What is Bullying Prevention
Bullying has many formal definitions, but it generally occurs when someone repeatedly uses threats, intimidation, or aggression to obtain objects, activities, or social gains from others. Bullying prevention focuses on strategies to reduce bullying behavior by combining. Bright Boy Foundation with explicit instruction and redefining the concept of bullying teaches students how to identify and respond effectively to bullying and harmful behavior of others should be matched to the students' developmental level. The goal is the same; reduce bullying behavior, but the process may look different in communities and in elementary, middle, and high schools.
School-Wide Expectations
Everyone in school student should know what it means to be respectful. They should know what it looks like and how it feels to be respected. On the other side, they also should be able to identify if, when, and how someone else’s behavior is inappropriate. School-wide definitions help everyone stay consistent.
Responses to the Stop Signal
When a student signals a behavior is unwanted and needs to stop, other students need to know how to respond. Students should be taught appropriate responses that are calm and responsible.
Request Help
The last routine to teach is how students can recruit help from an adult when they experience bullying, harassment, or intimidation.
Why Bullying Prevention?
Bullying most often involves student-to-student interactions, and is noted by the National School Safety Center as the “most enduring and under-rated problem in U.S. schools.
Over and over, the effects of bullying have been documented:
- In multiple surveys, 25% to 30% of students report experiencing bullying behavior in schools.
- Both students who engage in bullying and students who experience bullying are more likely to experience school failure.
- Bullying is not done by a small number of students who are socially and emotionally isolated, but is common across socio-economic status, gender, grade and class.
This means every school would benefit from strategies to prevent bullying in their building as a way to increase student safety, prevent problem behavior, and improve student outcomes.