You remember Her. All women do. Whether you are 12, 22 or 52, you’ll never forget that one girl who had the power to turn a lunchroom into a lynching.

With the lift of an eyebrow, she could turn the entire class against you. By day’s end, she had spread rumors about you, passed notes behind your back, frozen you out and taken all your friends with her. Next week, it was someone else’s turn to be targeted. And you, for reasons you’ll never know, were back in her good graces, only too eager to fight for her favor by passing the new rumor and freezing out the next girl.

Even though no one gets thrown down on the playground and given a black eye, girl bullies leave wounds that can last a lifetime.

The ‘Mean Girls’ syndrome

“Girl bullies aren’t much different from the traditional schoolyard bullies we all think of,” says psychiatrist Ann Saunders, associate professor of psychiatry at The University of Texas Medical School at Houston. “Though usually not physically violent, the scars of exclusion and abandonment can run very deep and are difficult to overcome.”

For good reason, Saunders explains. “Adolescent girls are very sneaky. They whisper and pass notes and band together against one victim. The torture is done on the sly, out of view of watchful adults.” Their victims rarely know why they’ve been chosen, but once the girl bully makes the dreaded “cooties” diagnosis, the word spreads like a virus.

Bullying among kids—and even into adulthood crosses all cultural, religious, gender and nationality barriers. Physical bullying has received more attention both in the press and in clinical settings in recent years from the rise in school violence such as the Columbine tragedy. Emotional bullying, especially by girls, is gaining respect as a serious causative factor in female issues later in life.

Profile of a girl bully

Girl bullies, fueled by their own insecurities, play on the greater insecurities of others, and play it well. “There is a gang mentality and these girls are able to incite an entire clique through manipulation and fear,” Saunders says.

It usually starts in late elementary and blooms in middle school, timed well with the blossoming of hormones, which is timed well with the need for peer acceptance. Saunders explains that “personal power, such as popularity, becomes important when you are beginning to define yourself. We define ourselves at that age through the eyes of other kids.”

Usually girl bullies possess a certain charisma or charm that attracts others to them in the first place. “She may be fun to be with, someone who makes you feel special when she is favoring you.”

But this gift is buried in baggage that also contains other emerging emotional issues: abandonment fears, feelings of inadequacy, loneliness, a sense of powerlessness over other areas of their lives. Powerful fears need powerful weapons. “Girls rule,” Saunders says, “through passive-aggressive means—it’s what they’re socialized, conditioned, even trained to do.”

A girl bully will find someone who is “different” to belittle; weaker, to dominate; stronger, to neutralize. She attacks insidiously through gossip, whispering, rumors, social exclusion from the lunchroom table, the slumber party, the playground. She may be part of the “bully-victim” cycle, needing to control others because she feels bullied.

Profile of the victim

Victims don't come in one particular flavor. They can be pretty or ugly, fat or thin, popular or invisible. "But they represent something to the bully that is threatening or power-inducing," Saunders says.

Victims begin to act victimized. They become fearful, reclusive and insecure at school. "They don't have the perspective to know that this will pass, that the bully only has the power that is given to her by the victim (albeit, fueled by bystanders)," Saunders says.

"Victims at the pre-teen and adolescent stage are hyperconscious of group attitudes and how they are perceived by their peers." The victim wants to be part of The Group as badly as the bully does, so she believes the bully's power to be real. And in fact, the power can be very real and can involve what seems to be the entire school.

The Catch-22 is that victims are terrified to change the role that they have been unjustly assigned. In the world of little girls all jockeying for power, acceptance (or a wall to crawl behind), remaining a victim is, at least, a familiar danger. Challenging the bully after the terror has begun could make it grow.

Long-term emotional damage though, is the price.

James Synder, PhD, researched bully behavior at the kindergarten level. The Wichita State University researcher found that girls who were victimized in kindergarten were more likely to engage in antisocial behavior at home as they got older. At the same time, they acted increasingly more depressed at school if their victimization continued or escalated.

Synder also found that many kindergarteners (boys and girls) found themselves routinely verbally and physically abused on the playground. But by the time they reached first grade, the bullying seemed to settle over a smaller group of perpetual victims.

Profile of the accomplice:
the clique, the groups, the bystanders

“Annie,” a statuesque Baylor University graduate remembers her role as a member of the mob who, led by their bully, literally drove a victim out of their middle school.

“Out of terror that we would be the next in line to be shut out, we did what we were told, which was to exclude her, pass rumors about her, make prank phone calls, wrap (toilet-paper) her house. It went on every day for years and years,” Annie says.

Annie has no recollection of the trigger event, or why the bully targeted that particular girl. “But I remember feeling horrible for this girl and, even though I didn’t do anything to her directly, I never did anything to help her, out of fear that they would turn on me.”

Eventually the victim changed schools.

Saunders says that the followers carry out these actions, “even though they know it is wrong, because their urge to ‘belong’ is so great that they can’t afford to say no.”

The mob mentality is often born out of the sheer relief that they are not the target. “The power of social shunning is so strong at that age, that the nicest of kids will partake in the collective bashing because, let’s face it, there is safety in numbers, and next time, it could be you who is terrorized,” says Annie’s mother, Donna Lee, who can still remember who reigned in terror when she was 13, “like it was yesterday.”

The role of the parent

Parents, if you suspect that your child has become the target of bullying, step softly at first. “Kids don’t open up much in those adolescent years. So you might have to fish for clues. Ask them about school and ask specifics about their school lives.”

If she says that the whole school is ganging up on her, try to find perspective: is it the whole school or three little girls in the same clique? “Kids feel like it is everyone, when in fact, with a little help from parents, they can see that it is just one or two girls who have hurt her feelings.”

Sometimes parents come into parenting roles with their own scars from bullies and are more sensitive to the social ebb and flow than their own kids are. “Sometimes we make it worse, out of fear that our kids won’t make it through this awful time,” Lee says. “We barge up to the school, demanding to know who is leaving our child out of the circle or we over-involve ourselves in our kids’ lives.”

And sadly, sometimes the parent was or still is, a bully, herself. She even may be subconsciously reliving her own girlhood, encouraging her daughter to leave out certain friends in a play group or sleepover. Or, she may have been a victim and still be smarting over unresolved issues of her own.

Saunders agrees with Lee. “It is very powerful and can make things worse when you get the moms in the middle of it. The parents’ values are very significant. A rule of thumb: if a parent does or says something in moderation, the kid will do it in excess. Parents can get kids to act out all sorts of psychodramas for them.”

What parents can do

Experts generally agree that telling your kids to fight back is not the best advice. The situation can escalate in a blink.

The best intervention is early prevention. Start teaching kids in pre-school how to apologize and how to accept an apology. Apology and forgiveness are difficult issues for grown-ups as well. Parents might want to pay attention in their own homes to how well they, as adults, model this behavior.

Older children who are being teased can be encouraged to say, "I don't like your teasing," and simply walk away. In other words, if the bully has no victim, they can't bully.

What parents need to do is use adolescence as a teaching tool. Parents are the modifiers for this extreme stage in their daughters’ lives, simply because we’ve lived through it. Show your girls that “the bully behavior is motivated out of insecurity and jealousy, not because the bully is right.”

If you suspect that your child might be the bully, consider talking to the school counselor or teacher, quietly. Then perhaps a visit with a mental health professional is in order. “Most girls grow out of this bossy, controlling phase once their sense of selves are strong enough and they begin to form their own identities. But sometimes these are the first signs to serious anti-social behaviors that will continue and worsen in adulthood,” Saunders says.

Saunders also says that studies show that in school environments where teachers and principals practice zero-tolerance in such areas as bullying, that occurrences are less frequent. When incidents are reported, there are mechanisms in place to find solutions.

“Parents involved in middle school organizations should request that these programs be put in place,” Saunders suggests.

Though most young girls experience some aspect of bullying—as the victim, the bully, or the follower—usually they grow through it and grow because of it. By high school, bullies and victims have usually moved through this phase and are nearing more adult issues. If middle school experiences are still dictating their behavior, it may be time to intervene professionally, Saunders says.

For additional resources: The Ophelia project at www.opheliaproject.org

Last Updated: 9-14-2006

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