Question

an article on don't be a bystander

Answer 1

One of the most frustrating facts about bullying is this: In the vast majority of cases, it takes place in front of an audience of other kids—88 percent of the time, according to one study. And yet kids who are bystanders intervene only 20 percent of the time. When they do step forward, however, they stop half the bullying they try to head off.

Bystanders, then, represent a major opportunity: Convert more of them into defenders or allies of the target of bullying, and you could take the sting out of one of childhood’s enduring harms.


Except that it’s not so easy. Adults constantly exhort kids to stand up for kids who are the victims of taunting and cruelty. It’s what many of us want to see from our own children—I know I expect my own sons to stand up for the kid getting picked on.

Answer 2

Bystanders, then, represent a major opportunity: Convert more of them into defenders or allies of the target of bullying, and you could take the sting out of one of childhood’s enduring harms.

Except that it’s not so easy. Adults constantly exhort kids to stand up for kids who are the victims of taunting and cruelty. It’s what many of us want to see from our own children—I know I expect my own sons to stand up for the kid getting picked on. But stepping into the middle of a conflict to confront an aggressor is usually asking a lot. “As bullies are often perceived as popular and powerful, it takes a lot to thwart their behavior,” as the Finnish psychologist Christina Salmivalli, a leader in the field, puts it in a 2010 paper. In a new study from Harvard, based on in-depth interviews with 23 middle-schoolers, every single one said they supported the idea of being an “upstander” rather than a passive bystander, but “half of them acknowledged that in practice they often laugh when they see others victimizing a peer in school,” as the authors put it. Kids want to help, and know they should, but they don’t always do it.One of the most frustrating facts about bullying is this: In the vast majority of cases, it takes place in front of an audience of other kids—88 percent of the time, according to one study. And yet kids who are bystanders intervene only 20 percent of the time. When they do step forward, however, they stop half the bullying they try to head off.

hope it helps........