Studies show that 60 percent of children identified as bullies in middle school go on to have arrest records. And bullying is included with chronic lying, cruelty to animals and fire setting as a behavior that predicts bad outcomes for a child. Educators now believe it's imperative to nip bullying in the bud before it blossoms into something worse. The CARE Initiative of Montana, headquartered in Billings, has put bullying on a theoretical stepladder of more than a dozen increasingly troubling and risky behaviors. When bullying is tolerated, it can progress to sexual harassment, drinking, vandalism, hate crimes, rape, murder and, at the top of the ladder, suicide.
Bullying also forebodes other risks.
People who demonstrate their strength through aggression, as bullies do, have shorter life spans, less satisfactory marriages, higher incarceration rates, lower incomes, higher rates of substance abuse and more frequent hospitalizations, van den Pol says. Obviously, anyone on a bully's hit list will suffer, too. It takes a systemwide, community-wide approach, says UM psychology Professor George Camp, who specializes in school psychology. Countries worldwide from Sweden to New Zealand and Japan are developing such plans. Here is a composite of information gleaned from various sources, including the Olweus program, which the Missoula County Public Schools has adopted.