31% of primary school pupils and 16% of secondary school students have been bullied at some time, according to a nationwide study¹ conducted by Dr. Mona O’Moore, Trinity College. 

While all schools have now put in place a policy for dealing with bullying, many have not addressed the very sensitive nature of preventing future bullying conflicts.

And while all schools have developed thorough discipline measures with appropriate sanctions, many use the same discipline procedures to deal with bullying.

It is my contention that this is not conflict resolution because bullying issues cannot be prevented by simply applying a sanction on the bully. Why do you think so few victims come forward, preferring to suffer in silence for fear of intimidation after reporting a bully?

Bullying is a deep inherent need in individuals wanting to control situations. Control is power and having a sense of dominance in social situations.

“Power can… be used as a basis upon which an individual superimposes aggressive, hostile, sadistic and masochistic tendencies and behaviour.” (Koestenbaum & Block)²

While enjoying this sense of power, the bully may not be aware of the hurt and anguish he/she is causing victims and indeed may move from victim to victim if the desired response is not forthcoming from the victim targeted.

“Walk away, smile, and keep control and 70% of the time the bully will move on,” the Anti-Bullying Centre advises.

However, it is necessary also that the bully be made aware of the damage an individual can sustain as a result of a bullying incident. All too often  schools punish the perpetrator without any examination of the root causes of the behaviour.

In a truly restorative school, the authorities strive to redress all conflicts by providing the mechanism to listen with empathy to both sides of the conflict. For minor incidents peer mediation programmes can be introduced through the students’ council. For more serious incidents, however, schools must identify and isolate this behaviour outside the normal day to day discipline issues.

This can be achieved by organizing a restorative conference involving the bully with his/her parents, the victim and his/her parents and the convener who ideally should be an outside professional mediator.

Prior to convening this conference, it is absolutely imperative that the expressed wishes of the victim be adhered to before any mediation takes place and the details of the mediation conference be explained fully so as to reassure the victim. Any hesitancy on the part of the victim and the conference should not go ahead. 

The conference should begin with the convener meeting both parties individually and privately – the details of which are confidential - and then later allowing both sides to explain their experiences face to face. This can be very emotive and careful handling by a professional is essential.

In this atmosphere the victim seeks redress and assurances from the bully that his/her actions will not occur again and that bullying of any sort will be discontinued. This allows the bully to face up to the incident with genuine remorse in the presence of his/her parents and in the presence of his/her victim and parents.

Dealing with bullies demands patience and understanding and a realization that anger, which is a mixture of both emotional and physical changes, can lead to a big surge of energy that goes through the body and releases chemicals, such as adrenaline. Anger is a normal process that allows us to evolve and adapt. It isn’t a bad thing in itself; however problems may occur if anger isn’t managed in the right way.

A mistake that has been made is to reprimand young people for being angry or displaying their anger. Being angry is an acceptable and normal emotion, just the same as being happy. It is important that young people have the opportunity to learn and adapt strategies for understanding why they are angry and how to control it and ultimately turn destructive habits into a constructive resolution. Once the cause of the anger is resolved, there may still be physical effects as all that angry energy has to go somewhere. Unfortunately, this can be taken out on another person, or an object: punching a wall, for example, and this can lead to self harm.

When one is angry, one has a choice as to how to deal with it.  You can escape by burying your feelings or by avoidance. You can explode by venting, blowing up or becoming physically aggressive, or you can express yourself assertively by negotiating, compromising and by problem solving. 

In conflicts in secondary schools we must teach positive, anger-coping skills and enable young people to develop problem solving skills, conflict management skills and ways of de-escalating angry behaviour.

Greg McInerney

1. Anti-Bullying Centre. Research Centre. School of Education Trinity College Dublin.  www.abc.tcd.ie
2.  Koestenbaum. P. & Block. P (2001); Freedom and Accountability at Work: Applying Philosophic Insight to the Real World. San Francisco: Jossey Bass/Pfeiffer. Deutsch, M. (1973); the Resolution of Conflict: Constructive and Restrictive Processes. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press