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Contains excerpts from Sugar and Spice and No Longer Nice: How We Can Stop Girls' Violence by Deborah Prothrow-Stith and Howard Spivak.
By Deborah Prothrow-Stith, MD and Howard Spivak, MD
It is commonly assumed that boys are the primary, if not exclusive, perpetrators of bullying and violence. While boys remain the primary group, things are changing. Recently, there has been a significant statistical and anecdotal increase in bullying and violence among young girls across the country.
As society has changed over the years, the ways in which girls and boys display anger and aggression have converged. Today we see increasing numbers of girls showing their mean streaks in a variety of ways. As girls continue to display traditional "hidden" and "indirect" aggression in the form of rumor spreading and/or social exclusion, they are also increasingly using physical violence and physical intimidation as a bullying strategy.1
The growing use of physically aggressive bullying among girls has been on the rise since the early 1990's. This increase is a component of a growing tide of violence among adolescent and teenage girls, which is substantially reinforced and possibly promoted by the portrayal of violent females in movies, music, magazines and television. The disturbing result is an unprecedented presence of girls' bullying in our schools and communities.2
Today, girls bully very much like boys do, and evermore frequently. Bullying tends to occur between girls (primarily girl on girl) with different levels of power, based on physical attributes, personality, social status, or academic skills. As it is with boys, girl bullying seems to be a display of relative strength versus weakness.
Bullying behavior also tends to be recurrent (rather than isolated behavior) and involves four clearly identifiable groups: girls who bully; girls who are bullied; girls who both bully and are victims; and — the largest group — girls who are bystanders. The bullies are usually the most popular girls, those who experience social success but are not necessarily liked by the majority of their peers. The girls who are bullied tend to be the least socially accepted and most vulnerable because of personality type, physical attributes, or other factors.3 Those involved as both bullies and victims tend to be more like the girls who are bullied but often have physical attributes such as size that allow them to be the aggressor at times. All three groups are at risk for long term consequences that strongly suggest these behaviors are red flags requiring appropriate assessment and intervention rather than punishment or exclusion.
Girl bullying has also recently received attention in the media and become the centerpiece of movies popular among teens. The teen comedy movie Mean Girls, for example, deals with a group of popular girls who ridicule and put down their peers. However, bullying among girls is no laughing matter and should not be taken lightly. It is a harmful and unhealthy behavior. Parents, teachers, school administrators, and community leaders can all help to discourage and prevent girl bullying.
WHAT CAN PARENTS DO TO PREVENT GIRLS' BULLYING AND VIOLENCE?
We recommend using the "ART" of parenting model to help girls grow into healthy, non-violent adults. The ART of parenting has three parts:
A: Act as a role model — do rather than tell; demonstrate rather than dictate. You can help your daughter avoid bullying by role modeling appropriate ways of interacting with others. Demonstrating ways of expressing anger that are not hurtful to others shows your daughter that she does not have to hurt others to make herself feel better. Express your feelings when you are treated badly or intimidated. This helps your daughter understand the impact of bullying behaviors and models one strategy for dealing with it.
R: Reach out to others — build a community of caring adults around your child. Get to know the parents of your daughter's friends. You might find out that bullying is going on from other parents before you hear it from your daughter. Within the network of parents, share information in a way that allows you to understand the peer group's dynamics and prevent or respond effectively to any bullying.
T: Talk and listen — communicate, communicate, and then communicate some more. This creates an opportunity for you to share how you feel about bullying and to discuss with your daughter how to deal with difficult situations. Ask about bullying from time to time, perhaps when you are driving in the car with your daughter. Almost one-third of girls are directly involved in bullying (as the bully or the bullied), and all play the role of observers.4 Chances are your daughter will have something to say. Remember to listen to what your daughter has to say, and never take bullying lightly or downplay the hurt it can cause a child.
Here are some other general tips that are useful in preventing girl bullying and violence:
- Teach girls to be both nonviolent and not a victim.
- Teach and model healthy assertiveness.
- Don't underestimate the pain felt by bullied children.
- Remember that adults at school may not respond to bullying or may not know how to respond.
- Ask your adult friends to be involved with your child.
- Get a professional caregiver involved in your child's life early on (pediatrician or teacher, for example).
- Get to know the parents of your daughter's friends; create a network.
- Don't excuse your child's bad behavior, but don't overreact either. It is generally best to respond with disciplinary strategies (rather than punishment) that help your daughter develop the skills and capacity to be a healthy adult. Teaching is far more effective and beneficial than punishing without creating the opportunity for real change.
- Celebrate your child's accomplishments. Acknowledgement and praise is the best way to promote healthy pro-social behaviors.
For more information and tips on how to prevent bullying, be sure to visit the Stop Bullying Now! website at www.stopbullyingnow.hrsa.gov/adult/indexAdult.asp?Area=preventiontips.
  Dr. Prothrow-Stith is Professor of Public Health Practice and Associate Dean for Faculty Development at Harvard School of Public Health.
 Dr. Spivak is Professor of Pediatrics and Community Healthy at Tufts University School of Medicine and Vice President for Community Health Programs at Tufts New England Medical Center.
Photo by Ed Malitsky
They are authors of Sugar and Spice and No Longer Nice: How We Can Stop Girls' Violence.
1 Deborah Prothrow-Stith and Howard Spivak.Sugar & Spice and No Longer Nice (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2005), 3.
2 Prothrow-Stith, 84-85.
3 Prothrow-Stith, 11.
4 Prothrow-Stith, 113.
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