Middle School Bullying Stopped if You Just Keep Trying!

 by: Paula McCoach

So, one of your stop bullying techniques has only made a dent in making the hardcore bully stop.

Well, try another.

1. Your first school bully stopping technique was to talk to the bully, and he/she stopped briefly. Continue this technique as long as the victim keeps reporting the bullying.

2. But, just to be sure, add parent contact to your bag of tricks with this school bully. Once you have enough reports, some of which should be from teachers, contact the parent and get them involved in putting a stop to the bullying.

3. Thirdly, with one particular bully, once we got the parent involved, she signed him up for our in-school counseling program run by out County Health Department.

4. He was doing better but was still a little rough around the edges in terms of bothering others, so we assigned him a mentor from Bully Zapper Mentor program.

5. He was also receiving special education services and small group instruction and was closely monitored by several teachers and educational assistants – this helped our bully victims as well.

6. Class meeting on bullying and teasing were also presented to this student as well as all our middle school students in social studies classes once a quarter.

7. Finally, several of his bully victims filled out peer mediation forms, so he participated in coming up with solutions to stop bullying in these small group sessions.

By eighth grade, he had a fairly good year with decent grades and minimal interventions. With most bullies one technique will not do the trick.

Paula McCoach invites you to subscribe to the Bully Zapper Newsletter, which is published weekly with tons of tips on how to effectively deal with bullies in elementary and middle school. You will receive a free special report for your subscription. To subscribe, go to http://www.bullyzapper.com

©2005 Permission granted to reprint this article in print or on your web site so long as the paragraph above is included and contact information is provided to the email coach@bullyzapper.com and http://www.bullyzapper.com