We can’t keep our children wrapped in cotton wool, although some parents try. From the moment they are born they steal your heart and the last thing you want is to see them hurt or in pain. Their little brains are like sponges, they take on everything around them and explore their surroundings with innocent enthusiasm and curiosity. They are little daredevils that will try anything and speak with pure honesty as they have no filters.
For the most part, as they grow, they gain a belief system that is inherited from their parents and other adults around them, and it is not always positive. If the adults around them have prejudices or biases so too will the children. If the parents are angry and aggressive towards others the children will believe it is okay to behave in the same way. They will learn right from wrong based on what the parents teach them or the example they set.
When they go to school, they are influenced by peer groups and teachers and depending on the friends they surround themselves with they can turn rebellious and angry even turning on the parents who love them so much. Many will become those children who often disrespect and bully others. Schools should be safe places but can turn dangerous for some children. The incidence of bullying in schools is a continuing epidemic around the world and no matter how hard school administrations and teachers try there is little or no impact on actually preventing it from happening.
When a child bullies another at school they are sanctioned, disciplined, given detention or reprimanded all of which are meant to be deterrents but simply fail to have any impact. Some victims become so traumatized they are pushed to take their own lives or, worse still, in some countries they have been known to gain access to firearms or other weapons and take revenge on the school, teachers and students who they hold responsible for their trauma.
No child is born a bully, for the vast majority of cases it is a learned behavior that they have obtained through their own environment, or the examples set for them by older siblings or the adults in their life. The only way to stop bullying from happening in schools and to save prospective victims from the trauma and long-term effects it can have on their lives is to take the time to understand the bully, why they bully and change their mindset and core beliefs, so the behavior is not repeated.
Bullying is an epidemic, both in schools, workplaces and society as a whole and with any epidemic in order to stop it from spreading you don’t merely treat the victims you try to discover the cause and treat that, so it stops spreading and/or re-occurring. Teachers in schools continue to support victims but in order for them to stop the epidemic they need to be given the training and tools to firstly discover why a child bullies and then how to change their whole mindset and core beliefs, so it never happens again. Change the Bully and we have No more Victims.
With many years of experience teaching, coaching and mentoring children in different countries and from many different cultures I have seen the positive impact that teachers can have on changing the behavior of bullies and troubled children. As such I want to share that experience with teachers today, particularly new teachers which is why I have written a short eBook guide for teachers on how to change the mindset of a bully to eliminate bullying behavior in their class. If what I have written helps one teacher and/or one student to become the best version of themselves then I have achieved something great.
Vicki Spencer 
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