Physical bullying anywhere looks exactly the same: pushing, shoving, hitting, punching, tripping, or damaging someone else’s belongings. Any form of intimidation and aggressive behavior that directly hurts or controls another person is a form of physical bullying.
The saddest part is that bullying can have long-term damaging effects on its victims. It can affect them physically, socially, mentally, academically, and emotionally well into the future.
As much as you try to eliminate physical bullying from your school, it may feel like you’re fighting a losing battle. We understand.
What you need is a winning game plan against this pervasive problem. And we’re here to provide you with one.
But first, let’s take a more in-depth look at what constitutes physical bullying.
Physical bullying is the use of physical actions to intimidate and gain control over a target. The physical actions are unwanted by the victim and can cause damage to their body or possessions. This behavior is all too common in schools. According to the 2024 report of the National Center for Education Statistics, 19% of students reported experiencing bullying during the 2021–22 school year, with physical bullying being more common among male students at 6%, compared to 4% among female students.
Some common types of violence enacted through physical bullying include:
Physical bullying (and other types of bullying) differ from mean actions in the following ways:
As with all types of bullying, physical bullying eventually takes its toll on both the victims and the bullies.
Bullying leads to a decrease in motivated learning and lowers self-efficacy and perceived value of academic tasks. A study by CDC researchers showed that 19% of teenagers were bullied on school property, with 13% of students reporting missing school due to safety concerns.
Victims of bullying may also avoid participating in class for fear of drawing attention to themselves and getting bullied. They may then become labeled as low achievers, putting them at an even higher risk of being targeted by bullies.
Like all forms of bullying, physical bullying can cause emotional distress. It makes the victims feel powerless and think less of themselves. This leads to feelings of shame, isolation, and despair.
The child may lose interest in playing or activities they previously enjoyed and engage in harmful behavior, such as self-harm and reclusive tendencies.
These actions lead to more negative feelings and thoughts, creating a self-destructive cycle. In victims with existing depression and anxiety, bullying can make these conditions worse.
Besides the physical injuries victims may sustain from the attacks, they may also develop health issues, such as somatization.
Somatization includes physical symptoms caused by psychological or emotional factors. For instance, the child may complain about headaches, body pain, or fatigue.
Those who bully others are also likely to face serious behavioral problems. They are at higher risk of later developing substance use issues and engaging in violent behavior, such as theft and vandalism.
Compared to children and adolescents who have only been victims, bullies who have been victims themselves tend to face severe negative effects on their mental health. These effects carry over into adulthood and include suicide tendencies. The bully may also experience poor social skills and high levels of aggression.
You can recognize instances of physical bullying in your school by remaining on the lookout for these negative emotional, academic, and behavioral changes in your students.
Here are some remedies that can reduce physical bullying in schools.
The first step is to increase awareness of the different forms physical bullying takes. Ensure that students, teachers, and other staff can recognize it, even in its subtlest forms.
When defining bullying, it’s best to remove the labels.
Everyone has baggage. Even children. There is likely a reason the child bullying another is acting in that way.
Rather than labeling one student a ‘bully’ and the other a ‘victim’, it’s best to focus on the negative behaviors and consequences.
This will make it easier to teach students to report bullying when they witness it without passing harsh judgment on the student carrying it out.
Bullies will understand the kind of harm their actions are causing the victim and the negative impacts they are drawing on themselves.
A study at the University of Western Sydney indicated a relationship between self-concept and bullying. The study showed that both bullies and targets are associated with a low self-concept.
The following findings were derived from the study:
From these results, it’s safe to say that one long-term solution to reducing all types of bullying in schools is to promote a high self-concept among students.
The perception we have of ourselves is generally determined by the actions we take and less by our thoughts and feelings. While positive behavioral choices increase feelings of self-worth, negative choices result in a negative self-concept.
How can you develop a positive self-concept among students?
Our bullying prevention program is based on the philosophy of the Thoughts-Actions-Feelings Circle.
It emphasizes positive actions among students, which promotes positive thoughts and feelings. Positive thoughts and feelings lead to more positive actions, causing a positive Thoughts-Actions-Feelings Circle.
This positive cycle promotes a high self-concept and lower incidences of bullying. It has also demonstrated measurable success in reducing behaviors linked to property damage and crime, which are often overlooked consequences of aggression.
The current curriculum covers elementary grade levels K-5 and is included at no additional cost with a Pasela Elementary license.
Find opportunities to create a strong classroom community. This creates an environment where students feel connected to their peers and safe to be themselves.
This connection between peers can reduce incidents of school bullying while also promoting healing among victims. It can also motivate students to speak up when they witness bullying.
Sample Lesson Overview: How to Teach Cooperation in Pre-K
Engage in community-building after-school activities that relate to their interests while also promoting social-emotional learning.
Social-emotional learning involves equipping students with interpersonal skills, self-awareness, and self-control.
It helps the students appreciate their identity and uniqueness and that of their peers. Create activities where students can develop their problem-solving skills and learn how to work through conflicts.
Sample lesson overview: Conflict Resolution Strategies for Pre-K
Teach them to be empathetic. Empathy goes a long way in helping students understand their peers and reduce bullying incidents.
You should also strive to build an emotional connection with your students.
Connect with them on an individual level. Offer support and show that you care about their welfare.
This will keep communication open and encourage those who witness or experience bullying to report to you.
A student is unlikely to become a bully overnight.
They will display some initial bullying behaviors that teachers and staff often dismiss as “kids being kids”. These behaviors are known as “gateway indicators”.
They signal the beginning of more intentional bullying.
Here are a few examples of gateway indicators:
These behaviors make bullying seem normal in the eyes of the students.
And although there are no hard rules to mitigate gateway indicators, stopping the kids at this point prevents these behaviors from escalating to a bigger bullying problem.
Respond to them in a way that shows they are wrong. For instance, talk about how the actions hurt the recipient’s feelings.
Responding to individual incidents of physical aggression is not enough. Lasting change requires a structured, school-wide approach that addresses the behaviors, attitudes, and social conditions that allow physical bullying to take hold in the first place. That is precisely what Positive Action's Bullying Prevention curriculum is designed to do.
The Positive Action's core classroom curriculum instill crucial skills that prepare students for the real-world and the future. Following a learner readiness approach, the K–5 curriculum ensure students come in the classroom willing to engage academically and intrinsically motivated to nurture responsible behaviors. These curricula already instill the concepts that are proven by clinical trials to reduce bullying behaviors, violence, and beliefs on aggression. For a more targeted approach, the program offers focused bullying prevention lessons that reinforced behavior management and healthy decision-making.
The Bullying Prevention curriculum is designed to complement, not compete with, your everyday instruction. These lessons align with the same social-emotional learning and character education foundation principles that guide the broader program.
This integration means teachers do not need to carve out separate time for bullying prevention. The lessons flow naturally alongside the core curriculum's focus on self-concept, healthy habits, and responsible decision-making. Together, the two curricula address both the root causes of physical bullying and the situational triggers that lead to physical confrontations in hallways, playgrounds, and classrooms.
Positive Action's Bullying Prevention curriculum follows the same six-unit scaffolded structure as the core Positive Action program, making it easy to integrate into your existing instructional plan without disrupting the flow of daily teaching.
Rather than treating bullying prevention as a one-off lesson or add-on activity, this curriculum embeds anti-bullying concepts into a progressive learning sequence. Students build on what they know, unit by unit, developing a deeper understanding of how their actions affect others physically, intellectual, socially, and emotionally.
For physical bullying specifically, this means students learn not just that hitting and pushing are wrong, but why those behaviors emerge and what responsible, strength-based alternatives look like.
Each lesson comes with clear instructions, scripted guides, and ready-to-use digital resources through Pasela by Positive Action. Educators report that Positive Action lessons are among the most efficient parts of their day, and the results speak for themselves: improvements in behavior, classroom climate, and even academic performance.
At its core, Positive Action is a program about healthy habits. Habits of thinking, acting, and relating that students carry with them far beyond the classroom walls. For students who have relied on physical dominance as a way to assert themselves, the curriculum offers a new framework: one grounded in self-respect, empathy, and the understanding that true strength is not expressed through aggression.
Lessons guide students through the Thoughts-Actions-Feelings Circle, helping them recognize the internal process that leads to a shove, a punch, or a threat, and how to interrupt that cycle with a healthier choice. Students also explore the principle of treating others the way they want to be treated, which serves as a behavioral compass in high-pressure social situations.
Beyond conflict prevention, the curriculum actively nurtures compassion, empathy, and relationship-building skills. Students practice perspective-taking through guided discussions and group activities, learning to see their classmates as whole people with feelings and limits that deserve respect. These experiences plant the seeds of genuine social connection, the kind that makes physical aggression feel not just wrong, but unnecessary.
Preventing physical bullying requires more than rules and consequences. It requires a school-wide culture shift. The most effective approaches combine clear behavioral expectations with ongoing social-emotional learning. When students build self-awareness, empathy, and conflict resolution skills, they are less likely to resort to physical aggression and more likely to intervene when they see it happening. Evidence-based programs like Positive Action provide the structured, consistent framework schools need to make that culture shift stick.
Proactive prevention is far more effective than reactive intervention. Schools can prevent bullying by building positive relationships between students and staff, promoting inclusive classroom communities, and identifying gateway behaviors, such as name-calling or deliberate exclusion, before they escalate into physical aggression. Teaching students to recognize and manage their emotions through programs with a character education foundation gives them the tools to handle conflict constructively rather than physically.
Physical and digital bullying often feed each other, a conflict that starts on the playground can quickly move to group chats and social media. Schools that address bullying holistically, across both physical and digital environments, see better outcomes. This means teaching digital citizenship alongside physical conduct expectations, ensuring students understand that the same principles of respect and empathy apply online. Programs like Positive Action build these skills simultaneously, equipping students to navigate both spaces responsibly.
Positive Action's Bullying Prevention curriculum uses a story-based methodology to help students understand how physical aggression affects everyone involved: the student who acts out, the one who gets hurt, and those who witness it. Lessons teach the Thoughts-Actions-Feelings Circle, empowering students to pause, reflect, and choose a responsible response instead of a physical one. The curriculum is scaffolded across six units that integrate with the core K-5 program, ensuring that physical bullying prevention is not an isolated topic but a thread woven through the entire school year.
Yes. Research shows that students who have experienced bullying from both sides face the greatest risk for long-term behavioral and mental health challenges. Positive Action addresses this by building self-concept improvement into every unit. Rather than labeling students, the curriculum focuses on behaviors and the choices that shape them. Whether a student has used physical force against others, been on the receiving end of it, or both, the program equips them to build healthier habits, stronger relationships, and a more positive sense of who they are and who they can become.
Bullying prevention in schools is of utmost importance.
Physical bullying hurts student performance and has long-term behavioral, emotional, and psychological effects. And this applies to both the bullies and their targets.
You need a long-term and consistent strategy that will prevent bullying while also helping students become well-rounded individuals.
Get the cost-effective Bullying Prevention Program by Positive Action. It will promote a safe learning environment in your school and help eliminate bullying through:
Take the first step to ensuring that no bullying occurs on your school grounds by training your staff through the Positive Action educational program.
Positive Action's commitment to student well-being extends beyond the classroom social environment. The Prevention Series offers targeted curriculum designed to help students through the knowledge and decision-making skills they need to navigate today's most pressing challenges.
Substance Use Prevention
Help students understand the real risks of substance use before experimentation begins. These lessons build critical thinking and resistance skills, giving students the confidence to make healthy, informed choices.
Fentanyl Misuse Prevention
With the fentanyl crisis affecting communities across the country, early education is more important than ever. This curriculum gives students the facts about fentanyl's dangers and empowers them to recognize and avoid life-threatening situations.
Gambling Prevention
As gambling becomes increasingly accessible to young people, especially online, students need tools to recognize addictive behaviors early. These lessons give awareness of the risks of gambling and promote responsible decision-making.
Behavior Management
Teachers shouldn't have to choose between managing a classroom and actually teaching. The Positive Action's Behavior Management replaces the burden of juggling multiple disconnected initiatives with one cohesive program, so educators can spend less time triaging and more time teaching. Built on the Learning Readiness approach, it stabilizes the classroom environment while addressing a full spectrum of outcomes, including academic achievement, behavior, life skills, school climate, family engagement, and prevention and safety.
Ready to make a difference? Schedule a 30-minute webinar to explore the full curriculum with our team, or reach out to us today to find the right fit for your school.
