Senior bullying: How to recognize it, how to handle it
Here’s my latest article on McKnight’s Long-Term Care News:
Senior bullying: How to recognize it, how to handle it
Things were different when I was a kid. People regularly drove while intoxicated. The high school archery team practiced on the football field while the track team ran around the periphery. Children bullied their peers without anyone giving it much notice.
These days, drunk driving prohibitions abound, schools are no longer casual about teens with potential weapons, and children start learning about bullies in kindergarten.
When it comes to bullying in senior communities, though, we’re still behind the times.
What is senior bullying?
According to the American Psychological Association, “Bullying is a form of aggressive behavior in which someone intentionally and repeatedly causes another person injury or discomfort. Bullying can take the form of physical contact, words or more subtle actions.
The bullied individual typically has trouble defending him or herself and does nothing to ‘cause’ the bullying.” Bullying that does not involve physical contact is sometimes referred to as “relational aggression.”
According to senior bullying expert Dr. Robin Bonifas at Arizona State University, 10% to 20% of elders in senior communities experience bullying.
Dr. Margaret Wylde of the ProMatura Group reports that senior bullying occurs in every independent living community studied in her 2014 report, “Make Them Feel at Home,” sponsored by the American Seniors Housing Association.
In that study, bullying fell into the category with the largest relationship to whether or not the community feels homelike. Study participants described problems such as “difficulties making friends, being lonely, not fitting in, not having common interests, bullying by cliques, and missing their friends.”
Wylde notes that increasing residents’ sense of being at home results in fewer departures from the independent living community and reduced staff turnover, leading to an estimated $52,242 in savings over the course of a year. (Far more than enough to fund a bullying prevention program!)
Increased media focus
Senior bullying is receiving increased attention in the mainstream media, with articles such as Paula Span’s New Old Age column, Mean Girls in Assisted Living and Jennifer Wiener’s Mean Girls in the Retirement Home. (“Mean girls” tend to engage in gossip, excluding others and establishing cliques, while male bullies are more likely to yell and threaten.)
Heightened media exposure for the issue increases the likelihood that potential residents and their adult children will be asking about bullying prevention when they’re searching for a senior living community.
Steps to reduce bullying
In order to address bullying in long-term care, several steps should be taken:
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Senior bullying: How to recognize it, how to handle it
