Better ways to deal with schoolyard tormentors

Andrew Edwards

Growing up in Kingston, Jamaica, Mark Brown, like many other

youngsters, had his run-ins with bullies. Addressing sixth-graders at

Dwyer Middle School, Brown related how he had troubles with three

bothersome girls when he was young.

“Thirty-three years, and I still remember it like it was

yesterday,” Brown said.

The lesson Brown, now a motivational speaker who travels the

country talking to school children, hoped to get across to the Junior

Oilers was that words can hurt, and that the pain caused by bullies

can last for years. Peppering his talk with jokes and anecdotes,

Brown encouraged the students to be respectful to others and look

beyond the “plastic smiles” that bullying victims can wear.

“You don’t know what can go on behind a plastic smile,” he said.

According to National Education Assn. statistics cited by Brown,

about 160,000 children stay home from school because they fear

bullies. One student at the assembly said she used to feign illness

to stay home from school and avoid being teased.

“I used to pretend that I had a stomach ache,” 12-year-old Kailey

Sanetti said.

Brown’s positive message for the children was encouraging to

Kailey.

“It made me feel better inside for being picked on in the fourth

grade,” she said.

Campus bullying can be compared to the Disney film, “Beauty and

the Beast,” Brown said. Bullies are like Gaston, the arrogant hunter,

and many children play the roles of angry villagers who follow Gaston

to persecute the Beast for being different.

“All of us are like Gaston,” Brown said, who told the

sixth-graders they should strive to emulate Belle, the “beauty” of

the story who discovers the prince inside the Beast.

“You’ve never tried to find the prince or princess inside that

person,” he said. “Talk to that weird kid, that strange kid.”

The idea resonated with 12-year-old Sabrina Auge.

“It made me feel like a princess for being picked on too much,”

she said.

Brown said he structured his message around the cartoon so he

could build a bridge between himself and the children instead of

simply showing up and telling them what to do.

“You can’t come out and say, ‘Thou shalt not,’ to 12-year-old

kids, it’s like, ‘Who’s this guy? What does he want?,’” Brown said.

For children troubled by bullies, Brown’s five points of advice

are to walk away from troublemakers, stay with friends instead of

going around alone, try to use humor to defuse conflicts, stand up

for oneself without resorting to fighting, and bring problems to

adults.

For parents, Brown recommends they keep in close touch with

principals and teachers so they know what happens at school.

“Parents need to take bullying seriously. Some people say that’s

part of growing up ... but some kids can’t handle that,” he said.