Helping Your Child Overcome Bullying

In a society that places immense pressure on you as a parent to work more, earn more money to offer better life to your children, enhance your skills and knowledge to climb the corporate ladder to effectively fend for your family and allocate sufficient time to your children, it is no wonder that you may feel overwhelmed as a parent. Often, you may buckle under the pressure, especially when you have school going children.

School going children deal with myriad of issues and you will need to be well informed as a parent about what to do, when, how and why you need to do it when addressing and responding to the issues affecting your children. One of the most difficult issues facing school children is bullying and as a parent, you need to know how to help your child deal with bullying. One way of learning how to deal with bullying is reading articles for mom and dad who has kids going to school, which cover various sensitive issues affecting school children from diet and weight issues to bullying and relationships.

How to Handle Bullying

Primarily, bullying refers to the act of deliberately distressing another person physically, psychologically and even verbally.

·       Your child becomes a victim of bullying when they are shoved, hit, threatened, mocked, extorted money among other possessions, name called and isolated by others simply because some popular kid tell others to shun them or rumors has been spread about them.

·       The worst way to handle bullying is telling your child to toughen out. This is because, the effects of bullying last through school life and beyond and it has serious implications on your child’s self-confidence, self-image self-esteem and self-efficacy.

Effective Ways of Dealing with Bullying

Includes

1.     Establish The Problem

The first step towards developing a sustainable solution is for you as a parent to establish the problem.

·       Since it may be quite difficult for you to know that your child is being bullied unless they tell you, it is important that you develop a close relationship with your child to ensure they easily open up when things are not alright at school.

·       Know what classes and subjects your child takes, who their friends are and most importantly find out what are their learning and school experiences (are they happy with the school? Which students make life difficult for them at school? Are there any bullies at school? Etc.,)

2.     Do Not Teach Your Child To Bully Back

The most immediate response you will have when you find out your child is bullied is to empower them to bully back. Parents have been known to take their bullied children to martial arts classes to learn self- defense tactics. Unfortunately, this is not the way to go.

·       Although bullying back may sometimes work, it has serious implications on the child. Bullying back may ultimately empower a victim of bullying to become a bully.

·       Instead of helping your child bully back, develop a plan with your child on how they can cope with bullying. This includes solutions such as walking away, going about their normal activities as if the bully does not exist and standing up to the bully by reporting the bully to the teacher or any other persons of authority

3.     Do A Follow Up

As a parent you are ultimately responsible for the wellbeing of your child.

·       Ensure the teacher, principal and even school board are aware of the ongoing bullying and when they do not take immediate action, make the necessary decisions such as forwarding the matter to the authority or transferring your child to another school.

Whatever your challenges might be as a parent with school going children, simply read through thousands of articles for mom and dad who has kids going to school that are available online. You will be surprised about how much you will learn.