How to Help a Bullied Child
by Bullying is a cancer in schools and eats away at their self esteem. If your child is the vicitm of bullies, this article is designed to help.
Being a parent is a hard enough job, but if your child is being bullied the range of emotions that this provokes can be huge. If you feel helpless and frustrated, here are a few tips on helping your child through a difficult time.
What is bullying?
Dan Olweus is the founder of the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program (see www.olweus.org/public/bullying.page ) and he defines bullying as ‘When a young person is exposed repeatedly and over time to ‘intentional, negative, aggressive behaviour from an individual or group. This can be physical, verbal, spreading rumours or excluding someone. Bullying involves an imbalance of power. It is also bullying when a young person is teased repeatedly. But it is not bullying when 2 young people of the same strength have the odd fight or quarrel.’
And bullying isn’t fair and legitimate criticism that aims to improve behaviour or performance, or an occasional raised voice or argument.
How to help a bullied child.
· Firstly find out what happened/is happening and encourage the child to be as objective as possible.
· When you’ve determined the problem, it’s important to help empower the child or young person. If the child continues to feel weak and helpless because they’re not taking any action, this may prolong or worsen the problem.
· Do this by encouraging him/her to talk to the class teacher and to friends. Some bullies respond to negative peer pressure if their unacceptable behaviour is made public.
· Martial arts classes teach individuals to use and be aware of the space around them as well as how to walk tall and improve confidence. All of which may make the child appear to be less of a weak victim and encourage the bullies to leave him/her alone.
· Every child has the right to be safe at school. If bullying is happening during school time, the head of school and child’s teacher need to be informed that bullies are breaking the school’s behaviour code.
· If you feel that your concerns are not being listened to or acted upon, speak to the person/people the head of school answers to – governors, school board etc.
· Encourage the child to ignore the bullies completely wherever possible. The child shouldn’t fight back but should defend him/herself where necessary. Remember safety is more important than stuff, so don’t fight to defend possessions.
· Mobile phone numbers and some emails can be blocked so talk to your provider.
Who and where are the bullies?
Bullies can be duplicitous and devious. They are often sweet and kind in public but all that changes when they are alone with their victims.
They may be loners or operate in gangs, in school, the mall or on the street.
They may be people of the same age, older or even younger children.
Research on bullying indicates that bullies:
· get some material or psychological reward from bullying
· have a need for power
· get satisfaction from hurting others.
Bullying is hard on everyone. The right help can make a lot of difference – see www.olweus.org for more information.
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