Whenever I speak to adults around the country about bullying and mental health, one of things I try to point out is that all adults and specifically parents have a significant role in eradicating bullying from schools.

First of all, parents really need to understand the possible devastating impact bullying can have on a person’s life. And then, it is very important for them not to downplay the impact being felt by their children. It is not appropriate to tell the children (who are being bullied) that “these things happen”, or “we just need to learn to accept it”, or “we need to learn to fight back”, or “just suck it up”, etc, etc. Instead it is very important for the kids to know that their parents totally understand what they are going through and are trying their best to support them.

The next thing they need to do is to try and work with the school staff to make sure the school is doing their utmost to stop this. Most schools these days have put together systems and processes to try to eliminate bullying. So parents should not hesitate at all to go to the school staff and tell them about what’s happening and ask them to try and stop the bullying. Most schools will likely cooperate and do their best to improve the situation.

Parents of children who are doing the bullying, also have a significant responsibility in this matter. If they find out (primarily from schools) that their child is acting out as a bully in the school, they should not just ignore the matter. They also should not just punish the child. In most cases the bully child is likely dealing with some other difficult issues in his or her own life and is acting out as a bully in school. It is necessary to talk to the child in a supportive manner to try and figure out what’s going on with him or her. And often, it might be very useful to get the child to see a therapist.

In summary, parents have a significant role in minimizing bullying in schools and they must do their part.

In my latest book titled “Minority viewpoint – my experience, as a person of color, with the American Justice System”, I have included discussions about the fact that people of color are at times not treated fairly in various situations. Some of those discussions are as follows:

Although it is all too often staring us in the face, we never like to focus on the issue of race and its possible role in such negative situations as the one in my true story. As mentioned in Chapter One, my status as a dark skinned ethnic minority has haunted me throughout the course of my life. With the epidemic of racism still rampant across America as of 2020, I know that stories like mine are far too commonplace.

Though I have no concrete proof to say that my race/color was a factor in the hotel employee’s mind, I certainly harbor my personal opinion that it played a role in her vindictive behavior. It doesn’t stretch the imagination to presume that the employee might have felt especially irked that a man of color had the gall to demand respect from her at the pool and then later to criticize her job performance in great detail to her employer. Clearly, her apparent dislike for me upon our very first interactions supports the idea that my race/color was a factor.

Though it may qualify as speculation, I do not feel I would have been treated nearly as poorly by this employee had I been white, as she was. One merely needs to look at her dislike upon first glimpse of me, her unprovoked rudeness, her questioning of the kids (instead of asking me as the paying adult guest), her behavior at the pool and then her false report months later to the Deerwood police. I felt treated as a second class citizen by her, right from the start and throughout. Common sense leads me to believe that she does not treat most other guests in these ways!

My book titled “How to stand up to workplace bullying and take on an unjust employer” describes a true story in order to provide useful guidance for both employees and employers. The main message is that a workplace can and should be peaceful and positive.

Bullying and harassment in a workplace simply cannot be tolerated. Any organization (large or small) hiring employees to work on their products and/or services, is responsible for providing a reasonable environment for the employee to do his or her job. In fact, it is important for the organization to provide an environment that is peaceful, positive and rewarding.

Everyone agrees that employees must receive appropriate feedback if their performance is not satisfactory. But the feedback does not have to be in the form of bullying and harassment. Any organization hiring employees must set up an appropriate performance management process. Even a small organization can set up a simple process that allows evaluating an employee’s performance and providing appropriate feedback with a development plan if needed. A process like that will allow the company to terminate an employee if performance does not improve over time. Employees typically cannot complain if they are aware that a process was followed. However, if a process does not exist, then it can lead to bullying and harassment.

Similarly supervision of employees is a critical task, but this too must not involve bullying and harassment. Most employees work better if directions and advice are given in a positive and encouraging manner. If employees do not respond to positive supervision, then the performance management process must be utilized. But there is no need of using bullying and harassing tactics.

Some people continue to believe that bullying is harmless fun that children grow out of rather quickly. Unfortunately these people do not simply understand the significant impact it can have on innocent children. It needs to stop.

Many school staff around the country and many parents still believe that bullying is really not a real problem in schools. They believe that maybe there are times when some children act meanly to others, but they don’t believe that it has any lasting impact on the children. They also believe that it’s okay for children to grow up having to deal with situations like this off and on. I would not disagree with them if it was true that in most cases these are just isolated incidents that happen once in a while with minor disruptions. What I know from my personal experience and from speaking with others all throughout the country, there are countless examples of bullying happening in hundreds of schools all over the country that often last for days, weeks, months or even years. Consistent incidents of bullying is what typically causes the most damage.

Most children are able to handle occasional mistreatments by other kids, but it gets extremely difficult for them to fend off consistent ongoing bullying. That is what makes it extremely stressful for victims and eventually results in mental health disorders for them. It is important for school staff (with cooperation from parents) to identify persistent bullying of this nature and work with everyone concerned to prevent it. It may not be possible or feasible to be able to detect each and every incident of mistreatment, but with a reasonable amount of effort, it should be possible to detect and prevent reoccurrence of bullying on a continuous basis. That is how the school staff can create and maintain a positive school environment.

Many Americans around the country have to seek out professional help from mental health providers to deal with the stress caused by bullying and harassment in the workplace. This needs to stop.

Most folks spend a major part of their daily life at work. Most of them are dedicated workers who take their jobs seriously and work hard to perform their duties to the best of their abilities. When they go home, they focus on their responsibilities at home and then try to find a bit of time for some relaxing activities. But if their time at work is filled with bullying and harassment from a manager or a supervisor or from other co-workers, then they are not able to focus on their responsibilities at home or a bit of time for relaxation. That is what causes stress for them, which could eventually turn into a mental health disorder.

It is true that for most people, some workdays are not stress-free. It is normal to have some stressful workdays off and on. But it is not a good situation if almost every day is a stressful day. Bullying and harassment in the workplace is often a pattern that continues on almost a daily basis. One can let go of things if it happened once in a while – but in many cases it typically happens several times a week (in some cases almost every workday) and that leads to the kind of continuous stress leading to mental health disorders.

It is important for all employers to understand that they have a responsibility to maintain an environment where all employees feel safe to focus on their work and not be stressed due to bullying and harassment. It is always appropriate to give necessary feedback to employees regarding their performance, but no one deserves to be bullied or harassed at work.

Bullying at schools often creates mental health issues for the victims and unfortunately in most of the cases that often goes undetected during the school years. And that causes delay in treatment.

It is very important for school staff to have adequate training in this area, i.e., to detect children dealing with more than usual amount of stress. When children get bullied at school, they show their stress in many different ways. If a school staff is well trained in this area, then they can figure out that something unusual is going on with these specific children and make sure that some appropriate intervention is happening. Typically all school staff including teachers, nurses, administrative staff should have some training so if they detect anything unusual about a child, they can immediately refer him or her to the school social worker or the school psychologist.

Children who get bullied at school often do not want to talk about it when they get home. Once they get off the school bus and enter their homes, they feel relaxed right away and do not want to discuss these negative school-related issues. They treat their homes as a sanctuary and feel that they can relax there stress-free until the next school day.

That is why early signs of problems are often not detected at their homes. Their parents can start seeing the problem typically at a later stage when things have progressed significantly further. The family members can see something only when the child is not able to contain his or her stress level. If this was detected earlier, then the child would receive appropriate treatment right away, when things are still at a mild stage. That is why it is important for school staff to detect this as soon as possible so the mental health issues do not progress to a more serious level.

It is important for all companies (big or small) to have an established process to deal with complaints from employees about bullying and harassment in the workplace. The process does not need to be elaborate, it just needs to be followed.

Having an established process makes it clear to everyone that the company takes this seriously. The process basically needs to include steps that will be taken if there is a complaint of bullying and harassment in the workplace. Some larger companies may have elaborate processes and procedures, but for smaller companies what is needed is just a set of steps describing what will be done if there is a complaint. The process would likely include steps such as documenting the complaint, interviewing the person who made the complaint, doing an appropriate investigation, preparing a closing summary with an action plan.

However, having a process is just the first step. Many companies do have a process, but they do not follow it sincerely. Following the process sincerely is the best way to ensure that the work environment will remain positive and rewarding. At times it may be difficult to come up with a definite conclusion, but if everyone knows that these steps will be followed, this will have a positive impact.

Employees need to feel that the company cares about everyone’s safety and wellbeing, and having an established process (and following it appropriately) is an excellent way to let employees know that the company is focused on maintaining a positive environment.

Schools must try to get the parents involved in their efforts to prevent bullying. Many parents often do not understand how devastating impact of bullying can be.

Children need consistency whether they are in school or at home. If school staff promotes a “no bullying” environment at school, then it is important for parents to totally support that approach when children are at home and when there is a discussion about bullying. It will be of no use if parents do not follow up on the directions set by the school staff – in that case, no matter how hard the school staff tries to prevent bullying, there will likely be continuing bullying incidents at school since the bully knows that he/she has support from home.

This makes it very hard for the school staff. I have had several presentations at schools around the country and in many cases I was asked to make an additional presentation to a group of parents. Although the school presentations were very well attended, the presentations for the parents have typically not been very well attended. It has been clear to me that many parents still follow the “boys will be boys” attitude and do not take bullying seriously.

It is a sad situation because with just a little bit of support from the parents, the school staff can really do an excellent job of preventing bullying. I strongly believe that if the parents really understood the kind of devastating impact bullying can have on many innocent children, they will work hard to cooperate with the school staff and make sure that a positive environment is maintained at school.

Even in the case of workplace bullying, bystanders can play a significant role. If a bystander watches harassment and doesn’t do anything about it, then he or she is not helping in promoting a positive environment at the workplace.

We all know about the role of bystanders when it comes to bullying in schools. When some children are watching and laughing about an ongoing incident of bullying, then it only encourages the bully to continue his bad behavior. It gives the bully a platform that he certainly does not deserve. Something similar can also happen at a workplace. If an employee watches another employee being bullied or harassed and doesn’t do anything about it, then he or she is also promoting such behavior at the workplace.

In my book titled “How to stand up to workplace bullying and take on an unjust employer”, I have discussed this issue in great detail. In my case I know that there were some employees who noticed that our supervisor was harassing me, but they did nothing about it. Some of them came to me later and told me how they felt about it and how it was not appropriate for our supervisor to behave like that. But when the time came for some of these witnesses to come forward and describe what they had seen, most of them simply did not want to come forward. They felt they just simply did not want to get involved with anything legal. I was fortunate that finally one person did come forward and expressed what she had seen in detail, and that had helped my case significantly.

The bottom line is that it is everyone’s responsibility to do what they can to maintain a positive environment at the workplace. No one deserves to be treated badly at a workplace and all employees have a role in this. If you see something, then go to someone and say something about it. In most places, you can do this and stay anonymous.

Bullying must be prevented at all schools. And in order to prevent bullying, school staff must learn how to help the bullies – typically school bullies are asking for help and the adults around them are responsible.

Most of the times, bullies are acting out in a negative manner simply because they are having to deal with some difficult issues of their own that they are not able to resolve just by themselves. Maybe they are being bullied at home by other members of the family and the only way they can feel better is to take it out on other innocent children. Also, it is possible that their families are going through a very difficult time (such as divorce or other serious miscommunications between family members, death or serious illness in the family, etc) and their frustrations come out on other children. Typically these bullies are not “bad” kids, but they do not realize that their actions are hurting other children significantly. These bullies need to be in therapy so they can have a way to deal with their own issues.

In my book “A Life Interrupted – the story of my battle with bullying and obsessive compulsive disorder”, I describe an encounter I had (in adult years) with the worst bully from my middle school days. I learned a lot from him about what his home life was like during those school years and how he resorted to bullying to be able to deal with his own stress. Later I have heard from many other adults around the country who admitted to me that they too had similar issues to deal with at home and that’s what turned them into bullies.

It is important for all school staff to be aware of this so they can act accordingly to help bullies so that they do not have to resort to bullying other kids to relieve their own stresses.