Article--Bullying+Target+Types

=Relational Aggression and Target Types: Is Your Daughter a Lightning Rod for Bullying?= by Jane Balvanz, MSE, RPTProfessional School Counselor Like the game of Tag, the Bully is “it.” All other players are Targets until it’s narrowed down to just one. The rest of the players become Bystanders at this moment. The tag is accomplished, and the game dynamics change again and again as play continues. **The tag metaphor highlights the social dynamics of friendships: if you stay in the game, you’ll eventually play all the parts: Bully, Bystander, and Target.** Check out the common Target types below, so you can guide your daughter or students away from these roles. The guidance tools are straightforward. By teaching the following skills, girls are less likely to become Targets of bullying.
 * When bullying is examined in social contexts like school, team sports, or neighborhood play gatherings, it shows up as a phenomenon of perpetual motion.** The players change. Bullies become Targets, Targets become Bullies, and anyone around is a Bystander. Because of the volatility of emotions, individual perceptions of events, varied histories and cultures, and the surprising reactions of what can happen when one is pushed too far, outcomes are not predictable. That’s what makes bullying so confounding.
 * Assertiveness
 * Speak-up strategies
 * Empathy building
 * Emotional bullying or relational aggression type recognition
 * Problem-solving


 * 1) **The Prize –** This is the popular girl everyone loves, because to be her friend makes one popular, too. **The Prize often has controlling friends who want to know her every move, and she’s susceptible to toxic relationships.**Because she is nice, she doesn’t want to hurt others’ feeling and suffers possessiveness in silence. Her inability to speak up and set boundaries makes her prone to others stalking her as well as attracting controlling relationships. She’s also at risk for anxiety and depression, because others monitor her every move.
 * 2) **The Good Girl –** She has been raised to be good, act nice, smile, and be friends with everyone. She cannot believe anyone would be mean on purpose, so when someone is, she is surprised and confused. **Although she feels hurt and anger, she never shows it, because she is, after all, a Good Girl.**She learns to swallow her feelings. The Good Girl is an easy target for name-calling, manipulation, and intimidation. She needs to learn to express her feeling.
 * 3) **The Expressive -** She’s the artistic sort. This girl either enjoys doing her own thing for herself or enjoys the attention she gets for being different. As a bird of a different feather, she experiments with hair, tattoos, piercings, relationships, boundaries, clothing, being opposite of everything and everyone, and is attracted to the dramatic. **Bullies are attracted to her.**Though everyone has a right to express oneself freely, this girl should be asked two questions. Is the payoff worth the cost?Is this the right time and place?
 * 4) **The Explosive –** This girl has a temper and everyone knows it. **Kids do things to her to anger her, so they can sit back and watch the show.**She is likely to be taunted or mocked.
 * 5) **The Know-It-All –** No one’s opinion is right when this girl is around. **She’s always right, knows it, and lets you know it, too.**The Know-It-All is likely to be excluded.
 * 6) **The Have-It-All –** This is a privileged girl, and she wants the world to know it. She’s has all the best brands, toys, gadgets, eats only organic, and has visited exotic places around the world. **When others aren’t up to her standards, her icy breath spews, “Eww!”**
 * 7) **The Girl in the Middle -** Here’s another nice girl who wants to please and keep the peace between friends having a spat. This one gets fatigued easily, because she does slave-like work carrying messages between girls who don’t want to talk directly with each other. It doesn’t occur to her that she doesn’t have to do this. **It’s a precarious role, because you know the saying about killing the messenger.**Sooner or later, someone won’t like the message and will blame her. With role reversal, she will become the Target instead of the messenger. A job like this should come with plenty of insurance!
 * 8) **Mommy Will Handle It –** This girl is not going to be bullied, so it’s thought, because her parents won’t allow it. She knows how to spin her story just so to be the wronged party in any friendship problem. It’s never her fault. Without fail, Mom or Dad will call or confront the alleged offending girl or her parents to intervene. **Eventually friends disappear or become resentful of the parental interference.**With good intentions for protecting their child, these parents have successfully made their child a Target of scorn and derision.
 * 9) **The Queen –** O, Majesty! **This girl rules the school.**Once someone is on the throne, she’s automatically a Target for the footstool.
 * 10) **The Whiner –** It’s too hot! It’s too cold! It’s too much work! It’s too little work! It’s boring! It’s, it’s, it’s ……… **no matter what it is, there’s something wrong or negative about it.**This girl can easily become a Target for putdowns.
 * 11) **The Possessive – This girl must control her friends.**What if they make other friends? Her insecurity leads to jealousy and manipulation – even intimidation – to control friends at ANY cost. She’ll question her friend to determine where she is at all times. Any time a friend has other plans, it’s seen as a rejection. She’ll text over and again until her friend texts back. If there’s no return text, she’ll use another’s phone to pose as that person texting to ask why there are no replies to the Possessive’s texts. Then there’s the scouring of the friend’s Facebook page and photos to keep tabs on whom she’s with and what friends she likes best. Does this sound like stalking? It is and it starts as early as when kids have access to their own cell phones, internet, and Facebook pages (about 1/3 of all fifth graders). The Possessive is at extreme risk for exclusion from friendship groups.

© 2012 A Way Through, LLC Bullying strategists Jane Balvanz and Blair Wagner publish GAPRA’s bi-weekly articles. If you’re ready to guide children in grades K – 12 through painful friendships and emotional bullying:
 * For help with emotional bullying**: [|www.GAPRAconnect.com]
 * For the When Girls Hurt Girls® program**: [|www.AWayThrough.com]