“There has never been a more important time to teach young people to suspend judgment, weigh evidence, consider multiple perspectives, and speak up with wisdom and grace on behalf of themselves and others.”  Mary Ehrenworth, Senior Deputy Director of the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project, Columbia University

The National Day of Action against Bullying and Violence, held on the third Friday of August each year, offers an opportunity for Australian schools to highlight their daily work to counter bullying and violence. 

Sometimes, in my role as Principal, I have observed people treating other people poorly and unkindly. Unfortunately, these instances are true of both adults and children. Gossip and untruths are often at the heart of mean behaviour. Respect can, unfortunately, be an uncommon commodity. 

I also observe that people can often be confused between the definitions of rude, mean, or bullying behaviour. Signe Whitson, a national educator on bullying, and author of three books including Friendship & Other Weapons: Group Activities to Help Young Girls Cope with Bullying helps discern the differences between what is rude behaviour, what is mean behaviour and what is bullying behaviour.  

“The main distinction between ‘rude’ and ‘mean’ behaviour has to do with intention; while rudeness is often unintentional, mean behaviour very much aims to hurt or depreciate someone. Children are mean to each other when they criticise clothing, appearance, intelligence, coolness or just about anything else they can find to denigrate. Meanness also sounds like words spoken in anger — impulsive cruelty that is often regretted in short order. Very often, mean behaviour in children is motivated by angry feelings and/or the misguided goal of propping themselves up in comparison to the person they are putting down.  

Make no mistake; mean behaviours can wound deeply, and adults can make a significant difference in the lives of young people when they hold children accountable for being mean. Yet, meanness is different from bullying in important ways that should be understood and differentiated when it comes to intervention. 

Bullying is defined by intentionally aggressive behaviour, repeated over time, involves an imbalance of power. Experts agree that bullying entails three key elements: an intent to harm, a power imbalance and repeated acts or threats of aggressive behaviour. Kids who bully say or do something intentionally hurtful to others and they keep doing it, with no sense of regret or remorse — even when targets of bullying show or express their hurt or tell the aggressors to stop.” 

Keeping up with girls’ friendships can also be confusing at times. Lisa Damour, author of Untangled: Guiding Girls through the Seven Transitions into Adulthood describes the process by which girls must separate from the cocoon of their families and “join a new tribe.” This tribe will be everything to them, but it can be filled with girls whose brain development is re-modelling from back to front, “creating mayhem because it means starting with emotional changes to the brain and ending with better control.” 

Relational aggression, commonly exhibited in the dynamics of teenage girls, describes behaviours such as gossip, silent treatment, belittling and conditional-based friendships. All of these are incredibly challenging to navigate for children and adults alike (with workplace bullying not dissimilar to what can be observed in younger generations).  

Relational aggression is distinguished from just being mean as it focuses on damaging a person’s sense of social place. Sadly, this behaviour has been somewhat normalised by the onset of reality TV, with producers enticing cast members to lift television ratings by exhibiting such bullying behaviours.  

The popularity of such programs and the glorifying of bullying-type behaviour concerns me greatly. If TV shows influence what teenagers wear, the gadgets they buy, how they dance and where they go or shop, is it not then logical that they are also influencing how they act and behave?  

Science has proven that the human brain does not develop its full reasoning and logic functions until the ages of 21 to 24. As such, young brains are very susceptible to suggestion because they lack the full ability of reason and logic. Like a sponge, young people soak up cues from their outside world and incorporate them into their belief systems.  

Our Wellbeing Program at St Catherine’s is designed to develop our students’ awareness of their own behaviours. Our approach appreciates that good old fashioned ‘kindness’ cannot be taught in a single lesson, rather it reflects the culture of an organisation, or school.

Our focus extends from the ELC to Year 12 and is targeted towards building capacity in our students’ awareness of control and ability to express one’s emotions and handle interpersonal relationships judiciously and empathetically.

Our School Counsellor, our Heads of Year and Directors of Middle and Senior Years, also regularly attend Professional Development Seminars and will prove to be of great assistance to parents navigating the world of tween and teen dynamics.