By Majd Othman

KUWAIT:  Bullying in schools has become a critical issue that threatens the mental health safety of students and the proper functioning of the teaching process, as this issue affects the psychology of students and prevents them from studying and achieving academic excellence and from establishing close and solid friendships among them. Specialists and educators have warned the dangers that arise from this issue and the increase in violence between students, especially in the governmental education sector.

Reports show that when the child bullies, he does it for several purposes, such as - to draw the attention of others, appear as a strong and solid person, express his desire to show strength and control over all the people around him, whether they are colleagues or teachers, desire for leadership, self-love and selfishness, as well as the bully’s extreme jealousy of the student’s superiority over him in studies or in any other activity.

Regarding the reasons that lead to existence of the school bullying issue, reports have revealed that families play an important role in the bullying issue between students due to the wrong way of upbringing and use of strict punishment and violence with children. Toxic school life, the absence of the school’s role in teaching students the importance of respecting each other mainly affects the student’s morals, in addition to the absence of the school’s activities that contribute to releasing the energy of students, which, due to its absence, may resort to causing harm to their friends.

Media and technology also contribute to the spread of bullying in schools, especially since most of the mass media and films directed at children, encourage the idea that being the strongest is the only way to survive and that violence is the necessary way to control others. Studies state that when social class differences widen between children, the danger of this type of bullying among children is likely and it would also disrupt the school framework and affect the society through the forming of criminal gangs.

On the other hand, the reports show the importance of the family’s role to help their bullied child through sharing the child's concerns, investigating the problem and teaching their child how to deal with bullying, teaching the child sports to increase his self-confidence, visit the school administration and discuss with them the problem and most importantly, boosting the child’s self-confidence.