What programs or policies does your child's school implement to address bullying?

they have what i think is a pretty well-thought-out social competency program that all the kids do twice a week from k-5. it addresses bullying (among lots of other issues, including issues raised by the kids themselves or the teachers as well as some that are built into the curriculum). it focuses a lot on the kids who are bystanders to bullying, on the theory that they can have substantial impact. the school counselor also works with people who are bullying, being bullied, and with groups from grades where there's lots of bullying going on.

unsurprisingly there is still some bullying, anyway, though my kids have not experienced it. it's a big focus this year at our school, and i think policies are in flux right now as the administration tries to figure out what really makes sense. one step they've taken is to start sending all reports of teasing/harassment to the office, even for very minor incidents, so that the office can monitor for patterns. what looks like minor teasing if done repeatedly starts to feel like serious bullying, and sometimes those situations were not being caught by teachers or playground aides who only saw it once or twice.

I send my child to the public schools for an education. Some of these things mentioned are my responsibilities as a parent. If I didn't do these things, I should not be having children.

**character building programs**- this is done from the beginning of child birth. Children learn from parents and siblings how to build good character. Once the child is old enough. The parents talk to their child every day about their character. This is to assure that they can control themselves when out of sight of the parent.

**guide a child towards self-respect** again, my responsibility.

**keep them from intentionally hurting others** not only should the parent teach children about how to behave, parents need to prepare them for how others may behave and how they should solve the problems they face. Sending a child out into the unknown is what is hurting them.

**type of child who is emotionally stunted**

Not all bullies are emotionally stunted. Your child could be a bully, too. You'll never know unless you sneak peak. They are good at hiding it from adults.

** find value in hurting others** bullies have not yet developed a conscience. They don't care, and won't till they build a conscience.

**school administration** too scared to make someone mad. They're afraid someone will come back and shoot them.

**attention** Have you seen the student/teacher ratio? Especially since the recession began? They don't have time to pay attention to what's going on outside of the classroom.

**reactions** there are none till its too late.

**solve the problem, ignore it** sounds like something parents do.

**perpetuate it** it has always existed.

**worse** it has always been the same game, just different kids.

My guess is there's a whole lot more going on in the other boy's life than you're allowed to be made aware of. There really are some kids who just shouldn't be around each other, and this sounds like one of those situations. This other boy probably has a horrible home life, which may be why the teachers were quick to "brush it off," knowing there was more to the story than the boy just being a bully for the sake of being a bully. However, you should have been more informed about what was really going on, especially about the incident with the boy in the bathroom (although the teacher may not have known about the incident if your son or the other boys in the bathroom never said anything). If your son is still in the same grade/class, set up a conference immediately with his teachers, a principal, and the school counselor. Let them know about the findings from your son's psychologist and EXPECT an actual plan to be put forth for your son's safety regarding this other boy.

In my large school district, my very own firsthand experiences have shown me quite a few things:

1) the severity with which bullying is addressed is based largely on ethnicity. Those considered to be *minorities*, when bullied, take precedence.

an example: my son was repeatedly called "white boy" by a peer who was not, how shall I say it, white. Staff laughed it off, even though it continued for the whole school year.

This same child was called a "chollo' by one of his caucasian classmates... the mother raised quite a fuss... and the caucasian child was put in on-campus detention for a day because of it.

That is just ONE example, I have seen more, but I am already risking being labeled as a bigot for sharing my experience.

2) any attempt at teaching character-building is usually met by much resistance by either the students or their parents. And again, in my experience, from what I have seen of bullies, their parents usually fall back on leaving the so-called village to raise their children, but protest the loudest when the village tries to instill values that these children clearly may not be getting at home.

To be quite frank, that's not the responsibility of the school.

It's the responsibility of the parents to guide a child towards self-respect and instilling the type of behavior that is kind towards others.

*However* I do think that when the school administration has bullying brought to their attention that the parents need to be informed and the school needs to administer their own punishment for bullying.

But that's it. No further responsibility rests on the schools. The *parents* need to be the ones to implement an anti-bullying attitude in their children.

As for the child being bullied, again the parents need to step in and guide their children on how to avoid being bullied as well as how to handle being bullied. You can't always protect your kids from it, but you can teach them healthy, productive ways to deal with it and how to stand up for themselves.

My school does sh!t for people who are bullied or being the bully you really have to defend for your self. society wants to sweep it under the rug and act like people can defend for them self but some can and some can't

most shooold dont offer a program but are instead backed up by teachers always giving out warnings and reaching out there hands to younger kids. in my middle shoool we had wat we called anti bullying. a teacher was in charge of it and he set two bully boxes in the skool (school wasnt very huge) one in the library and one in the office. the box is for kids who get bullied to put the bullies name in it without getting identified. the name could be left blank. also if a person witnesses a bullying happen they can right down what they saw and put it in the box. most of the bullies there are punished. we also had this one "program" thing it was called peer mediation. it was an elective where peers (schoolmates) help other schoolmates with their peer problems. we get them in the room and have the ones arguing talk it out. there are certain rules to things so they dont get out of hand. in the end they write a reflection about wat happened and how it felt to get things. we then check on them one week later to see how things are going. everything is confidential that is said in the classroom. we also sometimes had assemblies that showed us videos n wat bulliying can do or wat it does to one another.

when school admiitrator learned about bullying they took at once into their hands to stop it in my school... well thats all i can remember so i hope that helps... sorry its sooo loooong xD