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National bullying problem hits home hard for girl, her mother

Penny Lane Smith, 8, walks through the halls of Shields Elementary Magnet School surrounded by other students. Penny has faced bullying since transferring to Shields from her old school. "It hurts to be bullied because it's like fighting with words," Penny said.
  • J.R. Ortega •
  • Originally published April 10, 2010 at 10:36 p.m., updated April 10, 2010 at 10:36 p.m.

  • HOW TO HELP YOUR CHILD COPE WITH BEING BULLIED:

    Constantly give positive reinforcement to your child. Compliment them on their talents and abilities. Have others compliment them, too.

    Make sure your child has the social skills needed to make ...

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    • HOW TO HELP YOUR CHILD COPE WITH BEING BULLIED:

    Constantly give positive reinforcement to your child. Compliment them on their talents and abilities. Have others compliment them, too.

    Make sure your child has the social skills needed to make friends. Research shows that, if people have at least three others they can confide in, they're less likely to commit suicide.

    Have children make a list of their positive qualities. That way, when being bullied, your child can refer to these qualities, and see that any negative words were told are not on that list, and, thus, not true.

    Make sure your child knows there are adults at school to go to for help. If one adult doesn't seem to help, your child should tell another until something is done about it.

    Source: Anitra Shelton-Quinn, UHV psychologist

    VISD POLICY ON BULLYING:

    The Victoria school district's policy states that if a student feels he or she is being bullied:

    Immediately bring it to the attention of a teacher, counselor, principal or district employee.

    Any district employee who receives notice that a student has, or knows of someone who has experienced bullying shall immediately notify the campus principal or designee.

    The principal or designee shall determine whether the allegations in the report, if proven, would constitute prohibited conduct.

    The principal or designee shall conduct an appropriate investigation based on the reported allegations. The district may also take action on the investigation.

    A student, who is dissatisfied with the outcome of the investigation, may seek an appeal.

Pale-skin accentuates Penny Lane Smith's medium-length, light brown hair as she reclines on the couch, holding her black and white cat, Patty.

The Shields Elementary Magnet School second-grader's features are soft, delicate and unblemished.

But inside, the 8-year-old tells another story - the Crossroads region's children experience similar pains of bullying that captured national headlines.

The story of Phoebe Prince, a 15-year-old Massachusetts high school student who was found hanging in her home after relentless bullying, attracted national attention and calls for a deeper look into the bully epidemic in schools across America.

STICKS AND STONES

Penny Lane endured the words hurled at her: "ding dong," "stupid," and "fat." But she was pushed to the brink by what she said she saw three weeks ago in homeroom.

A boy who sits next to her drew a picture depicting her head being blown off, she said.

Now, she is periodically missing school because of "stomach aches" and "headaches."

Her mother, Kasie Gano, wants a call to action.

"I don't want to find her in her room hanging by a pole or something. I don't want to go to the restroom and see that her wrists are slit and have to rush her to the emergency room and find a letter saying, 'I'm sorry. I can't handle it.' They were just so mean," Gano said as she fought back tears. "I don't want her to have to feel that that's the only way out in life."

Penny Lane, who was at Hopkins Elementary School last year, transferred to Shields after the family moved to another home.

"Sometimes I say, 'Who cares?'" Penny Lane said about the insults the boy in her class makes.

Penny Lane has told the teacher and the teacher only puts marks by the student's folder, she said.

The school district did not comment on any aspects of Penny Lane's bullying issue because it is a privacy matter, said Diane Boyett, Victoria school district spokesperson.

"We can't comment as a school district on anything regarding any particular student because the student has privacy rights," she said. "The school district must respect those school privacy rights."

Gano already has gone to the school to discuss what can be done to ensure her daughter and other students' safety.

Though she has received some answers, she feels the problem is still there and has not been solved.

"There is a 50 percent chance that it was just a picture, and there was a 50 percent chance that it wasn't just a picture," Gano said. "I'm not willing to gamble with her life."

Gano has asked her daughter several times to tell if she is telling the truth and each time Penny Lane breaks down and recounts the instances in which her peer has called her names.

The school moved Penny Lane to another class over spring break, but on the first day back from her bully-free vacation, the torment started again.

"It was like nothing ever happened. Nothing changed," her mother said.

Still, her mother seeks the answers she may never get.

"Is it going to take for some kid to walk into a school, kill about five kids and turn the gun on himself," Gano asked. "Is that what it's really going to take for somebody to say, 'Oh my God, we have a bullying problem."

HOW FAR IS TOO FAR?

Many parents might wonder: Just how common is bullying?

One study found that Penny Lane is part of 10 to 20 percent of American school children who are victims of bullying, said Anitra Shelton-Quinn, a licensed specialist in school psychology at the University of Houston-Victoria.

"I would presume it's a lot higher now," Shelton-Quinn said because the study was conducted in 1999. "Schools tend to be larger now, and that can be a factor because for kids in larger schools, it's more difficult to get in the in-crowd or fit in."

Shelton-Quinn has researched bullying for 12 years in Houston and Mississippi.

Children don't forget the mean words they're called, she said.

"They remember exactly what was said," Shelton-Quinn said. "When a kids says, 'you're fat,' 'you're stupid,' 'you're ugly,' they remember that. It's an ongoing replay."

Short-term effects of bullying can cause children to have a harder time concentrating on their school work and in social situations, Shelton-Quinn said.

Like Penny Lane, some may not want to attend school anymore, a place they spend so much time at besides their home.

"School should be a safe environment where kids can excel academically, or at least put their best foot forward academically and socially without having a fear of being attacked or belittled in a place they consider a home away from home," the psychologist said.

Bullying can lead to depression, loneliness, anxiety, insecurity, she said. If bullying persists, the victims may continue to withdraw because they feel they don't fit in, the psychologist said.

"If the child doesn't have a low self-esteem, that level can continue to decrease," she said. "That can extend into adulthood and increase the risk for depression."

Research shows that that some kids who were bullied, or were bullies, commonly commit criminal acts when they're older because of low self-esteem, Shelton-Quinn said.

That aspect of the entire bully situation is what worries Gano.

She is not as worried about her daughter as the other children facing the bully.

"These bullies have very low self-esteem. The school needs to address that," she said. "Get him help now. That way you don't ruin his life and send him to prison for the rest of his life."

Clara Ramos, a Victoria rights activist for the Mexican-Americans Joined in Community Affairs, has been working for two years to establish an anti-bully hotline in Victoria.

She is still waiting for an entity to take the idea under its wing, she said.

"If the attention is brought to the parent" of the bully, she said, "they have to get involved somehow. They have to be made aware. If that same bully continues, even after parent involvement, who is to say that person is not a menace to society? I know it sounds harsh, but where do you draw the line?"

The hotline would work much like Crimestoppers, where people, in this case students, can call anonymously and have their issues forwarded to the school, she said.

Ramos hopes to start the hotline in August.

For now, the important issue for school staff and administrators to remember, Shelton-Quinn said, is that they all have a responsibility to make each child feel valued.

"It takes a matter of about a minute for a word of encouragement, of comfort," she said.

GRABBING THE BULLY BY THE HORNS

Penny Lane has that comfort at home and with the friends she does not have at school.

The name-calling and even the picture have not deterred Penny Lane from chasing her dreams and goals, but they do hurt.

A box of certificates, awards and straight-A report cards is something her and her mother look through regularly, Penny Lane said.

"I want her to know how proud I am of her," her mother said, with tears in her eyes.

Penny Lane said what her mother says and what her grades show is opposite of what the bully calls her.

"I don't think I'm stupid," she said. "That's like an insult to people."

Gano is considering home-schooling her daughter or possibly moving back to the old house, but being a single-mother on a fixed income takes away options, she said.

She wants her daughter to not just learn again, but to learn comfortably, she said.

"I really like animals and discovering what things in the world can do," Penny Lane said. "When I grow up, I really want to be a marine biologist."

Gano hopes the bullying won't scar her daughter in the future, she said.

"I don't want her to be another statistic," she said as Penny Lane admired one of her certificates for good conduct.