Books for parents and teachers about tackling bullying
Being bullied can be a frightening and isolating time for children and young people. Our selected titles will help parents and teachers identify signs of being bullied and help tackle and prevent bullying.
Find more information and advice on tackling bullying.
The Teacher's Guide to Resolving School Bullying, by Elizabeth Nassem
This is an evidence-based, practical book to resolving bullying in schools. It helps teachers understand the causes of bullying, give them confidence to tackle complex cases, and provide them with the tools to develop pupil-led anti-bullying campaigns.
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The Essential Guide to Bullying, by Jennifer Thomson
How can you tell that your children are being bullied? How do you talk to them about bullying? This informative guide gives a whole new perspective on this age-old problem that blights children's lives. It offers some answers as to why children are bullied and how parents can stop it from happening as well as providing some proven methods on how to help the bullied child boost their plummeting self-esteem.
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Effective Bullying Prevention: A Comprehensive Schoolwide Approach, by Adam Collins
Going beyond other bullying prevention resources, this book presents an approach grounded in evidence-based best practices, together with concrete guidance for weaving it sustainably into the fabric of a school. The authors describe a range of ways to support the development of prosocial skills in K-12 students, make data-based decisions to respond to bullying, and build partnerships across students, staff, and families.
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The Kids Will Be All Right: A Guide to Raising Teens in a Complex World, by Robyn and Molly Fausett
In this fast-changing world how do we, as parents and caregivers, keep on the same page as our teens? The challenges and experiences they face can seem a million miles away from our own adolescence. It can feel overwhelming and hard to keep the communication channels open. At the same time, it's vital that we have the tools to talk openly and confidently with our teens.
'The Kids Will Be All Right' provides up-to-date, evidence-based information, insights, conversation starters and resources to help you navigate and untangle hot topics such as friendships and frenemies; bullying; cyber safety; drinking, vaping and risk-taking behaviour; self-esteem and body image; sexuality; consent and safe relationships; and pornography.
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Those Who Can, Teach: What it Takes to Make the Next Generation, by Andria Zafirakou
Arts teacher Andria Zafirakou was always a rule-breaker. At her inner-city London school where over a hundred languages are spoken, she would sense urgent needs; mending uniforms, calling social services, shielding vulnerable teens from gangs. And she would tailor each class to its pupils, fiercely believing in the power of art to unlock trauma, or give a mute child the confidence to speak. Time and again, she would be proved right.
So in 2018, when Andria won a million dollar prize for being 'the best teacher in the world', she knew exactly where the money would go: back into arts education for all. Because today, the UK government's cuts and curriculum changes are destroying the arts, while their refusal to tackle the most dangerous threats faced by children - cyber-bullying, gang violence, hunger and deprivation - puts teachers on the safeguarding frontline.
If I Could Hold You Again: a True Story About the Devastating Consequences of Bullying and How One Mother's Grief Led Her on a Mission, by Collette Wolfe
Collette Wolfe was on holiday in Lanzarote when she got the call that all parents most dread. Her beloved daughter Leanne had died, having tragically taked her own life. On the morning of Leanne's funeral, her diaries were uncovered by her sister, and the family awakened to a nightmare within the nightmare: to witness in written form the devastation of years of unrelenting bullying by a group of Leanne's peers, and to have been powerless to prevent it.
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Boys Do Cry: Improving Boys' Mental Health and Wellbeing in Schools, by Matt Pinkett
From bullying and sexism to traditional ideals of masculinity, outdated expectations of what it is to be male are causing boys to suffer. 'Boys Do Cry' examines key research on factors impacting boys' mental health and provides teachers with practical strategies to start enacting positive change.
Help Your Kids With Growing Up: a No-nonsense Guide to Puberty and Adolescence, by Robert M.L. Winston
Covering everything from the menstrual cycle to sexting and even cyber-bullying, this visual guide to puberty and adolescence is a must-read for all parents and tweens embarking on those scary teenage years. It covers contemporary issues such as internet safety, whilst also tackling key topics such as sexuality and body image.
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Bullies, Victims, and Bystanders: Understanding Child and Adult Participant Vantage Points, by Lisa Rosen
This work focuses beyond the bully-victim dyad to highlight how bullying commonly unfolds within a complex system that involves many individuals interacting with one another. As the vast majority of bullying episodes occur in front of a peer audience, it examines the ways in which bystanders can act to either fuel or deter bullying. Each chapter highlights a particular participant role: bully, assistant, reinforcer, outsider, defender, and victim. Attention is also devoted to the important influence parents and teachers have on the peer ecology and bullying dynamics. By viewing bullying through the eyes of each individual role, the authors provide an in-depth exploration of bullying as a group process with special attention to implications for prevention and intervention.
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Emotionally Resilient Tweens and Teens: Empowering Your Kids to Navigate Bullying, Teasing and Social Exclusion, by Kim John Payne and Luis Fernando Llosa
The tween and teen years are rife with intense social challenges in school, friendships, sports, and other activities where instances of teasing, bullying, social exclusion and marginalization are unfortunately all too common. Social media has only made this behaviour easier and more insidious. But when kids ages 9 and up can be coached by a parent to respond effectively, manage their emotions in social situations, and recognise their own self-worth, they can reclaim a sense of their own power and develop skills like resilience, social and emotional intelligence and compassion for life. Kim John Payne, a leading education consultant and parenting expert, and Luis Fernando Llosa, a writer and longtime sports coach, offer guidance and practical advice to parents, along with ten inspirational stories in the voice of young adults who have navigated bullying and social exclusion - and triumphed.
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How to Stop Homophobic and Biphobic Bullying: a Practical Whole-School Approach, by Jonathan Charlesworth
This is a practical resource for teachers to help stop homophobic and biphobic bullying, working with those who bully and supporting those who are bullied. Create safe LGBT inclusive learning environments through activities, lessons plans, and worksheets, ready to implement in the classroom.
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Bully-Proof Kids, by Stella O'Malley
Based on many years' experience counselling bullies and targets, Stella O' Malley offers concrete strategies to empower children and teenagers to deal confidently with bullying and dominant characters.
Supporting Young People Through Everyday Chaos: Counselling When Things Fall Apart, by Nick Luxmoore
This title provides ways to support and counsel young people struggling to adapt and live with the constant possibility of things breaking down, of normal life being overtaken by chaos. Covering many different types of 'everyday chaos' including anxiety, bullying, mental health, trauma, anger and loss, this book is an incredibly useful guide for anyone working with young people at a time when these issues are more prevalent than ever. It was inspired by the author's daughter's accidental death aged 27. Written in a warm and down-to-earth tone, the chapters use a variety of case studies to lead through examples on a range of problems young people are facing.
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Permission to Feel: Unlock the Power of Emotions to Help Yourself and Your Child Thrive, by Marc A. Brackett
The mental wellbeing of children and adults is shockingly poor. Marc Brackett, author of 'Permission to Feel', knows why. And he knows what we can do. Marc Brackett is a professor in Yale University's Child Study Center and founding director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence. In his 25 years as an emotion scientist, he has developed a remarkably effective plan to improve the lives of children and adults - a blueprint for understanding our emotions and using them wisely so that they help, rather than hinder, our success and well-being. The core of his approach is a legacy from his childhood, from an astute uncle who gave him permission to feel. He was the first adult who managed to see Marc, listen to him, and recognise the suffering, bullying, and abuse he'd endured. And that was the beginning of Marc's awareness that what he was going through was temporary.
Be Bully Free: a Hands-on Guide to How You Can Take Control, by Catherine Thornton and Michael Panckridge
Seeking to empower children who are bullied, this book presents a wide range of common bullying scenarios, before giving practical suggestions on how the recipient can take control in these situations. Written in a young adult fiction style, this is an essential resource for children who are experiencing bullying.
But Why?: How to Answer Tricky Questions From Your Kids and Have an Honest Conversation With Yourself, by Clemmie Telford
This title covers a wide range of topics including bodies, bullying, mental health, sexuality, money, social media and anxiety. It aims to help parents tackle those awkward questions that can floor the best of us.
Teen Mental Health in an Online World: Supporting Young People Around Their Use of Social Media, Apps, Gaming, Texting and the Rest, by Victoria Betton and James Woollard
This essential book shows practitioners how they can engage with teens' online lives to support their mental health. It looks at the positive effects online spaces have on mental health, as well as the risks such as bullying, sexting and addiction. It also provides a framework to help teens develop resilience in respect of their internet use.