Bullying in schools: Consequences and solutions

EVIDENCE suggests that bullying and racial discrimination are real in our society, including in some of our schools in Namibia. If you deny that these two social evils are not prevalent in our society and schools, you could as well dismiss Covid-19 as bogus; yet, it is killing our beloved ones!

In this article, I share five personal lessons of how these two disruptive behaviours manifest themselves in the school and home environments. Also, I provide a non-exhaustive list of measures schools and parents may undertake to handle child bullying and racial discrimination incidences.

First, bullying is very common in schools and a source of much unhappiness for victimised children. Yet, children rarely speak about being bullied, perhaps because of feeling ashamed or because they have not found it to be of any help in the past.

Second, bullying takes various forms, namely physical and verbal. Today, it may also take the form of negative social media messaging. Whatever form it takes, bullying when it happens is often persistent and threatening. Bullying may also take the form of extortion, in which the victim is required to give up possessions or money to the assailant.

This form of bullying is widespread and may continue for months without any adults aware of what is happening. Other examples of bullying include unpleasant teasing in which assailants may taunt their victims as plumps, oddlooking, or wearers of glasses.

Also, assailants may use insults and name-calling about their victims’ skin colour and ethnic group and imagined sexual inclination or behaviour. One of the most favourite forms of bullying is insulting a victim’s mother. Third, it is difficult to get the child, especially the assailant to admit that these sorts of things happen.

Undoubtedly, bullying and racial discrimination have negative consequences on the current and future well-being of victims. For instance, school counsellor reports show that bullied children may display strange tantrums or anxieties at home resulting from the teasing that they are likely subjected to at school. Victims of bullying and racial discrimination react differently to these bad behaviours.

Because of their unhappiness and anxiety, children may choose to spend time alone sometimes in the school library.

Victims of bullying may also be involved in self-harm or destruction of property. For example, because children feel powerless to fight back at their assailants, either physically or verbally, they might punch their pillows or their tummies when they are angry. Further, reports suggest that victims of bullying may suffer from lack of sleep because of worrying at night about school.

Bullied children may lose their friends both at home and school. Also, a bullied child may underperform in his/ her schoolwork. Moreover, the child may be withdrawn at home and often become easily irritable with siblings.

What then should parents, teachers and learners do to avoid bullying and racial expressions from occurring at school? First and foremost, parents should take note that “charity begins at home.” If your child is being accused of using racial slurs or bullying other children at school, parents must seriously act on such reports. Although it may be difficult to accept reports that your child is bullying other children at school, parents must never sweep such reports under the carpet.

Also, although parents are expected to be patient, they must avoid blaming the child and school for their child’s misdeed. If a parent is not confident enough to ask the child, seek outside professional advice.

Teachers, on the other hand, must remember that they are in loco parentis of the children for the duration of the school. Additionally, both parents and teachers must regularly ensure children are aware of why they are at school. For parents, there is a need to hold constant discussions with their children about life in general and school.

Questions such as ‘how was school today’ or ‘what did you learn today’, could be enough to generate an endless discussion about what happened at school? Such and related questions could go a long way to show the child that ‘my parents care not only about my welfare’ but also will help children to attach meaning to their schoolwork and teachers.

Parents who engage their children about school matters have a high likelihood of discovering what it is that their children (dis)like about school. And such information might help parents to discuss ways about how to put those things right and talk through how they might avoid pressure from friends who might show them bullying and racial tendencies.

Most importantly, parents need to become allies with school. Every parent must enter a social contract with the school and undertake to receive and react early on any problem their child might be experiencing. Parents have a personal obligation to work closely with the school of their children. Schools will always be under stress when cases of bullying and perceived racial discrimination are alleged.

For instance, if there is a lot of political intervention or union involvement, the school management will be very stressed while embroiled in trying to extinguish fires, leading to loss of teacher morale, increased staff leave requests, and turnover with no learning for children. Any school instability will make children more anxious.

The remedy, therefore, is that teachers and the school management must never ignore internal reports of perceived bullying and racial discrimination. Failure to investigate and deal with the two school problems can underestimate the possibility of resolving such issues once they publicly come to light. There is a tendency for school management committees of suppressing for many years what they may regard “damaging” issues. Sometimes school managers simply rebuke children and teachers for bringing the name of the school into disrepute, leading to transfers or expulsion of children and teachers perceived to be “troublemakers.” Such decisions and actions are counterproductive. As for school counsellors, whether children experience academic, behavioural problems or both, your job is to be truthful to parents, learners, and the school authority without fear of contradiction.