Abc’S for Bully Prevention, Simple as 1-2-3

By Mark Johnson

Bullying and victimization are not new. They have been around since the beginning of time. "ABCs for Bully Prevention, Simple as 1, 2, 3," corresponds the letters of the alphabet to words that relate to victimization, bullying, and intervention. Words are simple, yet relevant, a toolbox of different ideas and principles that can be used by all ages: students, teachers, parents, children, preachers, parishioners, correctional workers, law enforcement, supervisors, and employees to educate themselves and others. Concepts challenge the reader to develop an out-of-the-box perspective on how to approach bullying and reduce its negative effects. Authors personal opinion is that children are not born to hate; they are taught to hate. Use this book to reverse that cycle.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Dec 20, 2014
• ISBN: 9781503522220

Mark Johnson

Mark Johnson is a sportswriter and sports photographer. He has covered cycling and endurance sports as a writer and photographer since the 1980s. His work often focuses on the business of pro cyclinga topic that frequently intersects with the sport’s long history of doping. Along with U.S. publications like VeloNews and Road, his work is published in Cycling Weekly in the UK, Velo in France, Ride Cycling Review and CyclingNews in Australia as well as general-interest publications including the Wall Street Journal. 4655 published Johnson’s first book, Argyle Armada: Behind the Scenes of the Pro Cycling Life, for which Johnson was embedded for a year with the Garmin-Cervélo professional cycling team. A category II road cyclist, Mark has also bicycled across the United States twice and completed an Ironman triathlon. A graduate of the University of California, San Diego, the author also has an MA and PhD in English Literature from Boston University. His other passion is surfing, which he does frequently from the home he shares with his wife and two sons in Del Mar, California.

Book preview

ABC’s to

Bully Prevention,

Simple as 1, 2, 3

Mark Johnson

Copyright © 2014 by Mark Johnson.

Library of Congress Control Number:          2014921416

ISBN:          Hardcover          978-1-5035-2220-6

                   Softcover            978-1-5035-2221-3

                   eBook                 978-1-5035-2222-0

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Scripture quotations marked NASB are taken from the New American Standard Bible®, Copyright 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by the Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

Rev. date: 12/19/2014

Rob Jeannotte

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CONTENTS

Prologue

Foreword

Preface

Acknowledgment

Introduction

My Story

Acceptance

Bully

Bystander

Club

Consequences

Communication

De-Escalation (Verbal)

Escalation

Empathy

Forgiveness

Golden Rule

The Golden Rule around the World

Harmony

Instigator

Justice

Kindness

Levitate

Love

Low Self-Esteem

Mentor

No

Nurture

Opportunity

Parents

Peace

Physical Bullying

Question

Resilience

Self-Esteem

Sympathy

Self-Control

Tolerance

Unforgiveness

Upstander

Step UP! Intervention Styles

Emergency Helping: General Strategies

Nonemergency Helping: General Strategies

Victim

Watchman

X-ray

Yes

Zero Tolerance

Parents’ Guide

Bibliography

Clifphene Pinder Reid’s Biography

William Donovan Saunders’ Biography

I could not let Mark Johnson publish this book without providing him with an endorsement. This book is the truth! In ABCs to Bullying Prevention, Simple as 1, 2, 3, Mark skillfully walks you, the reader, from A to Z to help you understand everything bullying. You will not want to put this book down. It is real, it is raw, and it should be required reading for anyone who deals with the bullying epidemic. Mark wrote this book to help both the bully and victim understand their behaviors and build better relationships. My hope is that you will join him on this journey!

Laymon A. Hicks

Youth Motivational Speaker and Author

www.LaymonHicks.com

Mark Johnson has tapped into the foundation of bullying. His topic, The ABCs to Bully Prevention, we all know that bullying can have a long-term effect on a child with the risk of physical injury. The ABCs to bullying prevention teach that our behavior as a victim is controlled by the bully, therefore empowering the actions of the bully. This is a must-read, a get-involved information book. Mark Johnson has given us the facts about bullying and the tools to help turn it around.

Dr. Carlton N. Young

Atlanta, Georgia

Speaker-Author-Entrepreneur

Americas Grandfather

Foremost Expert on Homelessness in America

Best-Selling Author of Powerful Life Quotes for Success

Mark Johnson has brought together a diverse and skilled set of authors to tackle one of the great social and psychological issues of our day. This book is an amazing guide to assist not only victims and their families, but also bullies and their families. A strong wall of defense and true beacon of hope.

W. Steven Saunders, Psy.D.

Licensed Psychologist

Owner, Founder of Central Florida

Psychological Consultants, Inc.

Professor at University of Central Florida

www.centralfloridapsychology.com

The ABCs to Bullying Prevention

It is with great enthusiasm that I wholeheartedly support Mark Johnson’s new book, The ABCs to Bullying Prevention. I’ve shared a twenty-two-plus-year friendship with Mark, and I can see that he has approached his latest work with the same passion with which he approaches all aspects of life—to the brim! This book is a clever compilation of creative strategies, packed with suggestions for dealing with this unfortunate social phenomenon we know as bullying. Useful to both parents and professionals, in this book, Mark presents a comprehensive overview of cognitive and behavioral techniques presented with both clarity and creativity. Mark’s book is timely, creative, and trailblazing. The reader will not be disappointed!

Yolanda C. Leon, Psy.D., ABPdN

Diplomate – American Board of Pediatric Neuropsychology

Neuropsychologist, Clinical Psychologist, School Psychologist

Prologue

Working in a federal prison for over 20 years has shown me just how evil people can be toward each other. Watching the news and witnessing the sad way adults, youth, children, communities and other institutions exert their dominance over others have been coined many words, one of them being bullying. When we hear the word bully, we as a culture assign a negative meaning to it. We seem to demonize such a person as a criminal. But many people do not know that the word bully is not an evil word, but rather one of love, friend, etc.

In the 1500s when a man spoke of his bully, he was referring to his sweetheart, a definition that applied to both sexes and traces its etymological (the study of words) roots to the Dutch word boel, or lover. Several centuries later, the word’s meaning transformed from fine fellow into blusterer, someone full of hot air and empty threats. Before long, the word’s definition had morphed even further into a harasser of the weak. I find it interesting that a word can be transformed from loving to downright evil. The Columbine massacre of 1999 dramatically changed the way our society addressed bullying. Children should have the right to go to school and not be bullied. In response, society has obligated itself to protect students from bullies by intensifying its vigilance in school hallways, bathrooms and playgrounds, and by instructing students to inform on their peers so that we can investigate, judge and punish (administer consequences) bullies.

The theoretical definition of bully, someone who repeatedly and intentionally hurts other people who are less powerful than him/herself (Olweus, 1993), actually refers to a psychopath, or ‘anti-social personality disorder, and a cowardly one at that, for s/he picks on people weaker than him/herself. If that is the case, most of our society has displayed such behaviors and is mentally ill. Most of the kids who are accused of bullying behavior are not psychopaths, cowardly or otherwise. They are simply less-than-saintly kids who get accused of committing the types of mean behaviors characteristic of ordinary mortals, including us adults. The point I am making is that bullying is a normal societal norm. By teaching children, even adults, how to be resilient (able to withstand or recover quickly from difficult conditions), we empower and do not create weaklings who depend on someone else to rescue them.

I agree in principle with my mentor Israel C. Kalman, that we should stop insisting that bullying is ‘abnormal.’ When both research and plain experience indicate that bullying is a highly prevalent phenomenon that happens in virtually every classroom in every school, bullying must obviously be quite normal. Social groups in which bullying never happens would, be considered the abnormal condition. Simple contemplation of reality would make it clear that aside from Heaven, there are few places in which everyone is happy with the way they are treated by everyone else. Bullying occurs in social groups in nature, both human and non-human, as well as in civilized human society. It takes place not only among kids in school, but among the staff as well, including school mental health professionals. Bullying happens between nations, within government, in the workplace, in sports, in religious and civic organizations, and most of all right at home.

My journey toward helping transform, inspire, empower and impact others led me to an unlikely character (Izzy Kalman) who unknowingly helped create a paradigm shift (different view point) in my perception of interpersonal conflict and the phenomena of bullying. I am not a psychologist, therefore, my opinions are my own and based upon my surface research and mentoring.

My mentor, Israel C. Kalman is a Nationally Certified School Psychologist who has been working in schools and private practice since 1978. He has developed fun and effective methods that use role playing to teach basic psychological principles for solving bullying, aggression and relationship problems. I have found his principles of role playing extremely helpful in my bullying presentations. When the Columbine massacre in 1999 ignited a worldwide crusade to get rid of bullying by treating it like a crime that will not be tolerated, he recognized that the approach could not work. He created a website, www.Bullies2Buddies.com, to teach people how to handle bullying on their own, based on time-honored psychological principles. He has written in greater detail on the problems with the bullying psychology than anyone in the world.

Foreword

By Izzy Kalman

What an honor to have Mark Johnson ask me to write a foreword to his book. The world desperately needs what he has to offer. What it needs is love, and Mark is a master at teaching its practice. I am incredibly jealous!

Mark entered my life on March 18, 2010. It was in a hotel in Orlando, the last stop on a Florida tour for my seminar, Bully-Proofing Made Easy. He was possibly the most unforgettable character to ever grace my audience.

Professionals usually consider seminars a dress-down day, and the most formally attired person in the room is assumed to be the presenter. As I was beginning to teach, in walks this tall, strikingly handsome, well-built, shaven-headed, broadly smiling man dressed in a sharp black suit, white shirt and red bowtie.

In contrast to patrons of the theater, who pay top dollar to sit in the front rows, to my chagrin most seminar attendees rush to claim back row seats. Why? Because if it turns out the speaker bores you to sleep, the front is not where you want to be. Well, Mark apparently had no intention of dozing off. He set himself down in the front row. Now, nothing is more encouraging to a seminar leader than an enthusiastic, smiling, attentive face in the front row. Even better, he eagerly responded to my requests for role-play volunteers, again in contrast to most attendees, who avoid my requests like the plague. And Mark didn’t disappoint. He proved to be an excellent improvisational actor with a great sense of humor, and we had the audience in stitches.

I never told him this, but thanks to Mark, the seminar that day was one of my best ever. But I have discovered that is the kind of person Mark is. By virtue of his magnanimous personality, he just brings out the best in people.

Following the seminar, I got a serious glimpse of Mark’s eloquence. A reporter from a local TV news station had been there to cover the event, as bullying is one of the media’s darling topics. There Mark was, speaking to the camera about the seminar with a fluency and enthusiasm I could possess only in my wildest dreams.

I am so grateful to Mark for showing up that day, because in addition to his role as a mental health professional, he is a first rate motivational speaker. If you think his book is good, you should watch him talk!

Needless to say, Mark and I took to each other like bees to honey. He has proven to be a loyal friend and an eager student.

I have come to see Mark as a renaissance man—quick-thinking, talented, educated, erudite, athletic, moral and courageous. He is the kind of person who will not hesitate to risk his life to save others. He’s been toughened by a broad range of life experiences including serving and being injured in the military and working with hardened criminals in prison. But his most valuable asset is his drive to grow in wisdom. He never ceases to seek mentors so that by improving himself he can better help others.

Mark has made bullying prevention one of his primary professional concerns. The modern world is in a crisis over bullying. It’s been fifteen years since the Columbine shooting of April 20, 1999, the event that spawned the worldwide war against bullying. As far as I can tell, it is the most popular social movement in history, having been embraced the world over. Schools are plastered with No Bully posters, and anti-bullying lessons and assemblies are commonplace. Every state has a school anti-bullying law. Thousands of research studies have been conducted on bullying. Yet bullying remains a serious problem, often called an epidemic. Recent research has shown that kids are more likely to be bullied in schools that have anti-bullying programs than in schools that don’t.

Why are the results of society’s anti-bullying efforts so dismal? It’s because good intentions aren’t enough. In its zeal to protect people from bullying, society has taken a zero-tolerance approach to bullying, but as Mark insightfully explains in his chapter on

zero-tolerance, it doesn’t work very well. If anything, the war against bullying has been promoting hatred. There’s even a book for beginning readers published by Scholastic Books, the most revered publisher of children’s educational materials, called I Hate Bullies. Imagine…you are six or seven years old, just learning how to read, and imprinted in your mind for the rest of your life is, I hate bullies.

Moreover, for fifteen years, anti-bullying messages have indoctrinated people with the beliefs that they are incapable of dealing with bullies on their own because the bullies are too powerful, that it is legitimate to blame others (bullies) for their misery, that they have nothing to do with the way others treat them, that it is not their responsibility to do anything to stop people from bullying them other than to inform the authorities, and that the authorities actually have the power to make others stop bullying them. Seasoned mental health professionals should recognize that these messages are by-and-large irrational and promote helplessness rather than self-efficacy.

It is great when others are able to solve our problems, but if we need to rely on others, we do not possess the solution. We are at the mercy of fortune. If no one happens to be around to save us, we are stuck.