There is still great difficulty in getting the message across to schools that bullying is a serious problem, a conference on bullying and suicide was told yesterday.
Bullying along with levels of aggression was on the increase, according to speakers at the Irish Association of Suicidology and National Suicide Review Group conference.
Society considered bullying to be a normal phase of development, the conference heard yesterday.
Accumulating evidence showed that children who were bullied by their peers as well as the bullies themselves experienced more depression and a higher degree of suicidal ideation compared to other students, said Prof Ken Rigby, an educational consultant on bullying to the Australian Department of Education, Science and Training.
"We need to convince people that bullying does a great deal of harm. We need to motivate people to work together to find ways of stopping it," he said.
Victims often suffered in silence. A society which had so much admiration for the strong and had so much pressure "to cope" made it difficult for children to admit to victimisation, said Dr Mona O'Moore, co-ordinator of the Anti-Bullying Centre at Trinity College Dublin.
Our culture and society still held the view that bullying was a normal phase of development and children must learn how to cope with it. Bullying was not a normal phase of development, she warned. It was not confined to childhood, or to schools. And while such behaviour was there with all generations, it was increasingly prevalent.
Almost half of all primary children experienced bullying or were themselves bullies, a survey of 10,000 primary children had shown. The figures were lower, 26 per cent in total, in a survey of a similar number of post-primary children, Dr O'Moore added.
The category of bully-victim, children who both bullied others and were themselves bullied, was often not recognised. It accounted for the higher number than pure bullies in the research. The bully-victim was even more at risk of educational apathy, nervous breakdown, depression and suicide than either the pure bully or the pure victim, Dr O'Moore said.
There was also evidence of later criminality among childhood bullies. Teachers, however, held the key to change, she said, and she called on the Department of Education for resources and for a stand-alone programme to tackle bullying at both primary and second level.
While welcome, the new module on self-esteem and communication skills to be introduced in all schools from September 2003 under the Social and Personal Health Education (SPHE) programme, which would also provide opportunities to tackle bullying, was not enough.
Earlier intervention was needed, Dr O'Moore said. The emphasis on "repeated" behaviour in the Department of Education 1993 guidelines definition of bullying - "repeated aggression, verbal, psychological or physical, conducted by an individual or group against others" - might need to be reviewed.
A lot was being done to tackle bullying, Mr John Lahiff, national co-ordinator of SPHE support service, said. On the legislation front, the Education Act (1998) the Education Welfare Act (2000) and the Employment Equality Act (2000) meant schools had to have a policy on bullying.
He reminded delegates of the Department's guidelines on countering bullying drawn up for schools, which 10 years later were holding up very well. They were aimed at the school community as a whole.