Monday, August 10, 2009

Bullying Education: What Is Bullying Anyway


The start of the school year is just around the corner, thus it's time to reach out and provide bullying education to parents of school age children. The latest research shows that more than half of all children are, at least on occasion, directly involved in bullying as a perpetrator, victim, or both. And many of those who are not directly involved witness others being bullied on a regular basis. No child is immune - kids of every race, gender, grade and socio-economic sector are impacted. But it doesn’t have to be this way. As parents we have the power to help reduce bullying by providing bullying education at home. By providing children with a bullying education program at home, we can reduce the number one school related student issue, bullying.

In providing a bullying education program at home, parents must first understand what bullying is. Bullying is another name for harassment. Bullying can be physical-one or more students hurting another. More often, bullying is verbal and includes persistant threatening, teasing, ridicule or talking about another person and sending insulting messages by phone or computer e-mail (cyberbullying).

In my 9 years serving as a building principal, I have heard parents tell their children to strike back at bullies. This is not the core of a quality bullying education program. Usually, that creates more problems than it solves. In a quality bullying education program, parents need to know what to do if their son or daughter is getting bullied at school. It is my goal to help all of the parents of children who have been bullied by providing a bullying education program to use at home.