It is no surprise that such bullying exists in our schools.

Children with risk factors in their lives engage in bullying. On the other hand, children with protective factors, such as patience, kindness, empathy, understanding and love, have resilience and grit to steer them through such crises in school. We need to nurture children with such qualities.

Conversely, there are also children coming from dysfunctional homes who display risk factors such as anti-social habits and negative values.

It is sad to note that children from such homes grow up to become bullies. They need help from teachers and the society at large to shift them from the risk factors to the protective factors. That means there is a lot of work for the school and the community as well.

I am a community counsellor and have dealt with children and I find there is a lot of work to be done with children. If they are left to grow up with their risk factors, they may end up as misfits and may do greater harm to society.

One example is the bully grows and outgrows. We can see them at the workplace. They spread rumours and tell others not to befriend a certain person and so on, causing unhappiness to the victim.

This is not only bullying the other person but it becomes harassment as well. We see how the school bully has progressed to to become a tormentor, harassing others in the workplace.

I hope that we can help children to become well-adjusted individuals and responsible citizens not only in the school but also in society.

M Supramaniam