What to do if Your Child is Being Bullied

Bullying involves recurring acts of physical, emotional, or social behaviour that are intentional, controlling, and hurtful.  Bullying is a learned behaviour, observable as early as 2 years of age.

Bullying is defined by a power imbalance between the bully and its prey.  A power that can be gained from physical size, strength, verbal skill, popularity, or gender.    

A bully’s target feels tortured, helpless and defenceless, and if you believe that your child is being bullied, you should talk to your child and trust that what they are telling you is true, and not brush it under the rug.

Talk over with your child that being bullied is not their fault, and that they don’t have to face it alone.

The parent should gather as much information as possible about the situation, and instruct the child to not respond to his/her attackers, but to be assertive and walk away, or get assistance if required.

Tell your child to report any intimidation straightaway to a trusted adult, and the parent should get in touch with the school, teacher, or counsellor, and always stay calm.  Don’t ever respond to any bullying.

When kids bully each other using the internet, mobile phones, or other cyber technology by sending hateful or venomous text, e-mail, or instant messages, or by posting hateful pictures or messages about others in a chat room, on bulletin boards, on blogs, or on websites, then they should be reported immediately, but don’t ever react to any Cyber bullying, and screen shot and save all correspondence or postings.

If your child is physically attacked, and when we say physically, we mean by force, hitting, or otherwise attacking, then the parent needs to talk to the teachers and the school principal immediately.

The parent should take pictures of any injuries, and they should have their child write down a detailed description of what happened.

The police should be called immediately if there is any physical violation of any type, which includes hitting, kicking, slapping, tripping, and hair-pulling.

Parents should also talk to a solicitor/Lawyer if the child has been physically assaulted by another student.

In a collective, children and older students do tend to bicker, and some just single others out, some just to show off, and others because of the way that they have been brought up in the home.  

We are not born bullies, we become bully’s because of what we see, and what we’re shown, and so that the emphasis is not on them, but on others.  It’s all about possession, and taking charge of something that they can command because they’re unable to control themselves.

It’s our animal instinct that refers to our behaviour and habits, including body language, elimination habits, hostility, play and communication.  Many common behaviours include hunting and grooming, however, it can change greatly among individuals.  Some might appear to interact with others more easily, while others do not seem to do as well.  In a family with many children, the interactions appear to alter depending on which individuals are present, and how limited the territory and the resources are.

Even so, bullying isn’t acceptable behaviour, and dominance over this should be seen in the home of the parents, nevertheless, this is not always a possibility, particularly if all that the bully is experiencing is hostility inside the home.  Another pattern of bullying is through peer pressure that is influenced in a peer group, when observers or individuals encourage others to change their attitudes, values, or behaviours to adapt to a group.

Peers become a significant influence on behaviour during adolescence, and peer pressure has been called a hallmark of adolescent experience.

Peer conformity in young people is most pronounced with regard to trend, taste, appearance, ideology, and values, and is normally affiliated with instalments of adolescent risk taking, such as willful neglect, drug abuse, sexual behaviours, and reckless driving because these actions commonly happen in the company of peers.

Affiliation with friends who engage in risk behaviours has been shown to be a strong predictor of an adolescent’s own behaviour, however, peer pressure can also have positive effects when youths are forced by their peers towards positive behaviour, such as volunteering for a charity, or surpassing in academics.

While socially accepted kids often have the most opportunities, and the most positive experiences, being in the popular gang may also be a risk element for mild to temperate deviant behaviour.

Popular teenagers are the most socialised into their peer groups, and therefore are more vulnerable to peer pressures, such as behaviours normally set aside for this for more outstanding matureness and reasoning.

Socially accepted kids are frequently accepted for the sheer fact that they adjust well to the norms of teen culture, with good and bad aspects included, and popular adolescents are more strongly associated with their peer group’s likes such as intoxicants, tobacco and drugs.

Many popular pupils also make lower grades than less socially accepted kids. This is perhaps due to the fact that popular students may spend more time vexing about their social life instead of studying.

We perpetually hear about bullying on a regular basis, and sometimes it becomes so high-risk that you also hear of teenagers taking their own lives because of the brutality that another teenager, or a group of teenagers has put on another person.  

In the playground of adolescence we support bullying as a playground caper, and thus reinforce it, and brush it under the carpet.   However, you can title it what you like, but at the end of the day, it’s still bullying, and a hurdle that we must address.  It’s not a brain-teaser. It’s very real, and we must always question why it happens.

We are all born with a blank canvas, we are not born with this congenital enthrallment to bully another human being, however, some of us, as we get older search out others to create havoc upon.  So, this must have been learned from somewhere, and it’s essential that once this bullying is brought out into the open by a student, or the parent of that student that it’s nipped in the bud as soon as possible.

How do we do this, with control, and we need to analyse all aspects of the situation, however, what we can’t do is quash the situation and pretend it’s not happening, when we know that it is.  You can’t conceal bullying because it won’t go away, and whoever it’s happening to can’t fight it off, it’s not as simple as that.

Foremost the student that’s being bullied needs to know that they can approach someone of authority, or their parents without judgement because the student has done nothing amiss, and should not be made to feel that they have.  

It’s one thing the student approaching somebody to confide in, but it’s another thing bringing the bullies forward to acknowledge that they have done something wrong because in their eyes it was all in fun, and they never meant anything by it, when clearly they did, and then the student will go away feeling uplifted that the bully has been chastised for their wrong-doing, but then the student is then bullied once more, but more so because they ratted on the bully or bullies.

With a bully, it’s almost like a line of work, and the prey is the student.  Bullying can also take place in a place of work among adults.  The adult might seem well mannered, but underneath they are really vulgar and ill-mannered, and they will pollute anyone that they can with their gibe like comments. 

Nobody has the authorisation to bully another human being because being a human being means that one is worthy of more than that. Everybody deserves to be handled with esteem, and to be stripped of that respect is a let down on the human species.  Given that we should be permitted to air our feelings about other people, but not to the detriment of another persons life, that is taboo.