survey also included statements about being a bully, such as "I am mean to other students," "I push or slap other students," and "I say mean things about a student to make other kids laugh."

The students checked boxes marked "a lot," "sometimes," or "never" to indicate how strongly each statement applied to them.

Nearly 90 percent of the children reported being bullied and 59 percent said they had bullied other students.

Out of a possible 24 points on the bullying victimization scale, the students' average score was nearly 7 points. Out of 20 possible points on the bullying scale, the average score was 2 points.

The level of bullying victimization was "fairly high," write the survey's developers. They included child psychiatrist Thomas Tarshis, M.D., MPH.

Tarshis worked on the survey while at Stanford University's division of child and adolescent psychiatry. He now works for the Bay Area Children's Association in Cupertino, Calif.

Tarshis and colleagues conducted the study to see how well the survey worked. They conclude that the survey is suitable for use in developing tools to curb bullying in schools.However, the study wasn't designed to gauge bullying in schools nationwide.

The study appears in the Journal of Developmental & Behavioral Pediatrics.

By Miranda Hitti
Reviewed by Louise Chang
©2007 WebMD, Inc. All rights reserved

[ajaxrose1]

They needed a "study" to get this information? Idiots.

[rf35]

You people want the parents to take charge, but are you for corpral punishment?
Posted by jdweymouth

Yes, absolutely. The downtrend in simple spanking has led to many of the problems with today's children. Note that there is a difference between spanking and child abuse. In fact, I would say that a complete lack of corporal punishment is a form of child abuse in itself. "Spare the rod, spoil the child" is a true saying. A %u201Ctime out%u201D is NOT an effective form of punishment. Unless you force them to watch %u201CBarney%u201D during said time out, but now we%u2019re back to child abuse!

[ares44-2009]

Bullying,where has the world gone to these days?Why do kids do this to other kids?Those are the questions they should be asking them.I myself have been bullied in the past,and I never knew why this occured.But I just knew I hated it,and I think the reason for why the kids did this is to feel like they have more power,knowing they could influance my life how they did.Noone should have to go through that as a child,not even the weridst kid of the group,but we are all just humans,right?

[extremophil]

So Bullying is Common In Grade School. Wow! Whooda thunk it?? By the way, it's common in adults too.

[anopinion1]

They need to educate kids at these early grades about colombine and other school shootings, and tell them that you never know where the next shooting will be at!!! But the next shooter will be someone who was bullied one to many times and just efin snapped!!!!!

[stevenga777]

I was bullied in school. The mental scars persist to this day. This is why I prefer to hire and promote outcasts of our society (outcasts due to race, religion, sexual orientation, physical and mental health issues, etc) than the so called normal "in people". I can understand Bill Gates' self satisfaction in driving so called normal in people out of business...it's the revenge of the nerds!

[jdweymouth]

You people want the parents to take charge, but are you for corpral punishment?

[cmp271]

No child should have to be bullied at school, it should be a safe environment. The parents of bullies need to be held responsible. What else can parents do besides teach their kids to ight back. I had some vicious females in sixth grade try it on, and got this bigger girl to fight me, guess who ended up on the floor? They learned their lesson and left me alone...I knew how to fight thanks to my brother and the boys on the street, and that was in 1969!!! Notice they got someone else to do their dirty work for them??

[hypnotoad72]

I'd rather talk about that joke of an article about 'hint of payoff spurs harder work'... http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/04/13/health/webmd/main2680626.shtml

But I digress.

Bullying is not new.

Maybe finding an answer for the bullies IS?

As for Bill Gates, apart from being a college dropout and getting arrested for a crime whose record (unlike the mug shot) magically disappeared one day, he's nothing more than an economic bully; an opportunist who saw the right incident at the right time. Only picking up on visual and social cues (so the folks who think Gates has Asperger's Syndrome are just as naive) is what's needed and then one needs to discard any scruples or morals to ensure total success. You don't need a textbook education to exploit, though people who think he's a saint really need to look up computer history and the context of the time. He won't seem to saintly then.

[juju071]

I though all the self esteem and conflict resolutions programs were suppose to take care of the bullies in the public schools. Has anyone ever thought about holding the parents and the student responsible. As a parent volunteer at my childrens school I saw that the above programs and all the touchy feely councelors did not help w/ bullies, parents and the students must be held responsible and for the parents who's chldren are being bullied, hold your principal, district and board members responsible too.