The topic of bullying has received a lot of recent attention in the media, in schools, and in discussions surrounding children’s mental health.

According to recent statistics, 21% of teens experience bullying, with 19% experiencing bullying on school property over the previous year.

While bullying has always been around, today the problem is escalating due to children’s hyper-connectivity through social media, email and text messaging. While children in their parent’s generation could at least go home to escape bullying for a little while, today’s children can potentially be exposed to it all the time, and everywhere they go.

The rise in cyber-bullying and bullying in general has been implicated in numerous mental health problems in children and teens, including depression, anxiety, self-harm and suicidal ideation. Being bullied can also lead to lower grades in school, feelings of shame, isolation, changes in eating and sleep patterns, truancy, higher rates of illness, post-traumatic stress disorder and substance abuse.

The following anti-bullying coloring pages, adapted from the excellent learning material at StopBullying.gov, can help you address this important topic with your children or students. There are multiple ways you can use this resource. If you have specific children or students who are being bullied, you can use these pages to help them work through the issue, giving them the tools they need to overcome bullying.

For students of all ages, the pages and accompanying lesson hints can be incorporated into existing lesson plans on inclusion, bullying or kindness. There are even ideas to use in language arts, health and civics lessons.

If you are a parent, these pages can be a springboard into helping your child learn to cope with bullies and to approach his or her teachers and school administrators to begin the process of changing the school culture into one of kindness and respect.

The sections are broken out separately with individual pages you can download one at a time.

Or you can download the entire coloring book here.

And why is a site about drawing, painting, and art classes for kids hosting an entire section about bullying? Because a part of our mission is to inspire kids to become better people through art, and we think that (free!) resources like anti-bullying coloring pages are a pretty cool way to do that.