Source: Committee for Children
Topics: Helping Your Child with Bullying
1. Encourage your child to report bullying incidents to you.
- Validate your child's feelings by letting him/her know that it is normal to feel hurt, sad, scared, angry, etc.
- Let your child know that s/he has made the right choice by reporting the incident(s) to you and assure your child that s/he is not to blame.
- Help your child be specific in describing bullying incidents: who, what, where, when. (Look for patterns or evidence of repeated bullying behaviors.)
2. Ask your child how s/he has tried to stop the bullying.
3. Coach your child in possible alternatives.
- Avoidance is often the best strategy.
- Play in a different place.
- Play a different game.
- Stay near a supervising adult when bullying is likely to occur.
- Look for ways to find new friends.
- Support your child by encouraging him/her to extend invitations for friends to play at your home or to attend activities.
- Involve your child in social activities outside of school.
4. Treat the school as your ally.
- Share your child's concerns and specific information about bullying incidents with appropriate school personnel.
- Work with school staff to protect your child from possible retaliation.
- Establish a plan with the school and your child for dealing with future bullying incidents.
5. Encourage your child to seek help and to report bullying incidents to someone s/he feels safe with at the school:
- Adult in charge of a specific activity or area (such as the playground, lunchroom, field trips, bus lines, gym, classroom)
- Teacher
- Counselor
- Principal
6. Use school personnel and other parents as resources in finding positive ways to encourage respectful behaviors at school.
- Volunteer time to help supervise on field trips, on the playground, or in the lunchroom.
- Become an advocate for schoolwide bullying prevention programs and policies.
7. Encourage your child to continue to talk with you about all bullying incidents.
- Do not ignore your child's report.
- Do not advise your child to physically fight back. (Bullying lasts longer and becomes more severe when children fight back. Physical injuries often result.)
- Do not confront the child who bullies.
- Do not confront the family of the child who bullies.
- Reprinted with the permission of the Committee for Children. © 2007 Committee for Children.
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