School bullies' new tactics
Schools' attempts to stop bullying have forced it underground, with students resorting to "covert" methods to escape detection by teachers and parents.
Edith Cowan University child and adolescent health professor Donna Cross said about one in six students was a victim of covert bullying, which included spreading rumours and lies, revealing secrets, excluding others and cyber bullying.
Launching a new set of resources ahead of the national day of action against bullying and violence today, Professor Cross said the nature of bullying was changing and schools had to adapt.
"Schools have been very good at reducing physical bullying and we're seeing the rates of physical and more overt forms of bullying, like loud teasing, have actually declined," she said. "But other forms of covert bullying have increased."
She likened covert bullying to a swamp fire, which continued burning unseen in the peat after visible spot fires were put out.
"They haven't got rid of the source of the bullying," Professor Cross said.
The Friendly Schools Plus resource developed by ECU's child health promotion centre builds children's emotional intelligence.
Professor Cross said many schools had relied strongly on techniques that were based on empathy, such as the "shared concern" and "no blame" methods, when dealing with bullies.
But research showed these were ineffective with 50 per cent of children because talking to a bully about how they had hurt their target simply reinforced the bullying behaviour.
Instead, schools could switch to other techniques to tackle the motivation behind their behaviour. "We're helping schools to be sharper in the responses because we have more evidence," Professor Cross said.
"Our evidence suggests that covert bullying causes more mental, emotional and social harms to young people than other forms because people don't take it as seriously."
Research showed that students in Years 5, 6 and 8 were more likely to report being covertly bullied and those in Year 9 least likely.
Girls were covertly bullied slightly more often and students in public schools more often than private.
