As non-physical forms of teenage pressure mount in middle and high schools, the National Crime Prevention Council has started a new initiative designed to educate children and parents about the effects of bullying.
The Circle of Respect sponsors a book every month as a way to encourage parents and their kids to learn together about bullying, among several issues the initiative plans to address.
“Inherent in all of that is a lack of respect for one another,” said Michelle Boykins, spokeswoman for NCPC, which is based in Arlington. “There’s an opportunity to help grow a new generation of kids that are more respectful, that have more empathy for one another.”
For December, the NCPC has recruited Rachel Simmons to promote her book, “Odd Girl Out: The Hidden Culture of Aggression in Girls,” which has also been adapted into a made-for-TV movie. Each book in the first two months of the program has singled out the social pressures teenage girls face.
Simmons’ book deals specifically with cyber bullying. In the book, a group of girls create a hate site to post derogatory comments and images of a fellow eighth-grade girl. Although a majority of cyber bullying occurs among girls, studies have shown that boys don’t lag far behind, Boykins said.
“We’ve seen bullying can have a long-term impact on the development of our young people into adulthood,” Boykins said.
A podcast on the Circle of Respect Web site (circleofrespect.org) soon will show Simmons discussing the issues in her book. As the program grows in the coming months, the Web site will include more resources, such as brochures and tutorials, to help spread bullying awareness and to help make parents more active in preventing bullying.
“If we start with the younger people and work our way up to the adults as well,” Boykins said, “we can affect a whole societal change.”
