Punishment Doesn’t Stop Bullying — What Actually Works

Every school has tried it. A student causes harm, a consequence follows. 

For a few days, things seem quiet again. Until they aren’t. 

I grew up in the standard education system in India, went to a state-board school, where student discipline, respect for authority, and deterrence remained constant themes. Inappropriate actions demanded reprimand, and repeated ones made an example out of the doer. It’s a familiar scene to see a child being sent out of class. However it’s an unfamiliar question to ask – Did that change their behaviour? Or just hide it better?

India’s culture of punishment dates way back into deep-rooted traditions, colonial-era penal architecture and modern legal reforms. Texts like the Manusmriti and the Arthashastra outlined tiered systems of danda (punishment). Even though the challenges in school life may have changed in today’s age, our education system still carried traces of that old architecture – that fear and punishment build life-long discipline. A Scroll.in article on this history notes, “Running through all these forms of punishment….is the idea of torture, the cultivation of fear, and the disciplining of the body and social behaviour.” This idea continues to occupy several school leaders’ mindsets, and is embedded in school policy and processes in how to respond to harm. 

However, the landscape that children in India and across the world are currently navigating doesn’t fit the model of having children ‘face the music’. With the internet, the increased level of competition and expectations, have brought with them varied instances of bullying – whether relational, digital, reactive, or increasingly born out of digital spaces children inhabit. Group shaming, exclusion, screenshots weaponized in seconds. misinterpretation, and the slow grind of being left out. These patterns compound quietly long before any adult is aware. 

The instinct to respond with visible consequence is understandable. We expect it to build lasting change. But it backfires – the evidence supports this. So where do we draw the line? Where can we stop and say, punishment may not be the right tool to fix this, let’s look at another option. 

Schools are accountable to parents, to boards, and a society that expects them to stand for something. When harm occurs, doing something decisive feels like leadership. The question worth sitting with is whether a culture that is built on fear and control (however well intentioned), truly points children towards safe and well-meaning behaviour. 

Every bullying situation has two problems

The first is managing the harm done to the targeted student, which needs immediate relief, support from peers, and an end to the repeated bullying behaviour – in short, restorative actions. The second is managing the student’s bad behaviour. This needs an understanding of intent, highlighting consequences and expectations, and a plan for behaviour change, which is disciplinary work. 

Punishment Addresses Adult Fear, Not Child Change

Punishment often comforts adults more than it helps children. We’ve established that bullying stems from unmet emotional needs, dysregulation, or learned aggression. In these cases, punishment addresses the precise moment when a school leader becomes aware of the harm – not the underlying trauma of the bully. When adults punish bullying behaviour, the bully-victim loophole can widen. If I am allowed to re-state the overused statement, ‘India is a melting pot of cultures where the world changes every few 100 kms’, – I also understand that what works in one state, may fail in another. And at the risk of repeating myself, our children are growing up in a world of extraordinary social complexity, both online and offline. Many carry experiences of harm that their schools may not be equipped to see, let alone address. I dream of safe schools where we move towards shaping a culture from one that controls behavior to one that nurtures character and chooses kindness.

Consequences don’t repair anything for the child who was targeted, and it doesn’t give either student involved any tools to behave differently the next time. What it does is, breeds a cycle of revenge, driving students to seek retaliation through online platforms where enforcement is harder to trace. And the cycle of cyberbullying continues. 

The question that school leaders might ask is not what consequence fits this behaviour – but what does this child, and this situation really need from us for lasting change? That’s a harder question. It’s also the right one.