The Anti-Bullying Bully
A constant news cycle of horrific bullying stories has some parents frequently intervening in their children’s social lives, but they may be dooming their kids in the process.
According to recent studies, about 15 percent of students are traumatized by bullying and as many as 30 percent may suffer significant harassment. But a subject too touchy to broach with many parents is that some kids don’t need intervention, and that adult involvement in certain social situations can actually do more harm than good. Some psychologists worry that all the klieg lights focused on bullying have left many hyper-vigilant parents, like Cara’s mother, unable to distinguish between genuine bullying and relatively minor conflicts that would best be left for a child to handle.
