What can you do if you find out that your child is being bullied?
Tell your child to ignore it, don’t engage, turn the other cheek, tell an adult? What if I were to tell you that all of those suggestions might not help and when implemented some might even escalate the bullying behavior.
The world of children mirrors the world of adults so that we can gain clues about bullying from this world, the adult world that surrounds every child.
What would you do if you felt that you were being bullied, perhaps at work by a colleague or boss?
How would you handle that? What would you do? Ignore it, don’t engage, turn the other cheek, tell somebody, perhaps human resources? What if I were to tell you that all of those suggestions won’t help and when done some might even escalate the bullying behavior.
Bullying is a complicated phenomenon; with the trickiest part, the most complicated part of bullying, being the reciprocity that the bully shares with their environment. Bullying is interwoven into how organizations work, what its expectations are. All of these factors serve to reinforce bullying. These dynamics can even serve to keep the tormentor invisible to onlookers; unless you choose to look, bullying may seem to be completely normal. But it is not.
What does bullying look like? What are its symptoms, a bloodied nose? A broken arm? Sadness? Depression? A suicide attempt? People in general would disagree about what constitutes bullying, which in itself is interesting, but one definition of workplace bullying is when a bully targets a power subordinate with “repeated, health-harming mistreatment of one or more persons (the targets) by one or more perpetrators. It is abusive conduct that is: threatening, humiliating, or intimidating, or work interference — sabotage — which prevents work from getting done, or verbal abuse.
Workplace bullying is driven by the perpetrators need to control the targeted individual(s). It is initiated by bullies who choose their targets, timing, location, and methods. It is a set of acts of commission or omission (by withholding resources from others.)
It requires consequences for the targeted individual. It escalates to involve others who side with the bully, either by commission or omission. It undermines legitimate business interests when bullies personal agendas take precedence over work itself. And it is akin to domestic violence at work, only the abuser is on the payroll” 1
The difference between playground bullying and adult bullying is that adults are playing for bigger stakes: employees have families who depend on their livelihood in order to survive.
The backbone of bullying is the power hierarchy. Power hierarchies are integral to how a bully works, as bullies know how to charge up the ranks of any hierarchy, they then understand the opposite: not only must you be deferential to those above you, but you may also kick at those below you, without any fear of repercussions.
Anybody who pushes back against a bully is also pushing against this organizational body, this spine of power that the bully counts on; the up/down power hierarchy. Pushing against this body of force is very difficult for any power poor individual. This is why gangs exist, there is protection and power in numbers.
If you are being bullied at work, you are not alone. When there is abuse within a home all the family members may not acknowledge it, but that doesn’t mean they are not aware that the abuse is occurring. Your colleagues might even be experiencing a type of survivors’ guilt, torn between a fear of speaking up, thereby running the risk of being targeted or staying silent, and sticking their head in the sand, in an effort to keep their job. All of these ingredients combined create a toxic soup called the dysfunctional work environment. And of course, all of this toxicity draws energy away from the tasks at hand and into the morass that becomes another day on the job.
Most people who speak about bullying talk about the target and not the army of people that surround and protect the bully. You don’t have to go very far to see this dynamic in action. I bet you could even pick up a copy of today’s newspaper and see dozens of instances of bullying, enabling and multitudes of people frozen in place wondering how to handle and manage the bully. So most certainly you are not alone.
It’s considered socially taboo in our culture to openly discuss power differentials, though society is predicated on these differences. A bully counts on this. Bullies are cowards. Fear is their achilles heel. They will assess a power hierarchy before picking a target, because they need the rules of the game to back them up. And they will use these differences to add wallop to their punch.
So going against a bully, alone, is difficult and in some instances it might even escalate the attacks. It can get better though, mostly because you can make it better. In future articles I will discuss some techniques for managing the bully at work.
Copyright Laura Bloom 4/25/18
References
- 4/25/18, Retrieved from http://www.workplacebullying.org/bullying-contrasted/.
