What should happen with bullies?

A bully should be avoided, ignored, and stopped. If bullying happens in schools, the parents of a victim should talk directly with the parents of a bully. If the issue is not solved, they should involve the class teacher or even school principal to rectify the problem. If it happens inside an office, the victim of bullying should talk to human resource management officials to get help and sort out the problem. Remaining silent and letting the bullying happen is a way to disgrace yourself in your own eyes. The victim should stand up and raise the voice against this major problem in our society.

Types of consequences effective to stop bullying:

1. Victim ignoring bully and speaking up against violence or disgraceful remarks.
2. If it happens with a kid as if in a school or school bus, parents and teachers should be taken into consideration.
3. Gaining knowledge about behaviour of bully, talking with other parents whose kids might be a victim of the same bully. Then talking directly with the parents of the bully.
4. Taking help of school authorities to solve the issue.

Is it a parent issue?

If it happens in schools or with minors, it is definitely a parent issue and there should be total involvement of parents to solve this issue. If it happens in college with grownup teens, then college faculty and friends can help to a certain extent. In organizations, HR department is the one that needs to be consulted.

What happens if the parents are bullies themselves?

The worst case is when the parents turn bully themselves. I have seen several parents scolding their kids unnecessarily even when there is no need of doing that, always giving them commands instead of letting them express their views. Kids undergoing these types of situations at home have more chances of being bullied by other kids outside, as they lack confidence, self esteem, or the courage to stand up and speak against the cruelty.

This is such a tough issue to deal with at so many levels, the victims of bullying, parenting, school, etc. Any solutions?

Yes, I am sharing my personal story of successfully ending up bullying that was happening for last 5 months in my daughter’s school cab. Around 5 months ago, my 4-year-old daughter and a few of her close friends who are all in nursery class started complaining of a boy from KG (one year senior than them) who was hitting and making fun of their physical appearance, attire, water bottle, school bag, shoes, etc. I talked to the cab driver regarding this problem and the same was done by a few other parents. The kids stopped complaining for a month.

But unfortunately this was not the end to the problem, as one day my daughter came home crying and saying that she had been kicked on the face by the same boy. She had a black spot on her face. We called the driver at home, showed him the mark, took the contact number of the mother of that boy, and my wife called her. My wife told her the story but she said, “I have talked to my kid and he will not hit her again” and that was all. She neither said sorry, nor her kid felt guilty for the incident that happened on that day.

All was going well for a few months when suddenly my daughter again started complaining about that boy and at this time the boy was telling her to close his water bottle, open up his lunch box, pick up his school bag, and again making fun of her and other kids’ physical appearance and attire. I started thinking and planning to curb this problem for the rest of the day. I thought of meeting his class teacher but it was too early, so I decided to handle the whole thing on my own first.

Next day, my daughter’s cab arrived at 6:45 AM. I got into the cab with her. The cab picked up 5 kids and 3 out of 5 parents I met complained of the same problem but no one was taking any step to stop this problem. The cab finally stopped near the home of the “kid bully”. To my surprise, the kid was crying and was unwilling to board the cab after seeing me inside. He had seen me before once or twice and he already knew that I am going to talk with his father who was dragging him to board inside the cab. I got outside of the cab and only then the boy got in. The cab driver came outside standing beside me. We narrated the whole story to the father of the kid bully. As he was a nice gentleman, he promised me that this will never happen again and that he will keep a check on the behaviour of his kid with other kids. It has been more than a month since that day and I have never heard of any complaint from my daughter or her friends.