Bullying at school is very intimidating. All schools have several regulations to contain this along with training to educators on how to handle the situation. Although this is a serious problem, many a times educators end up punishing the bully.

We need to dig deep and think if this is the right way of handling the situation. The effects of punishment may have only short term benefit. Punishing kids who bully not only fails to address the source of the problem, but actually makes things worse. When we dig deeper, it is to be understood that in the first place the bullying behaviour develops mainly due to an atmosphere of threat and authority and too much punishment.

Children raised by authoritarian parents who rely on punishment tend to develop more aggressive behaviour which could result in bullying.

It is needless to say that to tackle bullying educators need to focus on the cause of the aggressive behaviour and bullying rather than only punish them. Unless the root cause is addressed, the child will not be helped in overcoming aggression and will remain a problem even as an adult.

Article cited: http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2016/09/07/why-punishment-wont-stop-a-bully.html