Speaker, author and academic Dr Michael Nagel looks at the impact of bullying and how parents can recognise the signs and help children build the skills to combat unwanted attention and bullying.
How do you know if your child is being bullied? Equally important, how do you know if your child is bullying others? When does teasing or playful aggression turn into torment?
Bullying, whether receiving or instigating, is not a trivial matter. Bullying has been linked to long term emotional and social problems and can impact all manner of relationships.
Human beings are social creatures by nature and bullying can impair the very relationships that children need for all aspects of healthy development. Relatedly, we know that negative social experiences and dealing with such interactions provide opportunities for important skills to learn.
Far better to deal with difficult relationships first-hand as a child when possible than have a parent hover overhead looking to interject or find a safe space. So, how do we help children deal with troubling relationships and, what should be done when a child may be the bully and not the victim?
One of the first things to remember is that when a child complains about being bullied, you want to be sure that that is actually the case. It is not uncommon for children or parents to mislabel undesirable behaviour as bullying. Teasing is not bullying and the odd altercation is not necessarily a sign of something more nefarious.
Bullying is, at its core, a power play and even young children can bully. A bully repeatedly uses a position of power to harm another. That harm can come in many forms. And while it can be difficult to know a young bully’s intent, the behaviour of a bully always manifests as repeatedly looking to hurt another. One off situations should not be considered bullying but likely immature social skills. However, repeatedly attacking someone physically or verbally, making threats, lashing out, not sharing toys or play spaces, spreading rumours, excluding someone from a group can all be forms of bullying.
What to do if your child is being bullied
It is important to remember however, that the key indicators for bullying are repetition and an intent to harm. So, what to do if your child says they are being bullied?
First, any claims of being bullied need to be taken seriously. This needs to be done in an empathetic way without implying your child is ‘fragile’ or displaying frustration or anger.
While you might have a deep and burning desire to solve the problem by approaching teachers or confronting the bully’s parents it is far better to temper that response.
Instead, exude confidence and show that you and your child can work together to solve the problem.
Second, it is important to have a clear understanding of what is happening. Get all the facts you can before discussing what to do. You need to know, as best as possible, who is involved, when and where bullying occurs and how your child reacts in those situations.
Once you feel you have a sense of what is happening there are a few strategies you can offer.
One of the first things you can suggest to your child is to ignore the bullying behaviour and walk away. Bullies are often looking for attention so ignoring them is a good first step.
If that does not work then teach your child to be assertive and stand up for themselves. This can be done by role playing and having your child learn to say ‘leave me alone’ in a confident and calm manner. And while teaching your child to stand tall and telling the bully to stop is a good first step it might also be necessary for your child to find friends who have encountered similar situations for advice or enlist them as allies.
It is also important to convey to them to get help from a ‘grown-up’ if needed. Finally, it may be prudent for you to get other adults involved, but before looking for outside adult assistance such as a teacher or coach, you should also seek your child’s permission for doing so.
Immediately taking matters to another level through approaching another adult risks embarrassment over any notion of agency. If you are going to teach your child to be assertive and confident and/or ask for help then they need to practice doing so before any parental intervention. .
Now as you are reading this you might think that that all sounds good but what if it doesn’t work? It is hard to have a blueprint for all scenarios given that bullying can take many forms and occur in many contexts, so the best you can do is monitor the situation and ensure your child tells you if things don’t improve. And as noted above, if your child is struggling you may need to intervene in some way as prolonged bullying is simply unhealthy for anyone let alone a child.