Misdirections in Bullying Prevention

and Intervention

In recent years, increasing numbers of educators,

health professionals, parents, and other adults 

who interact with children and youth have come to

understand the seriousness of bullying. Bullying

among children is aggressive behavior that is

intentional and involves an imbalance of power and

strength. Many proven and promising prevention

and intervention strategies have 

been developed. 

Unfortunately, some misdirected intervention 

and prevention strategies also have been

developed lately.

Zero tolerance policies

Many schools and school districts have adopted

“zero tolerance” or “three strikes and you’re out”

policies towards bullying, in which children who

bully others are suspended or expelled from school.

These policies (also called “student exclusion”

policies) raise many concerns.

• These policies affect a large number of students.

Recent surveys of elementary and middle school

students indicate that approximately one in five

students admit to bullying their peers periodically

(Melton et al., 1998). Even if policies are limited to

physical bullying, the numbers of affected

children are still significant. 

• Threats of severe punishments, such as suspension

or expulsion, may actually discourage children and

adults from reporting bullying that they observe. 

• Bullying can be an early marker of other problem

behaviors. Children who frequently bully their

peers are at risk of engaging in other problem

behaviors such as truancy, fighting, theft, and

vandalism. Children who bully are in need of

positive, prosocial role models, including adults

and students in their school. 

Although suspension and expulsion of students

may be necessary to maintain public safety in a

very small number of cases , these practices are not

recommended as a broad-based bullying

prevention or intervention policy.

Conflict resolution and peer mediation

Conflict resolution and peer mediation are common

strategies for dealing with conflicts among

students. Many schools also use peer mediation

and conflict resolution to address bullying

problems, but this is not recommended. Why?

• Bullying is a form of victimization, not conflict. It

is no more a “conflict” than are child abuse or

domestic violence.

• Mediating a bullying incident may send

inappropriate messages to the students who are

involved (such as, “You are both partly right and

partly wrong,” or “We need to work out this

conflict between you”). The appropriate message

to the child who is bullied should be, “No one

deserves to be bullied, and we are going to do

everything we can to stop it.” The message for

children who bully should be, “Your behavior is

inappropriate and must be stopped.”
These and other materials are available online at: www.stopbullyingnow.hrsa.gov

• Mediation may further victimize a child who has

been bullied. It may be very upsetting for a child

who has been bullied to face his or her tormenter

in mediation.

• There is no evidence to indicate that conflict

resolution or peer mediation is effective in

stopping bullying.

Group treatment for children who bully

Another strategy that some schools use to address

bullying behavior involves group therapeutic

treatment for children who bully, including anger

management, skill-building, empathy-building, and

seeking ways to build the self-esteem of bullies.

Although these interventions are well-intentioned,

they often are counter productive. Students’

behavior may further deteriorate, as group members

tend to serve as role models and reinforcers for each

others’ antisocial and bullying behavior. 

Simple, short-term solutions

Often, school administrators and their staff adopt a

short-term, piecemeal approach to bullying

prevention. Bullying may be the topic of a staff inservice training, a PTA meeting, a school-wide

assembly, or lessons taught by individual teachers.

Although each of these efforts may represent

important initial steps in the adoption of a

comprehensive, long-term bullying prevention

strategy, they likely will do little to significantly

reduce bullying problems if implemented in a

piecemeal way. To reduce the prevalence of

bullying we need a change in the climate of the

school and its exceptions for student behavior. 

References

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2005, from www.nea.org/publiced/chase/bc010325.html.

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