Bullying Prevention

In 2015, I saw the need for a bullying prevention program in our homeschool community of about 100 students. Like many schools, our official policy was Zero Tolerance for bullying -- which sounds good, but wasn't working in practice. After extensive research and talking to mental health professionals who specialize in adolescent dynamics, the important takeaways for me were:

• Bullying isn't the same as being rude or even mean to a friend.

• Bullying is persistent and involves an imbalance of power. However, power dynamics among kids are ever-shifting and more complicated than adults often realize. The child with more social power isn't always the one we assume.

• Bullying does not have to be physical to cause lasting harm.

• If adults respond with harsh punishment, students will not report bullying, even if they don't like the child who would be punished.

• Bullying is often accidental! This surprised me, but once I started watching more closely I realized it is true. Often the child with more power does not realize that their target isn't on equal footing. When that happens, the aggressor thinks their actions are harmless fun -- "He knows I'm just joking around..." -- and needs help understanding that the other person is being harmed.

It became clearer why a zero tolerance policy was not working. Instead we needed to reframe the issue and focus on stopping unwanted behavior, NOT on litigating exactly what happened or on reforming the aggressor in every corner of their life. It really comes down to: In this community, you can not treat people that way.

Anyway. I could talk for hours about this topic, but below you'll find the final policy.