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School bus bullying

Strategies to stop bullying

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Originally published in Today's Parent November 2010

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Ryan Coomber was repeatedly pushed, shoved and taunted on the bus on the way from his kindergarten class. He even suffered a black eye. When his parents weren’t satisfied that the school was acting to protect their son, they went to the media last May, and the story became national news.

Why such drastic action? “We went up the chain of command from teacher to school superintendent, and they told us there was nothing they could do. Finally, they said we would have to drive Ryan to and from school,” says his father, from their home in Willow Bunch, Sask.

Outside of the school playground, school bus bullying is the most common form of bullying among school-aged children, according to Wendy Craig, a professor of psychology at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ont., who has spent the past 20 years on bullying prevention. It can also be difficult to combat because there’s little adult supervision on a bus. Among younger children, bullying on the bus most often takes the form of verbal abuse (insults, threats and taunts), social bullying or exclusion or, less commonly, physical abuse. “It can be the worst part of a child’s day,” says Cindi Seddon, a Coquitlam, BC, school principal and the founder of bullybeware.com.

According to Craig, only about 50 percent of kids tell someone they’re being bullied because they fear retaliation or that they’ll get into trouble. That means parents need to be on the lookout for signs, including anxiety about riding the bus or going to school, avoiding the bus by being late or ask ing for rides, a loss of interest in school or a drop in grades, damaged or missing possessions and torn clothing.

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