What Is Bullying?

• Begin While Your Child Is Still Little and Always, Share a Respectful Relationship

Children who are fortunate enough to live in a respectful home with respectful parents and siblings are going to have the ability to recognize when another person is being disrespectful to them, and if you try to just hold your breath and let your child take care of it from there (they will let you know should they feel in over their head).

The best way to go about keeping your child from being bullied and/or becoming a bully themselves would be to make certain from day one that your children will grow up with respectful, loving parents and in a respectful and loving home as well, instead of being around people who uses either power or force to control others.

Kids today can learn to understand the mother’s side as well as the father’s side of their parent’s relationship. It is common sense that by whipping (spanking), your child learns from it to use physical violence to act on interpersonal issues. 

Studies have established time and time again that disciplining children physically is connected to bullying behaviors. Furthermore, any method which is associated with overpowering a child as part of their discipline is only going to teach that child to overpower others in the same manner. This is because punishing a child can be perceived as “it is alright to use force and overpower,” which, by the way, teaches the child that it is alright to be a bully.

• Keep connected with Your Child During Good Times and the Bad!

A lonely child is more vulnerable, therefore, the prey that bullies look for. Children generally feel ashamed of being bullied and too embarrassed to let their parents know. However, letting your child know that they can come to you about anything, you will listen, and that you will be there for them, they will come more near telling you when something is keeping them upset or worried.

Now, let us talk about how you can be certain your child will let you know if something is wrong (such as being bullied). As a parent, who is 20% on guiding your kid(s), and the other 80% is all about being connected with your kid(s). You will end up driving your child away from you if the guidance does not take and the only way around this happening is to have a strong connection with one another! 

It is important to consider your relationship with your child to be a top priority, and the lines of communicating must always be open regardless.

• Be a Confident Model, and Have a Respectful Behavior with Others

For instance, you are driving and when another driver cuts in front of you, which caused you to have to suddenly press the brakes, rattling your child in the back seat. This upset you, and not thinking you began cursing them with your child is back. This is teaching your child that it is sometimes alright to be disrespectful.

On the other hand, so instead of that first scenario, you stay calm, and you do not curse or create a scene (only to later wished you had done something about it). But as you know, your child is watching the things you do and say and their learning! Train yourself to be a perfect role model for your child by finding other ways of asserting your needs and/or rights and staying respectful to others, even when you do not agree. 

• Teach Your Child Self-Assertion While Being Respectful

Children have the tendency to have to know if their needs are going to be met if they are respectful to others:

• “Now it’s my turn.”

• “Quit, I said; stop it.”

• “Get your hands away from me.”

• “No, it is not alright to hurt.”

• “I do not want you to call me that; I would like to be called by my name.”

• Teach Your Child Social Skills

Bullies tend to seek out the vulnerable kids to pick on. If your child is shy and has difficulties with the use of their social skills, then you need to make this a priority and let your child know that you got their back. Teach your child everything listed above, and it should make them a little less attractive to bullies.

Create games based on social skills, then work with your child at home by practicing them. Another thing you can be doing with your child is role-playing. For instance, role plays a game about being at the park, and you introduce yourself to someone else’s kid at the playground. 

There are some children who want to be accepted by their peers, that they start hanging around them, and when one of them in the group begins to be a bully, they still hang with the group. 

If you feel that your child is vulnerable, hear what they have to say about their peer interactions so that you will be able to teach them to keep in contact with their inner wisdom while you are working towards your child having friends that will make it a healthy relationship.

Help Your Child with Basic Bully Avoidance

Talk to your child about avoiding the bullies. This can start out with discussing where bullies prefer hanging out, such as unsupervised areas like the school bathrooms, hallways, and particular areas on the school’s playground. 

There are places where you do not usually find bullies, including at the front of the school bus, sitting at a table near the front of the school’s cafeteria, all these areas have chaperones, and bullies try to avoid chaperones. The chaperones make a good strategy for bullies.