By-Holly Hartley
One of the greatest anxieties to parents have, is that their child may be a victim of bullying at school.
This fear is compounded by the fact that many of us are able to remember a time in our lives when we felt bullied, and the depth of raw feelings associated with it: anxiety, fear, loneliness, insecurity, feeling worthless and possibly shame for being the one singled out.
In addition the effects of bullying at school can be life changing and can resonate throughout the decades of our lives way beyond childhood. The feelings it engenders can fundamentally alter the course of a persons life – for good and for bad. So, it’s really important that we give this issue the attention it deserves so that we can help and support our kids to manage it if it occurs.
Thankfully, society is now far tougher on this kind of behaviour and schools are much more adept in dealing with these kinds of issues, but it is nonetheless important that we prepare our kids for these situations which they are likely to face at some point in their life.
Bullying at School Definition...
Not everyone is going to be a victim of bullying at school.
Some kids will fly through their school careers without a care in the world, blissfully unaware that such a thing even exists. Other may have a much tougher time. Regardless, making our children aware of bullying is important for several reasons:
We can educate them on what to do if it happens to them.
We can help them recognize the signs, so that they can take action if they see it happening to others.
We can ensure that they don’t bully others.
It’s a vital life skill that will set them up for adulthood, after all bullying doesn’t just happen to kids.
So, what is bullying?
The stopbullying.gov website gives a very comprehensive summary of what bullying is and how it manifests itself. According to the website:
“Bullying is unwanted, aggressive behavior among school aged children that involves a real or perceived power imbalance. The behavior is repeated, or has the potential to be repeated, over time. Both kids who are bullied and who bully others may have serious, lasting problems.
In order to be considered bullying, the behavior must be aggressive and include:
An imbalance of Power:
Kids who bully use their power – such as physical strength, access to embarrassing information, or popularity – to control or harm others. Power imbalances can change over time and in different situations, even if they involve the same people.
Repetition:
Bullying behaviours happen more than once or have the potential to happen more than once.
Bullying includes actions such as making threats, spreading rumors, attacking someone physically or verbally, and excluding someone from a group on purpose.”
Types of Bullying
There are many different types of bullying that can be experienced by children – and adults for that matter.
The internationally renowned National Centre Against Bullying (NCAB) based in Australia, gives a very comprehensive summary of the different types of bullying and suggests that there are different kinds that we should be aware of:
Physical bullying:
Physical bullying includes hitting, kicking, tripping, pinching and pushing or damaging property.
Verbal bullying:
Verbal bullying includes name calling, insults, teasing, intimidation, homophobic or racist remarks, or verbal abuse. While verbal bullying can start off harmless, it can escalate to levels which start affecting the individual target.
Social bullying:
Social bullying, sometimes referred to as covert bullying, is often harder to recognise and can be carried out behind the bullied person’s back. It is designed to harm someone’s social reputation and/or cause humiliation. Social bullying includes:
lying and spreading rumours
negative facial or physical gestures, menacing or contemptuous looks
playing nasty jokes to embarrass and humiliate
mimicking unkindly
encouraging others to socially exclude someone
damaging someone’s social reputation or social acceptance.
Cyber bullying:
Cyber bullying can be overt or covert bullying behaviours using digital technologies, including hardware such as computers and smartphones, and software such as social media, instant messaging, texts, websites and other online platforms.
Cyber bullying can happen at any time. It can be in public or in private and sometimes only known to the target and the person bullying. Cyber bullying can include:
Abusive or hurtful texts emails or posts, images or videos
Deliberately excluding others online
Nasty gossip or rumours
Imitating others online or using their log-in
How to Protect Your Child from Bullying in School
As outlined previously, it is not a given that your child is going to be bullied at school.
However, by educating our kids on what bullying is, and by equipping them with strategies to deal with it, we can more effectively safeguard them by giving them tools to use should they need to. They will be in a more empowered position to take effective action and feel in control.
Here are seven tips to empower your child:
1. Teach them the importance of STOP
Many kids get confused over what bullying actually is. There are lots of resources on the internet to use to explain it to your child – make sure that you use something that is age appropriate, or alternatively explain the information in this post using their language. Older kids will obviously be able to read this for themselves.
A really good acronym to remember is STOP when trying to work out if something is – or is not – bullying. This stands for:
Several
Times
On
Purpose
A lot of kids will complain that they are being bullied when someone called them a name, or pushed past them. These one-off events which, whilst not pleasant and usually upsetting, are a part of growing up. It’s really important to make this distinction. We don’t want to ‘mollycoddle’ our children and leave them unable to cope, but we do need to empower them to take action when it matters. Using STOP as a barometer is a really good way of helping your child determine if something is bullying or not.
2. Empower them to Speak Up:
It’s really important that young people truly understand the damage caused by bullying, and that they have a role to play – even if they are not the victim. Often, for fear of been bullied themselves, kids will standby and watch it happen to others. However, teach your child that they do need to take action – this doesn’t have to be publicly, but it can still be as effective.
Teach them to tell a teacher or another member of school staff, or to tell you at home. The important message that they need to hear is that whenever they witness bullying they must take action, otherwise they are giving the bully permission to carry on because it’s OK.
Developing a ‘voice’ is an important part of growing up. It empowers young people to believe that their views and opinions are equal to everyone else, it encourages them to see that they have a role to play in establishing and ensuring social justice and that they are significant.
3. Make sure they understand that they are not alone:
It’s important that children are raised in a family culture that makes them feel they are never alone, and that it’s normal, healthy and actively encouraged to share problems and worries. You can make this the norm by modelling this behaviour regularly, and by working through issues that people face – over dinner for example.
The toxicity of bullying is that is makes children feel isolated and alone. If they are used to sharing things with you then they are more likely to speak up if the time comes because these feelings will be alien to them.
Some parents are shocked by the distance that can suddenly set in between them and their children – especially at key milestones like starting high school. This is perfectly normal, and whilst sad (and often traumatic for the parents!) does not have to be a sign of anything significant. However, keep ‘checking in’ regularly with your kids – find your own way of doing this. Remind them often that they can talk to you about anything. Make sure that throughout their lives good communication is the norm.
4. Show them how to respond:
We’ve all heard the mantra: ‘sticks and stones can break my bones, but names can never hurt me’ – well, sorry, but this isn’t actually true!
Children need to be assured of their value often, and it’s important that we teach them how to be resilient. Kids need to learn the art of failure and how to pick themselves back up again. They also need to learn how to cope with the odd bit of unpleasantness every now and then. There are lots of ways to do this, but essentially kids need to learn that they are unique, special and that true happiness comes from living as we are according to our dreams, and by not following the crowd.
Sometimes, actually teaching kids how to handle situations can be invaluable. You can do this in several ways:
For younger children, try using their toys and conducting some role play e.g. role play a situation where a one Lego figure bullies another, discusses this and model good ways to respond and what action to take.
For older kids, ask them to put themselves into other peoples shoes e.g. take something from a movie or from TV and ask them what they would do, suggest your take on the matter and model the kinds of things that you would say and the action that you would take. Discuss the two responses and get some agreement on the best course of action.
In addition, for high school age kids have a look at the utterly inspirational work of award-winning social skills educator Brooks Gibbs. I really can’t recommend this highly enough! His You Tube videos are a wonderful example of how older kids can cope with a bully.
5. Normalize Behaviour:
One of the most important jobs in raising children is the modelling of behaviour. Not only do we need to actively teach our kids how to respond in certain situations, we also need to normalize certain behaviours for them.
For example, we all feel afraid and scared sometimes, and conquering these fears is tough but it can be done. Developing a sense of self is crucial because this will give kids the courage to speak up and stand up for what they believe to be right and wrong. Role model this and tell them stories of characters from history who have achieved this. For example, Nelson Mandela said:
“I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.”
Let them know that it’s OK to be scared, but that we’ve also got to be strong and that you will be there every step of the way to support them.
Similarly, teach them how to be the bigger person and how to walk away. Yes, they need to stand up for themselves but they also need the confidence to walk away from situations that they don’t want to be drawn into. Teach them from an early age how to do this. Discuss retribution and how actually this often reduces you to the level of the bully.
6. Make sure you are the Parent:
When we see our kids at risk or hurting our immediate response is often to intervene and remove them from that situation. Sometimes, we need to walk by their side and help them to do it for themselves. This can be one of the hardest things to do as parents but it can also be one of the most important life lessons. As they grow up, we are not going to be there all the time because we simply can’t be. We need to show our kids that they can handle these kind of tough situations themselves.
Start small, with trivial things that they are worried about. Ask them what they think or would like to do, and then help them do it. Practice this regularly and make this the norm. They will then feel equipped to deal with more challenging situations if they arise. Don’t simply sweep in and solve all of their problems for them.
In addition, it’s really important that we as parents model the right behaviour in our relationships and the way that we conduct them. After all, we are their greatest role models. Take this responsibility seriously and be conscious of the messages that you are passing on to your children.
Do you treat others with respect?
Do you stand up for yourself with dignity and politeness?
Do you stand up for others and take action when something is wrong?
7. Be aware…..
…. of the thing that every parent dreads: your child could be a bully.
My career in education has shown me that this is often one of the hardest issues for parents to deal with. At first they struggle to accept, then they feel ashamed, then they want to put things right – and they sometimes go overboard in the process.
It is a very real possibility for all of us that our kids could bully others.
This does not make us bad parents.
It’s important that the issue of bullying is tackled appropriately from a young age so that kids know that it’s not acceptable but, most importantly, why. This is the best means of prevention.
If however, you find that your child has done something wrong, tackle it with love and compassion.
Find out why, get them to put it right, then build them back up again so that they have the sense of self not to do it again.
Final Thoughts
Hopefully, the ideas shared in this article will go a long way to enabling your child to deal with bullying if it ever happens.
However, this article is not meant as a replacement for intervention.
If your child is the victim of continuous bullying it’s your role as a parent to take action and intervene. Persistent bullying is harmful and toxic and the implications can be significant. Don’t be afraid to take action as necessary to support your child. You will find that schools have a zero tolerance to this kind of behaviour and will work with you to get the matter resolved speedily.
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