Supporting The School Bullied Child

To effectively be able to support the child victims of school bullying, parents must become empowered themselves through the attainment of the necessary knowledge and skills to successfully deal with this type of bullying as a means of supporting the bullied child.

Your worst fears have been realized! Using your own parental instincts along with your understanding of some common signs of bullying, the evidence suggests that your child is being targeted. Now what?

Lets begin with some parenting advice and later we will focus on the child. It is very important that you, as the parent, react in an appropriate manner to this unpleasant news. Most parents, including myself, are by nature protective of our child. This is part of our genetic makeup, to want to protect our young from danger.  Unfortunately when hearing that our child is being victimized, our instinctive reaction is to fly into "protection mode", often acting with our heart rather than our brain.

Anger, outrage, fear, and other emotions soon take over and these may do more to make the situation worse for the targeted child than help them. It is imperative that we,  take a step back, take a deep breath, and let our brain and not our emotions control how we respond to this threat.

Concern number one must be directed at supporting the bullied child.  Positive action steps at this time would include:

Comfort the Child
Let them know that you care about them and will do all in your power to keep them safe.  Reassure them that no matter what the situation, they did not deserve to be bullied! Encourage your child to express their feelings and talk about their concerns with you.

Safety Concerns
Take any necessary steps to ensure that your child will be safe from the harassment by contacting and enlisting the help of others such as the teaching staff at the school, the principal, other concerned adults, and if possible, even older supportive students to help monitor the situation and provide a safe haven for your child if necessary.

Effective Responses
Talk about and even role play ways that your child can respond to the teasing or taunting. Discourage any physical "fighting back" as this may not only make things worse, but could be very dangerous to your child as well. Encourage thoughtful responses to any verbal abuse, and if need be, simply "walking away" from the situation rather than engaging in verbal combat with the bully.  Ensure that the child knows what adults they can turn to for help!

Repair and Rebuild
As previously discussed in bullying tactics, these kinds of intimidators gain power through isolating the target from any friends or peer support and making them feel worthless and helpless.  Knowing this, a parent must look for ways to repair and rebuild the targeted child's self-esteem and sense of belonging through opportunities aimed at making the child feel valued and cared about.

Smart parents do not wait until their child is a victim of bullying in school before they become involved. Ideally it is much better to prepare and teach your child how to deal with school bullying before it happens. This action is known as "bully proofing" your child.