Bullying has reached epidemic proportions throughout schools right across the world. To help combat this we have anti bully week soon in the UK and other countries have similar things taking place. I'm an adult and also a teacher who still remembers being bullied at school and i have my own concerns with anti bully week. Now before you read on please try to think back to when you were 9 years old and how you processed information at that age. Anti bully week as admirable as it is is simply not enough, In fact i would go as far to say that it is more hurtful to a child suffering from bullying to know that we as adults only care deeply enough to help them one week out of fifty two weeks a year with this serious problem that is life threatening to them. One weeks grace from being bullied is how a child sees it no matter how well our intentions are. Children want adults to pay attention to bullying behavior every day of the school year and not just one week. A bullied child will spend anti bully week worrying about what is going to happen the following week. The same child will welcome one weeks grace from bullying for sure but deep down they also know that it will be wiped from memory the following week on the playground when it's back to business as usual for the bully. That is exactly how i see it knowing that i was one of those bullied kids and only someone who has been bullied can truly understand how that feels inside, no amount of board meetings are going to help change this situation until children are actively involved in those meetings and adults actually listen and i mean seriously listen to what children have to say before making any decisions. No bullied child cares about how many qualifications you have or how clever your words are spun on this issue. All the child wants to know is when are you going to stop me from being bullied and who do I turn to at school who will actually step in and stop it! Address those two key issues for children in school and you have a fighting chance. Look at it from a childs point of view... Lets say a child falls over on the playground and graze their knee,the response from an adult is instant! We instantly DO something to help that child but yet when an adult see's bullying take place there is always a pause, it should not be like that. We should respond instantly in the same way as a grazed knee because that is how a child see's it. No one wants to see a child suffer but the reality for the child being bullied at school is.. You just saw me being bullied and did nothing about it. How hurtful is that for a young mind to process? We teach our children to do the right thing/help each other and yet they see adults turn a blind eye to bullying when they really need us to step in. As adults we know that this is not always the case ,not all adults respond this way because it is simply untrue but to a child suffering at the hands of a bully they will not see it that way at all. I know I didn't! As i was developing my own anti bully program i already had lots of information to draw upon from my own experience of it and i also spoke with lots of children about bullying. I also come from a large family and one nephew and niece that i spoke to gave me so much information that it was like i had been transported back in time to when i was at school. They were telling me the exact same things kids were saying and doing on the playground over 30 years ago! Another very important thing which is easily overlooked by schools in general is that if they did actually stop bullying in school the children's grades would naturally improve! They would improve ten fold because the child no longer sits in the classroom engrossed in their own worrying thoughts about what is going to happen to them once the bell rings. Their minds are free from all those worrying thoughts so they can focus on their school work. Yet we waste so much time and money focusing on stats when the answer to improve those stats are right under the principles nose. Stop the bullying behavior! There is no quick easy fix to this problem because without all the teachers being on the same page and making a stand stepping in every time they see bullying behavior it will continue. Teachers also need to get back in touch with their own childhood to really understand how this problem seriously affects children's ability to learn. Think like a child,see it from their point of view, listen to what is important to a child for them to be able to speak up so the teacher can step in and begin to help them. My program is a whole school program. Everyone is involved and no one is left out and it is created for children to work together with teachers. Bullying behavior is what i look at addressing in my program and once teachers realize that it is this behavior that needs their attention the more chance we have of seeing kids running home from school all excited to tell their parents of how great it was at school today instead of running home in living fear because yet again we turned a blind eye and they are actually running home in fear because they are being chased down the road by a school bully. Johnny website: http://www.wix.com/speakuptoyourteacher/order-page

It takes a village to stop bullying. Everyone needs to understand what it is, why it's wrong, and how to confront it. Adults can help create a caring environment by using children's books that elicit discussion of such issues. See my post "The bullies, the victims, and the silent bystanders" at http://booksofwonder.wordpress.com/