Helping Your Child to Deal with a Bully

by Maureen Amberg

One of the more difficult problems that your younger (or older) child may be going through, especially at school, is problems with a bully.  As a matter of fact, this is something that if it is not addressed and corrected, may follow your child around for the rest of his life.  The difficulty is, most parents do not feel equipped to be able to handle this situation and it certainly is something that needs to be dealt with gingerly.

Perhaps the most important thing is for you to be able to identify the signs that your child has a bully.  Depending on the type of bullying that is taking place, this can vary from physical evidence to psychological issues, such as frequently going to the nurses office or perhaps wanting to stay home from school regularly.  It may take a little bit of gentle prodding in order for you to find out whether a bully is involved or not, but there are also times when  the child will outright tell you that there is an issue.

You must convince your child, immediately upon finding out that they have a bully that they are not the one who is at fault.  Along with that, you're going to want to make sure that you speak consolingly to the child and that you don't react out of anger, which you will no doubt be feeling.  Make sure that the child's boundaries are also respected, as they are probably right that the bullying will get worse if the bully finds out that someone else knows what is going on.

There are a number of things that can be done in order to stop bullying, or to reduce it. Most of the time, it is beneficial if you speak to the parents of the bully, but you may want to do so in a proper setting, where an official can mediate.  You should also speak to the teach or counselor about the issue, but do so privately in order to respect your child's wishes.  Although it may take some time, and calm patience, handling it in this manner will generally yield better results than going aggressively at the issue.