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Karen, a Head Start teacher, writes:
I heard the words shut up and went into the bathroom to find out what was happening.
Shayna was sitting in the corner crying. I said, "Shayna, why are you crying?" and she answered, "Amanda and Christina said they aren't my friends anymore."
I asked Shayna if she had told them to shut up, and she said yes. I told her I was sorry that they made her feel sad and angry, but those words bother people in our classroom. (Amanda and Christina were watching and listening to us talk.) I explained to Shayna that maybe next time she could tell the girls it made her sad to hear they didn't want to be her friends.
I told Amanda and Christina that Shayna was feeling sad because of what happened. They went over to Shayna and gave her a hug and said they were sorry. Later, I saw the three playing together. (Gartrell 2007)
This column explores the longtime hot topic of bullying. In a broad-based study for the Journal of the American Medical Association, Nansel and his colleagues (2001) discuss bullying from the viewpoints of young people who bully and the victims of bullying, both of whom tend to perceive themselves as being less than fully accepted members of a group. The authors state that bullying often has to do with inflicting aggression on another in order to establish a perceived place of prestige by lowering the social status of the other.
Although the Nansel team's study focuses on preteens and teens, the findings generally apply in early childhood as well. Moving from a place of established social status in the family to the social uncertainty of the early childhood classroom, most young children feel some level of stress. Couple this dynamic with the young child's limited social perspective and ongoing brain development, and the result is the almost daily I'm-your-friend/rmnot-your-friend phenomenon heard in the comments of Amanda and Christina. And who is likely to be the odd child out? The child who may be moody, sometimes unfriendly, not consistently outgoing-that would be Shayna.
In early childhood classrooms, children are just beginning to learn patterns of social acceptance and rejection. Sprung, Froschl, and Hinitz emphasize that this is...