It is very likely that more school pupils suffer from bullying than any other group of people. Children are in the process of developing their social skills. They are learning what they can and can’t do in social situation, what works and what doesn’t and what they can or can’t get away with. This completely natural process, where everyone is discovering their possibilities and limitations, is bound to breed bullying behaviour.

Teachers and other staff are given a very difficult task. To police the children making sure that bullying is minimised and, when it does occur, to take action to stop it. It is important to remember that the main role of the teacher is to educate through delivery of the curriculum. They also pass on life skills and help the children to prepare for their futures in other ways but this is not strictly in their remit. I doubt many teachers join the profession to sort out bullying problems. To many teachers this is a necessary burden and to some others it is not part of their job at all.

All schools in the UK now have anti-bullying policies. While some are better than others, there is certainly much effort going in to make them effective throughout the whole country. This is, of course, very good news. I have noticed though, that many (perhaps the majority) are missing out on what I believe to be the most important thing they can do: Educate the children in effective ways to make the bullying stop.

In our ever increasingly ‘nanny state’ culture, we want to protect our children. We put teachers in corridors to police them. When any bullying takes place we take action against the bully. It’s the teacher’s job to sort it out. The best advice we seem to have come up with for a victim is to go and tell a teacher. As well intentioned as the teacher may be they can not always solve the problem. And I suspect its incredibly rare for a teacher to solve a long term problem by dealing with a single incident.

Here is something to think about: Adam is being bullied regularly by Paul. He knows he should tell a teacher so he plucks up enough courage and stays behind after class to tell Mr Morris. Mr Morris reassures Adam that he has done the right thing by telling him and promises to do what he can to sort it out. The next day, Mr Morris punishes Paul for bullying and makes Paul apologise to Adam and promise not to bully him any more. Later, when there are no teachers around, Paul then ‘punishes’ Adam for telling on him. The bullying continues but Paul changes some of his methods so that he is less likely to be punished in future. A couple of weeks later, Mr Morris asks Adam if he is still being bullied and Adam says ‘no’. He doesn’t want to risk being punished himself again. Mr Morris is satisfied that he solved the problem and is almost certainly going to use the same approach for future situations.

The subtlety in the above scenario is that Paul has learned from his teacher that if you want someone to change their behaviour then you should punish them when they do the thing you want them to change. Has Paul really done anything different to Adam from what Mr Morris did to him? And how do we know is a teacher is successful? When telling a teacher results in more bullying you’d be foolish to keep on telling, wouldn’t you?

Let’s educate the children in techniques they can use themselves. They can go to their teachers for help if they want it but it can’t be the only solution. If they can learn how to change other children’s behaviour towards them themselves then they will have powerful skills which will benefit them throughout their whole lives. They will be able to deal with any kind conflict and will make strong negotiators. Yes, we need to protect our children. How better than to give them the knowledge, the tools and the motivation to be able to solve their own problems.

If you would like to know how to learn the skills to prevent and stop bullying contact me at mark@bullyingfullstop.co.uk or call 0141 552 7045

Mark McKenzie