(This is the first in a two-part series on bullying.)

The teasing began so long ago that eighth-grader Samantha Lachenmeier can’t even recall what was said.

But the Wachter Middle School student remembers how it made her feel.

“Absolutely horrible,” Lachenmeier said. “The hardest time was about second grade. Some kids made fun of me. I don’t even remember what they said anymore. I came home and I laid down on the floor and cried. I wanted to run away. I felt the world crushing in on me, falling to pieces.”

She wishes it wouldn’t happen, that people could grow up without experiencing the pain of words. She’s since learned to cope with bullying by talking to her mother and praying.

Bullying remains part of growing up, but its effects can last into adulthood. Nationally, about 30 percent of students are thought to be bullied or involved in bullying, according to the National Youth Violence Prevention Resource Center.

Despite recent media reports of bullying incidents and their sometimes fatal outcomes, bullying in North Dakota has remained stable over time. Most forms of bullying have persisted across generations, though new technologies have provided an avenue for harassment.

It isn’t a new phenomenon. Even the U.S. Supreme Court considered some bullying actions a normal part of adolescence during a 1999 sexual harassment case.

“Bullying has been around for as long as school has been around,” said Dr. Kevin Dahmen, a child and adolescent psychiatrist at St. Alexius.

The middle school years are when bullying becomes most pervasive. Mostly, middle school students accept the harassment as a part of life.

“Everybody has had it done to them before,” Wachter ninth-grader Stephanie Becker said. “It’s part of growing up.”

The tripping or shoving in the hallways is part of bullying, but it’s also words and body language. It’s the whispers into a friend’s ear about someone else, followed by a round of giggles. It’s the verbal volley of name-calling between students. Sometimes this spills into cyberspace through chat rooms, instant messaging and social networking sites.

Becker has been bullied before; she just doesn’t let it get to her.

“You can kind of tell there are three groups: people who are bullied, the bullies, and the people who are bullied and don’t care. They get over it real quick,” she said. “The people who are bullied and care skip (school) and you can tell they care the rest of the day.”

No numbers

Bullying in North Dakota schools is difficult to quantify. School officials report violence and drug-related offenses through the yearly suspension and expulsion report; students report similar behavior through the national Youth Risk Behavior Survey and police report incidences from when they are called to schools. None of these reports look at the day-to-day bullying students encounter, such as exclusion, name-calling or cyberbullying.

“The highest rate is fighting, but there’s all this that leads up to fighting that is not an item, though,” said Valerie Fischer, director of the North Dakota Department of Public Instruction School Health Unit.

Fighting accounted for 868 of the 1,974 violence- and drug-related incidences that ended in suspension or expulsion from North Dakota schools last school year. The report by the state does not track the incidents that can lead to fighting, she said.

The Wachter students define bullying in broader terms than fighting, although that can be part of it. Almost universally, they said bullying is purposeful, continual harassment. None of the students had been personally bullied online, but some had known or heard of someone who had been cyberbullied.

“Everyone can be mean,” seventh-grader Mitch Erickson said.

Students don’t always recognize who can be a bully, said Heidi Otto, school programs worker for the Mandan Police Department. Students have a hard time grasping that even authority figures can be bullies.

“There’s no one big, scary person who can be a bully,” she said. “It can be the smallest person in the class.”

Students rarely see themselves as bullies, even when the label fits, Otto said.

“It’s hard for the bullies to see that what they’re doing is bullying,” Otto said.

Some bullies don’t always realize what they’re doing is wrong, until someone tells them it’s unacceptable, Simle Middle School Principal Russ Reihl said. This is why schools need to help the bully as well as the victim, he said.

Just as anyone could be a bully, victims cannot be categorized easily, either. The images of bullying from movies — jock versus nerd, popular versus outcast, big versus small — rarely fits, Bismarck Police School Resource Officer Perry Lauer said.

Some factors out of the student’s control can make them easy targets for bullying. Looks, finances and social skills can play a part.

“They might be — quote — different,” he said.

But sometimes, they are the ones who wear the right clothes, try to fit in and still get teased, he said.

What makes a bully?

The line between bully and victim tends to blur. Often a student who is picked on will learn to pick on other people. Lauer said a small boy who is picked on because of his size may come back after a summer vacation growth spurt and pick on other kids. Students who were bullied can lash out after taking abuse, Otto said.

Students become bullies for many reasons. Some bullies have depression or behavior disorders, or they have witnessed bullying or been a victim of violence at home, Dahmen said. Students also learn to bully from family members. Some students who had been bullied will lean the other direction and go out of their way to not bully and to stand up for people who are bullied.

Bullying also happens through exclusion. Leaving out one student in a group can be a particularly hurtful form of bullying. Students who are left out and thus isolated from social relationships with peers for a year or two can end up falling behind in developmental milestones and have difficulty maintaining friendships, Dahmen said.

“The worst punishment you can do to anyone is to exclude them,” he said.

The effects of bullying can be far-reaching. Children have ended up in the psychiatric ward after continually being picked on, Lauer said. Students who are bullied can have problems with depression, isolation, suicidal tendencies, school avoidance, poor performance in or dropping out of school, and alcohol and drug use, Dahmen said.

“It can really wear on your self-esteem,” Dahmen said. “It can cause very massive damage to the children.”

This time between elementary and high school is a time when personalities change like the weather, and so do friendships. Problems crop up with the hormonal changes that come with adolescence.

Middle school represents big transitions in the lives of youth, including going from the structure of elementary school to the variable nature of middle school, Dahmen said. Children also are becoming adults. Western society has few rituals for going from child to adult, so the transition tends to happen fast, leading to confusion and anxiety about roles and lending itself to disruptive behaviors, Dahmen said.

“Middle school is a time of fitting in, not about academics,” Fischer said.

Bullying is not exclusive to middle school, Lauer said. Elementary schools, high schools and even adults experience bullying, too.

“It doesn’t just stop with kids,” he said.

What prompts it?

In middle school, it is usually over friends, crushes or clothes; never a big issue, said Beth Jeide, Wachter Middle School assistant principal. Boys and girls alike get involved in bullying behaviors and both can be involved in the same types of bullying, whether it be rumors or physical intimidation.

Boys and girls don’t handle bullying the same, most of the time. Two boys can fight one day, then be sitting next to each other in lunch the next, Lauer said.

“They deal with it, and it’s over,” Lauer said. “A lot of times, girls don’t just get over it.”

Girls seem more inclined to engage in emotional bullying, and boys are more likely to be physical. But, they do overlap, Lauer said.

Students say they believe boys and girls engage in all types of bullying.

“There’s a generalization that gossiping is how girls bully, and boys get into fights,” Becker said. “I see boys talk. They say things like ‘he’s gay’ or ‘faggot.’ It’s still name calling. Girls get into fights, too. It’s not just name calling.”

Many times, the bullying happens during passing periods and in the lunch room, when the students do not have a teacher telling them what to do.

Middle school also is a time when students start forming cliques. The cliques mean most people can find other people like them, Lauer said.

“There’s enough cliques out there that they can find a group,” he said.

Those groups can make people fit in, but also can fuel bullying. If several students in a group are picking on one student, it’s easy to join in, Lauer said.

“If there’s a bunch of people doing it, it’s that much easier to jump on board,” he said.

Eighth-grader Samantha Lachenmeier wants middle school to be different for her younger sister and cousins. She tries to set a good example for them.

“Now that I’ve gotten older, I talk to my mom or go to church and pray” if she’s bullied, Lachenmeier said. “It’s all in the Lord’s hands.”

(Reach reporter Sara Kincaid at 250-8251 or sara.kincaid@bismarcktribune.com. Reach reporter Jenny Michael at 250-8225 or jenny.michael@bismarcktribune.com.)