Friend or foe? Rethinking relationships

Students can witness bullying without even knowing it, and sometimes this bullying is being done by their own friends or even theselves.

Frenemy, a combination of the words “friend” and “enemy,” is the focal point of the Hillsboro Youth Advisory Council’s (YAC) campaign. The campaign aims to have students rethink and redefine what they know about bullying. A friend and a bully seem like two very different people. However, according to YAC advisor Kristi Wilson, a friend can be your bully.

“A lot of times, bullying might be done by friends within the inner circle [of friends],” Wilson said.

Bullies are often disguised as friends. Unfriendly comments and teasing between friends are normally seen as jokes, but according to YAC member Ashwin Datta, these are words that are meant to put a person down.

The more common portrayal of bullying is a physical conflict between people unfamiliar with each other. Recognizing that students may only see bullying from this single angle, YAC was inspired to start its Frenemy campaign.

“Everyone has heard of [bullying], and we feel that it’s been overused. It’s the same messages with the same catch phrases. Nobody is going to listen,” Datta said. “We wanted to make them think about their actions with their friends.”

Throughout the school year, YAC will introduce activities to raise awareness about this different angle of bullying. With the help of programs like Key Club and peer mentoring, the organization hopes to transfer the campaign to the school where it can continue without YAC’s help, according to Datta.

This campaign will be included in every Hillsboro school, but each school has its own way of presenting it. Through assemblies, posters, and videos, YAC aims to culminate their efforts with a district-wide Anti-Bullying Summit.

To start the campaign, YAC received a lot of help from Lives for Life, a non-profit organization with the goal of suicide prevention and helping those with depression. After an eight-month process of workshops and brainstorming sessions, YAC crafted its message and a plan to carry it out. Although YAC received help from Lives for Life, all aspects of the campaign were created by the student members.

Casey Waletich, director of safety and operations for the school district, was tasked with helping re-energize the district’s anti-bullying efforts last year and decided to work with YAC to do it. Waletich said having students create this campaign was essential.

"I knew that our students needed to come up with the idea, messaging and work," Waletich said. "If students [are involved] in the project, it will be a lot more successful."

For Waletich, creating a positive learning environment is crucial, and the presence of bullying makes it difficult to create that environment.

"The culture of a high school is very important. You can't have [a positive learning environment] with students putting each other down," Waletich said.

This spring, YAC plans to present the idea of a frenemy to the middle school students earlier.

According to Datta, students always need to be aware of their actions when they are around their friends.

"You need to identify that line where you may be hurting someone, and make sure that you're not crossing that line," Datta said.

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