Professor Shelley Hymel:

Yes, there is. Unfortunately, there is not yet a lot of research on how to do that. The first study showing a link between moral disengagement or justifications and bullying came out in 2015. Just last week, I reviewed another study that is soon to come out, in which it is demonstrated that five simple lessons involving telling children stories about the impact of negative behaviour on others had a really strong effect in reducing bullying. We are just beginning to explore the "how" in this regard.

It is sometimes the case that children do not see the impact of their behaviours on others. Part of the answer to that is a simple matter of getting them to understand what they did and how it impacted on other people. I tend to think of children as being in the process of developing morals and we have to help them through that process. Frankly, we do not have a lot of opportunities to do that because it is usually left to the family or the religion. Families are busy, often with both parents working, and religion is on the decline. The problem is being pushed into schools and the schools are just learning how to deal with it. There needs to be more work done to help us figure out how to deal with this.