Does the Bully Know You Care?

How to Stop Bullying in Schools

Martin J. Hayes, House Principal
Central Bucks High School East

Care. C-A-R-E. Care. Our children need to know that we care. They need to know that we care to protect them, shelter them, feed them, listen to them, talk to them, hug them, help them, teach them, challenge them, inspire them, believe in them, cherish them and love them. Our job as adults, whether we are teachers, parents, counselors, administrators, or any adult in a child’s life, doubtlessly involves many things that we “have to do,” and in most cases many things that are very important and meaningful. We cannot, though, allow these things to stop us from responding to and fulfilling our children’s needs.

It is only when we put our children’s needs at the forefront of our priorities that we will build trust in them and be able to help them work on becoming the wonderful young men and women that they can be.

Bullying is not an issue of who is right, who is wrong, or who is to blame, but an issue of what can we do to prevent it. Our children who are bullied need our help, and so do our bullies.

I am a grown man. The only movie I ever cried for was Rocky I. I wept this past Monday. I wept as I viewed ABC’s list of Philadelphia’s thirty most wanted. I wept because each of these young men was once a student in your class, in my class, a student, a child of ours. These young men are our “bullies.” Where did they go wrong? Where did we go wrong? Now I am not saying we all need to be softies, but I am saying that we need to reach out, reach out until we can’t reach any more to let all of our children know that we care. Could we have saved these children? I don’t know, but I’ll never stop trying.

And our bullied children…they need to know that we care. We care about how they feel, how being bullied makes them feel, and beyond that, how we care about them for who they are and what they like, how they feel and who they like. We need to express interest toward their interests and let them know, consistently, that they are more important than all of the “things” that we need to do.

Care.