Bullying
their school-age child
A frequent reason school-age children cite
for feeling so un-happy that they turn
guns on classmates is that they were
ridiculed or bullied to the point they could
no longer take
such abuse (Fitzpatrick, Dulin, & Piko,
2007). Why do some
children become bullies and some
become victims? Traits
commonly associated with school-age
bullies are:
• Advanced physical size and strength for
their age
• Aggressive temperament (both male
and female)
• Parents who are indifferent
• Parents who are permissive with an
aggressive child
• Parents who typically resort to physical
punishment
• Presence of a child who is a “natural
victim” (underweight,
small, anxious, insecure, cautious, or
sensitive, with low
self-esteem)
Suggestions for school personnel to deal
with bullies are:
• Supervise recreation periods closely.
• Intervene immediately to stop bullying.
• Insist that if such behavior does not
stop, both school and
parents will become involved.
• Therapy may be needed to correct
bullying behavior if it
is ingrained.
Advise parents to discuss bullying with
and tell them how it should be reported,
so that adults can
intervene. School bullying has long-term
effects on mental
health from the view of both the bully and
the victim
(Sourander et al., 2007).
Recreational Drug Use
Once considered a college or high school
problem, illegal
drugs such as marijuana are now available
to children as early
as elementary school and certainly by the
time they reach the
seventh and eighth grades (Reboussin,
Hubbard, & Ialongo,
2007). Cocaine and amphetamines are
also becoming in-creasingly easy for
children to obtain. Because alcohol is
available in so many homes and often can
be purchased in
small stores without proof of age, this is
yet another com-monly abused drug of
this age group (Wright, 2007).
The use of hard drugs and alcohol and
ways to encourage
children to avoid their use are discussed
in Chapter 33.
Inhalants that are easily available to
school-age children, and
so may be abused by them, are airplane
glue (toluene) and
aerosolized cooking oil (Ding et al., 2007).
Children do not
become physically addicted to glue but do aggressiveness, and possible cancer in
become psycho-logically dependent on it. later life
To achieve the desired effect, they
(Vertalino et al., 2007).
drop quantities of the glue into a paper
Cigarette smoking also begins in school-
bag, then sniff the
age children.
fumes and experience a feeling of
With the sure knowledge that cigarette
exhilaration or giddiness.
smoking plays a
This may seem a harmless procedure, but
large part in the development of lung
in high concentra-tions glue fumes can
cancer and other se-rious respiratory
cause extensive liver damage or pul-
illnesses, many parents assume their chil-
monary edema that can be fatal. Inhalants
dren will know not to start. Smoking is
such as cooking
considered by chil-dren to be an adult
spray or computer keyboard cleaner give activity, however, so adopting the habit
this same effect.
can be considered a giant step on the
Because these products contain Freon, road to adulthood.
they can cause severe
Although the amount of cigarette
respiratory and cardiac irregularity. advertising targeting

Parents should suspect glue sniffing or young people as consumers has

some other form of
recreational drug use if their child
regularly appears irritable,
inattentive, or drowsy. School health
personnel should be
aware of the increase in this practice
among students and
look for warning signs as substance abuse
in middle school
children may be associated with suicide
attempts (Dunn et
al., 2008).
decreased, school-age chil-dren should be
taught to recognize advertising manipula-
tion aimed at them. Caution children
against experiment-ing with smokeless
tobacco as well as this can lead to mouth
and throat cancer. Children may try this
after seeing pro-fessional athletes using it.
To discourage use of tobacco by school-
age children,
health care professionals and parents
need to be role models
of excellent health behaviors in hopes
children will follow

Abuse of steroids to improve muscle mass their good examples.

can be found in
Children of Alcohol
children as young as sixth grade,
particularly those interested

in weight-lifting. Counsel children against

this because abuse

of steroids leads to cardiovascular

irregularities, uncontrol-lable