The Anti-Bullying Handbook

Written by Keith Sullivan

Bullying is a topic that should concern all parents and everyone who works with children. For that reason alone The Anti-Bullying Handbook is to be welcomed. Bullying is a conscious and wilful repetitive act of aggression and/or manipulation by one or more people against another person. It is also an abuse of power.

This book shines a strong light onto a problem that is more widespread than we like to believe. Keith Sullivan, Senior Lecturer, School of Education, University of Victoria, New Zealand, helps us to understand more fully the nature and manifestations of bullying; and he catalogues different ways we can recognize that children are being victimized. These signs include not only physical, but also psychological abuse.

We all need to be aware that most bullying is below the surface and hard to detect. So guidelines on how to deal with a bullying situation and the various strategies for coping and stamping out this abuse are evaluated.

The emphasis of the book is on the ways to get bullies to look at the effects of bullying on the victim, rather than to focus solely upon blaming and punishment. Examples are given which will enable anyone working with children to carry out the programme.

Most importantly, Sullivan believes that every school must have a clear anti-bullying programme, and that parents should be involved in the adoption and implementation of the anti-bullying scheme. Parents should know that their children’s schools take bullying very seriously, and teachers should know how to tackle the problem.

By reading this book parents may find they are strengthened to tackle their children’s school if they are worried, and less likely to let their suspicions go unreported. The real strength of this book, however, is for teachers who want to set up a whole school anti-bullying programme, and how to monitor that programme.

The Anti-Bullying Handbook lists the best anti-bullying sites on the World Wide Web.

© Jill Curtis 2002

ISBN 0 19 558388 4
Oxford University Press and is available from at  £9.99