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Trista Holder
Paul Anderson
English 1010
December 4, 2015
Preventing School Bullying
1. Introduction
Bullying is a common problem among children and teens. Most people are involved in
some form of bullying at one point in their lifetime. Whether that means they are an innocent by
stander, a victim of bullying, or a bully themselves. According to stopbullying.gov Bullying is
defined as unwanted, aggressive behavior among school aged children that involves a real or
perceived power imbalance In other words, this means that any behavior that intentionally
hurts, humiliates, or harms another person is considered
bullying. This can be either physical or emotional harm.
What many people dont realize is being a victim of such
harassment can dramatically effect a person for their entire
life.
Figure 1

According to pacer.org, research shows that bullying

has many short term and long term effects that can impact a childs safety, health, and education.
Bullying can lead to school avoidance, decrease in grades, and even increasing the rates of
dropouts. It can also impact the health of victims my effecting their self-esteem, as well as
causing anxiety, and serious depression and isolation. (See figure 1) Being bullied is a traumatic

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experience for any child, because of this it is crucial that we do everything we can to help end the
major bullying problem present in todays schools. It is important to know what actions need to
be taken in order to help prevent bullying. Whether you are a parent of a victim, parent of a
bully, or even if you are the victim yourself, there are many things we can do to help end
bullying. This led me to wonder, what can we do? What can be done in order to end school
bullying and create a positive environment for children?

2. Democratic Schools

I began my research with a quick google search containing the

words school bullying. Many articles came up containing stories in
the perspectives of children who had been bullied. There wasnt much

Figure 2

that I hadnt heard before. This led me to wonder about what we can do to prevent bullying. I
then searched the words preventing school bullying. After sifting through a few articles with
unhelpful suggestions for bully victims like look the bully in the eye or walk away from the
situation, I found an article that sparked my interest. The article was called School Bullying: A
Tragic Cost of Undemocratic Schools. It was posted on May 12, 2010 by Psychologist Peter
Gray1 in Psychology Today Magazine (pictured in figure 2).
The authors purpose was to explain his opinions on school bullying and the antibullying laws passed by the state legislature. His intended audience includes US Adults, aiming
towards school staff, and parents. In this article Gray boldly states that the new anti-bullying

Peter Gray, Ph.D., is a research professor at Boston College and author of the newly published book Free to
Learn (Basic Books) and Psychology.

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laws will not solve the bully problems. He says, the only way to get rid of bullying is to
restructure radically the way the schools are governed (16). From this article I learned that
the legislature creating anti-bullying laws will not prevent bullying. Changing the way the
schools are being ran is the only way to stop it. As suggested by Peter Gray, creating a school
where students and staff make all of the school rules through voting, and enforce the rules
through a judicial system with students serving as jurors, is the only way to effectively
decrease [reduce] the bullying problem. By working together with the staff, students will feel
they have a true voice. It will help create a community where people feel safe and useful in the
school. By changing the schools to a democratic governance, we give the students the ability to
feel ownership and pride in their school and promote a sense of power and security in their
future. I felt information of what a parent can do to help a child that is being bullied was
missing from this article, and this led to a search for my second article.
3. Parenting a Bully Victim
I conducted another Google search containing the words School Bullying
Parent Perspective and many articles showed testimonials of the difficulty of
Figure 3

watching your child become a victim of bullying. Many of the articles showed simple
suggestions of speaking to the teachers, school administration, and even the parents of the bully
about the issue at hand. One article caught my eye that was titled Theres No Such Thing as a
Bully: Parental Perspective posted on the New Rochelle Patch Newspaper website. The column
was written by Taryn Grimes-Herbert2 (seen in figure 3) on May 23 of 2011.

Taryn Grimes-Herbert is a published author, broadway actor, film writer, and producer. She takes her books into
classrooms in hopes to help children build character, develop empathy, and learn to communicate respect

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At first it seemed to be just another devastating story of a parent painfully watching their
child becoming a target of bullying. She said, I watched and worried as the self-esteem of my
usually confident and happy child crumbled (4). She then shares stories of parents in the
same situation sending hostile emails and voicemails to school administration, as well as many
confronting and threatening teachers to control the bully and stop the problem immediately.
Taryn then explains that it is important to handle each situation appropriately and not add fuel
to the fire (7). She suggests that in order to help end the bullying problem you must focus on
your own child and get them to recognize that the negative behavior of others [has] nothing to
do with them: Although I agree that it is important to make a conscious choice to change your
own attitude on the situation in order to illuminate the problem, it will not stop the bully from
being abusive. This lead me to realize that even though this has very good tips on helping your
child cope with being a victim there was no information about what to do when parenting a
potential bully. This led me to search for my third article.
4. Parenting a Bully
I then searched Google for tips for parenting a bully. After
sifting through some articles one caught my eye. Mary L. Pulido 3

Figure 4

(pictured In figure 4) posted an article in the Huffington Post Newspaper on April 19, 2012
called My Child Is the Bully: Tips for Parents. The purpose of this article was to help Parents
understand the warning signs of a bully and how to tell if your child may become a bully. She
began her article by explaining that children who resort to bullying often have common traits like
lacking empathy, expressng anger, controlling, low self esteem, and so on. She then went on to

Mary L. Pulido currently serves as the Executive Director of The New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty
to Children. Dr. Pulido also serves as a private consultant. Pulido holds a Ph.D. in Social Work and in Teaching.
She has published in the areas detection and prevention of violence, child abuse, traumatic stress, and child neglect.

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explain that ther is many things that can be done by a parent to help stop a child from bullying.
Listening to others, explaining the potential harm to your child, giving praise, setting examples,
as well as finding alternatives to bullying for your child are few of many suggestions given by
Dr. Pulido.She then explains the continuum of bullying and he different roles that children can
play. There is the bully, the followers, the watchers, those who ignore it, those who are afraid to
stop it, and finally the protector. Mary explains that parents should discuss this with their
children and encourage them to become the protectors, who stand up to the bully to protect the
victim. (6.)
Mary concludes her article by stating, The best way to help your child is to prevent
bullying in the first place. And encourages parents to be proactive about bullying preventino. It
is crucial that parents help their child understand the seriousness of bullying and the potential
harm that can come from it. Creating an encouraging and uplifting atmosphere for your child is
the best way to prevent them from taking part in bulling. Marrys article has a lot of helpful
information on parenting and how to set examples for your children, but what can you do to
ensure the same atmosphere at school? This question lead me to further
research the topic of school bullying.
5. Teachers Ending Bullying
This led me to search google for another perspective on preventing
school bullying. I searched the words school bullying teacher perspective

Figure 5

and found an article written by Maggie Dent4 (see figure 5) called Bullying in Our Schools: A

Maggie Dent is an author, parenting and resilience specialist, and educator. She was a High School
teacher for 17 years and then worked as a counsellor in suicide prevention and palliative care. She also has
published 7 books and creates many resources for parents, students, and teachers.

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Different Perspective. This article was a blog post from 2011 on maggiedent.com as a guideline
for advising school educators on what can be done in a classroom to prevent bullying. Maggie
begins her article by sharing a story about an experience she had with having a known bully in
her class. Over time Maggie was able to change the behavior of the class towards this student by
doing interactive social activities with the students in the classroom. She uses this story to share
the importance of teaching children the value of accepting others. Dent confidently shares the
two biggest threats that can happen to humans are to be rejected and to appear weak (10)
She then goes on to explain that when an individual feels safe, valued, and cared for it removes
the threat of rejection, which in turn removes the unconscious trigger to bully.
In her article, Maggie expresses her concern that anti-bullying programs may be
unintentionally making things worse (12) just as Peter Gray did in his article School Bullying:
A Tragic Cost of Undemocratic Schools. Maggie believes that focusing on the word bullying
creates a picture that makes the problem more evident which in turn, causes more bullying
problems then there would be otherwise. She also believes that changing the behavior of students
requires more than the time these programs are giving. Dent concludes her article by stating that
bullies are not born, they are made. (13) She shares that when a classroom offers genuine care
and protection to students they can all relax and learn to become less aware of social standings as
well as build a sense of belonging. Maggie says that as an educator it is important that all is done
to create a safe, friendly, and fair (16) place for students. Teachers play an important role in
childrens lives. It is crucial that they do all they can to help our children grow and reach their
full potential. Although it is very important that parents, teachers, and school advisors do their
part in preventing bullying, what can students do to end bullying in schools?

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6. Being a Victim
I concluded my research by searching the words bully victim and I found an article
written by Lawrence Robinson5(see fig 6) and Jeanne Segal6(in figure 7) titled
Dealing with Bullying: Helping Bullied Kids and Teens on helpguide.org, a
non-profit guide to mental health and well-being. Robinson and Segal began
Figure 6

their article by stating, To defeat a bully, you need to retain your self-control and preserve your
sense of self.(1) They begin to share ways to deal with bullying and how to overcome bullying
if you are a victim. According to Robinson and Segal It is important when dealing with bullies
that you take the appropriate steps in order to cope. Reminding yourself that it is not your fault,
being proud of who you are, as well as finding the best ways for you to
deal with the stress that can come from being bullied are a few of the
many suggestions made. It is stressed that it is very important to talk to a
parent, teacher, or counselor and ask them for advice when being
victimized by a bully. Lawrence and Segal also suggest to remind yourself
Figure 7

that the bully is trying to control your feelings so you feel badly as they do, it is in your best
interest to avoid giving them that satisfaction in order to stop the problem. One of the best ways
to cope with bullying is having trusted people you can turn to for encouragement and sharing
your feelings.
Robinson and Segal then go on to explain that even after the bullying stops, you may still
be left with feelings of fear, helplessness, anger, or anxiety. They share that it is important to

Lawrence Robinson has 15 years of experience writing for publications, covering a wide range of health fields. He
is also a published author and has edited several books on psychology.
6
Jeanne Segal is a sociologist, psychologist, and writer. She has been helping individuals for 40 years as an
innovator in various fields. She is also a published author of 5 books.

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give yourself time to heal and doing your best to avoid forcing yourself to heal. It is also
important to learn to manage your emotions as well as taking care of yourself is crucial to
healing after experiencing a traumatic event such as bullying. They conclude their article by
offering suggestions on returning to school after being bullied. Robinson and Segal give many
recommendations to children who are victims of bullying throughout their article, it gives many
tips to help cope with bullying. Although learning good strategies to cope with bullies is
important, the best way to end bullying is to stop it.
7. Conclusion
In conclusion, everyone is effected by bullying. Whether you are a parent of a bully
victim, or a parent of a bully, an educator, a school administrator, or a victim of bullying yourself
bullying has impacted you somehow in your life. Bullying is a major problem in our schools, and
it is crucial that we as individual do everything we can to end bullying. There are many answers
to the question, How can we end school bullying? The answers differ according to your place
in the bullying. The only way to end bullying is by preventing it from happening. There are
many wonderful strategies that we all can do to initiate the end of bullying including creating a
welcoming school where children feel important and accepted, forming positive environment in
the classroom, creating a culture where bullying is unacceptable, as well as ensuring a close
relationship with your children and informing them of the seriousness behind bullying. If we all
do our part in preventing bullying we will be able to end school bullying all together.

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8. Appendix
School Bullying: A Tragic Cost of Undemocratic Schools
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/freedom-learn/201005/school-bullying-tragic-costundemocratic-schools
Theres No Such Thing as A Bully: Parent Perspective
http://patch.com/new-york/newrochelle/theres-no-such-thing-as-a-bully-parental-perspective

My Child Is the Bully: Tips for Parents

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mary-l-pulido-phd/bullying_b_1435791.html

Bullying in Our Schools: A Different Perspective

http://www.maggiedent.com/content/bullying-our-schools-different-perspective

Dealing with Bullying: Helping Bullied Kids and Teens

http://www.helpguide.org/articles/abuse/dealing-with-bullying.htm

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Works Cited
Bowerman, Mary. Childhood Bullying Can Cause Problems Decades Later. USA Today 14
Apr. 2014.
Bullying Info Facts. PACR Center- Assistance for Children with Disabilities, Bullying
Prevention, Parent Workshops. Pacer Center.Dent, Maggie. Bullying in Our Schools: A
Different Perspective. Maggie Dent-Quietly
Improving Lives 2011
Gray, Peter. School Bullying: A Tragic Cost of Undemocratic Schools. Psychology Today. 12
May, 2010.
Grimes-Herbert, Taryn. Theres No Such Thing as a Bully: Parental Perspective. New Rochelle
Patch 23 May, 2011
Pulido, Mary. My Child is the Bully: Tips for Parents. Huffington Post 19 April, 2012
Robinson, Lawrence. Segal, Jeanne. Dealing with Bullying: Helping Kids and Teens.
Helpguide.org A Trusted Non-profit Guide to Mental Health and Well-Being September
2015.