Best Strategies to Prevent Bullying in School: You can’t imagine the number of students who skip classes because of school bullying. It has become a concern to parents whose children are bullied. Therefore, there is a need for school management to devise new ways to prevent bullying in other not to lose their student to other schools.
Moreso, research has shown that the rate of bullying in high schools is increasing daily. This is drastically affecting the victim’s mental and emotional health which in turn gives rise to poor academic performance. In this article, we will show you the best strategies to prevent bullying and make your academic environment a safe place for students to study.
About Bullying in Schools
Bullying is when people deliberately use aggressive behaviour or words to intimidate others, which could lead to physical, mental, or psychological harm. In other words, it is a behaviour where a person uses power to control, hurt and dominate another through physical or verbal insult/assault, threats, or spreading rumours.
Furthermore, according to data from the United States, 20% of students between 12-18 years of age are experiencing this imbalance of power. Students who tend to be bullies are always stronger either physically, academically, financially or socially than their victims.
Moreso, bullying comes in different forms. Let’s quickly look into that.
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Types of Bullying
Bullying manifests in different forms and is often difficult to identify. However, there are about four (4) different kinds of bullying experienced in schools. They include:
- Physical bullying
- Verbal bullying
- Social bullying
- Cyberbullying
Physical bullying
This involves the use of physical actions or acts to control, hurt and intimidate the victim. These may include punching, kicking, stealing their belongings, spitting on them, hitting, pinching, shoving, intentionally destroying their belongings, etc. Leading a Successful School – 12 Things to Know.
Verbal bullying
Verbal bullying involves the use of words to assault or embarrass a person. This may involve verbal language such as insults, teasing, name-calling, intimidation, and lots more. About 26% of students between the ages of 12-18 years of age have been victims of verbal bullying.
Social bullying
According to research, social bullying is ranked the second most common type of bullying among high school students. It is often referred to as covert or relational bullying. Social bullying involves the use of various social means to damage or destroy a person’s social relationship or reputation. This could include spreading false rumours on social media platforms and so on.
Cyberbullying
This type of bullying uses digital technologies to threaten, harass or share harmful content about a person. It utilizes social media, messaging platforms, mobile phones, and gaming platforms to cause pain in a person. U.S.-based report shows that about 37% of young people between the ages of 12-17 years have been cyber-bullied. How to position your school for success.
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Effects of Bullying in Schools
Bullying is often accompanied by adverse negative effects. These effects are experienced at different levels by the victim, those who bully, and those who witness the bullying. However, let’s take a look at some of the negative effects.
- Victims of bullying will experience a drop in academic performance. Participation in school activities, attending classes, and other academic events will decrease drastically because they will always skip school in other to be away from their bully.
- Bullying could lead to depression and anxiety. There is an elevated feeling of sadness and solitude, a loss of interest in formerly enjoyed activities, changes in feeding patterns, and an inability to sleep properly.
- Bullying could lead to suicide.
- It also affects the student’s ability to trust others while building out-of-school relationships.
- Victims of bully often drop out of school and are not able to enjoy their education.
- Bullying could lead to the death of the victim.
- Lastly, let me show you the best strategies to prevent bullying in schools.
Best Strategies to Prevent Bullying in School
Research upholds that bullying happens in all schools, including the most highly rated schools. This shows that schools must discover preventive measures for this menace to be brought to a halt.
- Effective communication channels
- Involve the parents
- Boosting your child’s confidence level
- Encourage kindness and empathy
- Set up punishable rules and prevention protocols
- Educate the students about bullying
- Report Bullying
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Effective Communication Channels
This is one of the best strategies for preventing school bullying. Effective communication in the school community is very pertinent for the smooth running of any school. Keeping the communication lines open will help the school management to learn about the welfare of the students. Furthermore, through effective communication, both parents and teachers are able to know some activities that go on with the students and then, devise a means to halt the negative ones.
Involve the Parents
The school management cannot carry out this responsibility alone. The parents have a huge role to play in the comfort and safety of their children. Furthermore, a child who is being bullied may not be able to open up to the teacher but may be very free to communicate it to his/her parents. It is then the duty of the parents to report appropriately to the school management for proper measures to be taken.
Boosting Your Child’s Confidence Level
This is another major way of going about the matter. Children who have high self-esteem tend to face their fellow students better than those with low self-esteem. Children with low self-esteem are most vulnerable to bullies as they will not have the courage and boldness to handle the situation. However, parents should allow full participation of their children in activities they love which could include playing ball, instruments, cooking, joining a school club, etc. When students perform well in such activities, it gives them a sense of achievement and as such boosts their confidence level.
Encourage Kindness and Empathy
Research showed that when teachers were more emotionally supportive in their teachings, students were less aggressive in their behaviour. Teaching students some social and emotional learning (SEL) skills such as self-management, self-awareness, social awareness, responsible decision-making abilities, relationship management, and so on.
This will, however, enable students to better understand their immediate environment and treat their fellow students with feelings of kindness and empathy.
Set up Purnishable Rules and Prevention Protocols
This is a very important strategy for preventing bullying in schools. Every progressive community must have laid down rules and regulations guiding it which is punishable by law. This will go a long way in shaping the behaviour of students in school, thereby preventing bullying.
Educate the Child about Bullying
The behaviour of children is largely influenced by what they see or hear their parents do or say. Therefore, children should be taught to be respectful, friendly, and kind, and say “thank you” or “sorry” where and when necessary. Also, parents must make sure they do not display any violent acts in front of their kids.
Report Bullying
Any incident of bullying should be outrightly reported to the appropriate school authority. This will enable the school’s management to be aware of what is going on in the school and as such find means to tackle it. Also, following the policy and guidelines of the school’s disciplinary team, the bully will be duly punished. Further decisions may be made if they persist.
I believe you got value out of the best strategies to prevent bullying in school. However, if you have further questions, do well to drop them in the comment section.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are schools effective in stopping bullying?
Bullying in school may not be completely stopped. However, the school tries its best to implement effective strategies to help them prevent and reduce it. These strategies have been fully discussed in this post. Refer to it for the full article.
What are some reasons we should stop bullying?
The need to stop bullying in schools can never be overemphasized. Some of these reasons include:
- It can lead to the death of the victim
- Bullying can adversely affect the mental health of the victim
- It can negatively affect the academic performance of the victim
- We have extensively detailed these reasons in this post. Refer to it for the full article.
Why is the study of bullying important in school?
Giving the students proper education on bullying will enable them to discover the signs when they see one. Also, this education will help them utilize the tools of proper management which will protect them from being victims.
How effective are programs to reduce school bullying?
Schools are trying their best to set up programs that target bullying. These programs are doing well in carrying out their duties in accordance with the rules and regulations guiding bullying in the school.