Stop Bullying With Successful Anti Bullying Strategies

Stopping bullies from bullying is all about motivating them to change their behaviour. Educating them that bullying is wrong is all very well, but does that really make them change what they do? Those being bullied know fine that bullying awareness campaign are usually ineffective. If someone gains some benefit from bullying others then they have an incentive to bully. If we want them to stop them we must give them a bigger incentive in a different direction.

Any good anti bullying strategy must include incentives. More open forms of bullying at school can be greatly reduced with threats of punishment for anyone who bullies. The children must be educated to know what counts as bullying in order for this to work. More importantly, the level of punishment must be greater than the need to bully. Other wise there is not enough leverage for the child to change their behaviour.

Something not considered often enough is giving rewards for good behaviour. This can be a difficult concept to apply. How and when can you reward someone for not bullying? Is it only the bullies who get rewards for not bullying? What should the rewards be? How big does the reward have to be to stop bullying? For adults bullying at work can we use the same approach?

Here is a simply, yet highly effective, plan which powerfully motivates bullies away from bullying behaviour. Find out which emotions a bully gains as a result of bullying. Then take that emotion away from them when they bully and give them more of this emotion when they behave in an opposite way. This way, we can use the very thing that has been motivating them to bully in order to make them stop.