School may be the best years of our growing up life but for a large number of us, it was a nightmare. Very often, school replicated real life. There will always be a more dominant group who will exert their power over the weaker, more subservient, peace loving groups within the society. Watch any teen movie these days and you’ll notice the stereotypes: the jocks, the cheerleaders, the nerds and the invisibles. Which one did you belong to? While those days may be far behind for you, it is only the beginning for your little ones.
Some utilitarian parents actually think being bullied is good for their kids to build character but not all kids are tough enough to deal with it and it may affect their self esteem in the long run causing them to become timid, shy adults. Don’t scold your child for being weak or when they try to tell you their predicament as this will only encourage them to stay mum about it. Listen to them and believe what they say, it takes plenty of courage for a child to share the fact that they’ve been bullied.
The next thing you want to do is to identify who are the bullies involved and if there were any witnesses. Discuss what should be done with your child and respect their decision. They may be afraid of bringing this up to the teachers out of fear of further bullying but explain to them that if this is not done, some other innocent kid might be affected.
Never tell your child to ignore the bully as it doesn’t solve the problem, it’s a also a lazy parents way of disregarding the way their kids feel. Assure your child that it isn’t their fault and that in this case only the bully is to blame. Some people think that if you ignore a problem long enough it will eventually go away but what stays are emotional scarring. It’s important to teach your children to stand up for themselves confidently and know that they have done nothing to receive such treatment. Remember to listen, assure, explain and report the problem to show that you care about you kids’ wellbeing. When they see that you are doing something about it, hopefully they will too.
