How to Help Your Child Deal With Bullying

When we picture our children going to school, we like to imagine them walking down the halls, talking to their friends, joking around with their teammates, and being respectful to teachers and other school faculty. We picture a supportive, caring community that helps your children thrive and feel accepted.

Unfortunately, this is not always the case. Bullying is one thing that happens in too many schools across the country. It is not easy finding out that your child is being bullied, it is also not easy finding out the opposite, that your child is the bully. As hard as teachers, staff, members, parents, and peers try to prevent bullying and help those being bullied, it still happens.

At Resurrections Christian School, a private Christian school in Loveland, we work hard to make sure bullying doesn’t become an issue. Our school’s mission, beliefs, and setup help us to create a community that is caring, loving, and supportive. Since our school begins with preschool and ends with high school, our students grow up together, get to know each other, and become one community. Our weekly chapels, bible classes, and Christian mindset help our school maintain a positive and caring environment and help our students learn to treat everyone with respect.

We want our students to feel safe and comfortable at our school and on our campus. We do our part, now it is time to do yours. Talking to your children about bullying is a great place to start. It doesn’t matter if your child is being bullied, is the bully, or is just an innocent bystander. Every parent should talk with their children about bullying, even if they don’t talk to you about it first.

Are you not sure how to talk to your kids about bullying? In this blog, we will go over some tips to talking to your children about bullying and how to do it most effectively. Read on for more tips and help us end bullying.

Figure Out How to Talk to Your Children

Talking to your children may be difficult. Kids don’t always like to open up to their parents, tell them what is going on, or ask questions about anything that may be hard to talk about. In an Insider article, Jim Jordan, who is the president of reportbullying.com, gave some advice on how to talk to your children and how to figure out the best way to do so.

Jim Jordan mentions that there are three categories when it comes to talking—talking about ourselves, talking about others, and talking about objects and events. Out of these three categories, he mentions that most children hate talking about themselves and their own problems. Talking about others, events, or objects can help your child open up to you and actually talk rather than giving one-word answers. Figuring out which way is best to talk to your kids is the hard part, but once you figure out what opens them up the most, you will be able to talk to them about many different things.

Take it Seriously

Bullying is a serious issue and you should never blow it off if your kids talk to you about it. Often times, parents will tell their children to toughen up, ignore the problem or person bullying them, or that the bullying will end eventually. These are things your child does not want to hear, especially after opening up to you about being bullied. Unfortunately, bullying can lead to something worse, so taking it seriously when you’re first told about it or when you first notice something is different can help your children.

Talking About Bullying

If you notice that your child is acting differently, skipping activities they used to love, avoiding school, or no longer hanging out with friends, it may be a sign that they are being bullied. If your child isn’t sleeping well, isn’t eating, avoids certain situations, and has become moodier, bullying may be the cause. When talking to your children about bullying, you don’t want to jump straight to the point. An article from Kids Health, suggests using different opportunities to start talking about bullying, such as a TV show that shows some instances of bullying. You can ask your children what they think about what is happening, what they would do in this situation, and maybe even go as far as to ask them if anyone gets bullied at their school. These questions and this discussion may help them open up to you about their situation and feel more comfortable about the topic.

Even if your child is not showing signs of being bullied, talk to them about the seriousness and tell them that you are always there to listen and help them if anything does happen. Tell your children that if they begin to be bullied or notice someone else being bullied, they need to tell someone, whether it is a parent, teacher, another adult, or a peer. Getting your kids to understand that you will help them and support them through this time can allow them to feel more comfortable if anything does happen.

Dealing With It

Talking to a school principal, a teacher, or a counselor at the school can help get eyes on the situation and hopefully end it. It can be hard dealing with bullies and giving kids advice on how to deal with it. The Kids Health article gave a few words of advice to give your kids. One of their strategies is to simply and calmly tell the bully to stop and walk away. Bullies thrive off of your reactions, so telling your children to not react, ignore them, and even play on their phone while the bully is trying to get to them can help. The bully will eventually get bored and stop bothering them.

There are many different ways of dealing with a bully, and hopefully, your children never have to worry about it. But knowing how to deal with bullies and help your children deal with bullies can help make it easier. Your children may want to try getting the bully to stop on their own before you go to the principal, let them try one of these methods, and if nothing changes, then seek additional help.

At Resurrection Christian School, we work to keep our community and students caring and supportive. We do not tolerate bullying but know that it happens, that is why we wanted to give parents additional information on how to help your children deal with a bully. Learn more about our private Christian school in Loveland and what we stand for today.