Tips to Prevent Bullying in Schools - Consejos para evitar el bullying en las escuelas: ¿Tú crees que eres mejor haciendo esto?

Written to reach victims of bullying, students, teachers, and parents in Peru, this e-newsletter, news article, and video from the non-governmental organisation (NGO) Familia y Desarrollo provides tips to prevent bullying in schools (in Spanish). It describes forms of bullying and how they provoke negative reactions among peers. It then describes ways to mediate the situation and remediate the behaviours in schools, in the family, for students, for school advisors, and for the victims.

Amongst the communication-related strategies are the following:

• In schools, create mailboxes for complaints and confidential reports; create a student defender position at the classroom and school levels; and create a monthly confidential evaluation of the classroom atmosphere by the students.
• In the family, check in regularly with children to verify the quality of friendships, problematic relationships, and unresolved social situations and with teachers on problematic situations they may have observed.
• For children acting out as bullies, dispel the notion that a bully is powerful and that victims are weak, but clarify that bullying makes the bullies miserable and that they display infantile emotional behaviour in place of problem solving abilities.
• For victims, use the complaint system established in school, call a hotline to talk about the situation, and avoid being alone in situations where bullying occurs.