Bullying in Schools: Exploring Causes and Prevention Programs

This essay examines the pervasive issue of bullying in schools, focusing on its causes and potential prevention strategies. The primary cause identified is a lack of parental awareness, stemming from insufficient time spent with children and a decline in parenting quality, which hinders parents' ability to recognize behavioral changes in their children. To address this, the essay explores two key prevention approaches: health promoting schools and BP-PBS. Health promoting schools involve a whole-school approach, integrating health promotion into the curriculum and fostering a supportive environment. BP-PBS, a behavior-focused framework, empowers school counselors and teaches students respect and conflict resolution skills. The essay highlights the effectiveness of these strategies, supported by examples and research findings, emphasizing their potential to create safer, more supportive learning environments and improve student outcomes. The essay concludes by emphasizing the importance of a multi-faceted approach involving both parental involvement and school-based programs to effectively combat bullying.

BULLYING

INTRODUCTION
Bullying in schools has been a headline in the media due to its negative consequences on
children. Bullying refers to the threat or abuse, aggressively dominate. There are many chronic
concerns related to bullying which are to be considered for the development of the victim. There
are many causes of bullying but bullying in school as parental awareness and some students are
given too much power ad authority and for making fun and enjoying they do this and it is the
main cause. To resolve this issue schools must make students to aware about the effects of
bullying by undertaking prevention program like BP- PBS and Health promoting schools.
Bullying in School
Firstly,that main cause of bullying is parental awareness of bullying. Many children in
schools are bully by their peers. It has been described that parents are unaware about their
children are victim of bullying. It is the main cause because of lack of time spent by parents with
children. Also, the quality of parenting in early years has degraded. They are not able to identify
behavior of children. Moreover, students unregulated change in behavior for long time has
affected early childhood. Moreover, weak family functioning makes it difficult for parents to
understand how child interact with others in school. Furthermore, after improvement in parental
controlling main factors identified was time spent with child care and predicting their behavior
reported by teachers. Therefore, parental awareness is main cause of bullying. For example –
only 1.8% of bullying cases were reported by parents. In England 45% of student told their
parents that they are bullied. Thus, this shows lack of parental awareness as cause of bullying.
Furthermore, there are various approaches that relate to preventing bullying in school. The
first one is health promoting schools (Wolke and Lereya, 2015). Here, teachersof school work
together to promote positive health. Here, in curriculum a healthy and safe school environment is
developed. Moreover, communities and family members are involved in promoting health. The
approach consists of framework which is curriculum teaching and learning, school ethics and
community. The students are encouraged to care about each other. Also,teachersensure that in
curriculum health promotion is included at both social and physical environment of school. The
approach is aligned with curriculum. The program are effective when it include change in school
culture, teacher and parents. The approach emphasis on building strong school and community
culture. The personal skills and resilience are developed for long term. there are different

components of health promotion are successfully implemented. There is positive influence on
student behavior through health promotion schools. This approach is beneficial than other as they
only rely on 1 or 2 approaches like classroom program. For example – in New Zealand in half of
schools, classroom mental health and well being programs were mostly used strategy. Hence,
whole school approach is implemented as health promotion schools.
Moreover, another approach that can be used to prevent bullying in school is BP-PBS and is
related to behavior. It is a component of PBIS that is framework for teaching. BP-PBS enable
school counselors to play as role of leader in schools. The students are allowed to respect each
other. There is a three step response included in it. First is when any student is disrespected by
peers, students are taught to stop it, they are made aware about it that bullying can hurt and lower
moral of juniors and those students are being bullied. By giving equal authority and power to all
students can also prevent and stop this situation. By teaching a child that how to speak to others
and respect their boundaries can be helpful. It is true that person’s behaviors cannot be changed
if the main cause of that behavior is not addressed and changed. This response is directly related
to student behavior. It will be useful for teachers to educate students and prevent bullying in
schools. (Yates and Smith, 2017). The school personnel is trained to provide deal with specific
response of children. The approach outline school rules, describe difference between tattling,
telling and dangerous situation and many other elements. For example- 91% students walked
away from bullying in posttest. Similarly, in posttest 2 98% students talked with adult. Thus, this
approach was successfully implemented in school.
CONCLUSION
It has been concluded that bullying has a diverse effect on the mindset of the students.
The present research topic is based on to define the cause of bullying in school is parental
awareness. This study has covered the prevention strategies as approaches BP- PBS that is
behavioral approach and other is Health promoting schools. Therefore, it will enable in
promoting student safety, wellness engagement and effective learning.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Mikkelsen, E.G and et.al.,2020. Individual consequences of being exposed to workplace bullying. In
Bullying and Harassment in the workplace.: Developments in theory, research and practice. 3rd.
edition. CRC Press.
Smith, P.K. and Thompson, D., 2017. Practical approaches to bullying. Routledge.
Yates, C. and Smith, P.K., 2017. Bullying in two English comprehensive schools. In Bullying (1989) (pp.
22-34). Routledge.
Wolke, D. and Lereya, S.T., 2015. Long-term effects of bullying. Archives of disease in childhood.100(9).
pp.879-885.