Bullying: Methods Used to Help Children Cope and Resolve the Issue

Bullying within the school system and other educational settings is becoming serious issue for children more and more each day. This issue has been on the rise due to the fact that most children are unaware of how to deal and resolve the issue. Another contributing factor to the rise in this issue is that when most children are being bullied they are too scared to seek help from an educator/adult for fear of more bullying. If an adult does not know a child is being bullied or there is an issue of bullying within the school how can they resolve the problem? Much the young Sarah and Derek they were too scared to stand up for themselves and seek help from an adult; it took the Sarah’s mother catching her in the act of stealing to realize what Sarah was dealing with, and Derek’s parents discovering all the bruises to see the he was being physically bullied. Educators play a very important, if not the most important role, to make school a safe environment for all the children. Nevertheless if an educator is unaware of a bullying situation or does not know the full extent of the severity of the situation they can never fully help the children cope or resolve the situation. School should be a safe place for everyone; adults within the school system have the main responsibility for dealing with bullies and should always educate the children about the effects of bullying and how to deal with the issue in a positive manner. Although the issue of bullying within the school system is on the rise, not all educators are on the same page as the students and not always aware of how severe the situation really is. There is a big difference between perceiving a bullying problem by staff who could stop the bullying and children who are the victims of bullies (Drecktrah, Ph.D., Blaskowski, 2007, p. 2). The issue of bullying is not a new problem for kids at school; statistics from surveys from many countries worldwide show that bullying is a major social dilemma. Teachers and schools may be hesitant to identify bullying as a problem because they do not have the resources to deal with this issue (Drecktrah, Ph.D., Blaskowski, 2007, p. 2). Also for some educators their perception of how serious bullying is differs greatly than how a child perceives bullying. At the elementary level, the staff (principals, counselors, secretaries, teachers, etc.) estimated that 7.1 percent of students were bullied compared to 69.6 percent of the elementary students who reported they had been bullied…At the middle school level, the staff estimated 8 percent of students had been bullied while 65.7 percent of students reported they had been bullied (Drecktrah, Ph.D., Blaskowski, 2007, p. 2). Seeing these survey results shows that not all educators are aware and recognize the severity of the bullying issue. Although it is the duty of the educator to make sure the school environment is safe for every child if they are unaware of the full extent of a bullying issue that is not possible; most cases this is the issue. The role the educator plays when dealing with the issue plays a significant role in educating the children about the negative effects of bullying and how to deal with those situations. The main of an educator is to ensure that all school and learning environments are fun but above all are safe for the children. When there is such a case of bullying in the school environment the adult has the main responsibility for dealing with the bully/bullies and not the child. Teachers responses to bullying vary and can be affected by the characteristics of the child being victimized, the teacher’s personal experiences with bullying during childhood, and the principal’s leadership within the school (Prevent.ca, ND, para. 1). When an educator is dealing with the problem of bullying they need to consider all aspects of the situation, and come up with a final