How to Help your Child Overcome Being Bullied in School

Being bullied is a child’s worst nightmare, it can break a child and make them withdraw from everyone.  Often times, children are even so afraid to tell their parents that they are being bullied at school because they feel that they should be able to stand up to their bullies. 

As a parent you really need to understand when your child is being bullied, this is often difficult but the easiest ways to know is when there is a sudden change in behaviour, or when the child is being moody. it’s one of the things that could make them lose sleep. Sometimes reporting the bully doesn’t stop the abuse, in fact, it makes the bullies threaten the child the more, this time doing it discreetly without being caught. This goes a long way in affecting the child’s self-esteem.

These are tips on how to help your child overcome bullying.

1. They should avoid the bully and not go anywhere alone: Bullies thrive in getting their victims alone, teach your child to always find means to avoid the bullies, they should never go anywhere on their own, instead they should go with a friend. When they see the bully, they should always avoid them in order not to have steady confrontations with the bullies.
2. They should learn to control their anger: it is understandable that when a bully finds your trouble you should react by getting angry. That’s what bully thrives on, seeing their victims lose control makes them happy. Teach your child to keep a passive face whenever they are approached by bullies, they shouldn’t show emotions and they take deep breathes and even count to ten to help manage their emotions.
3. Teach them to stand up for themselves: Sometimes the way to get rid of a bully is to stand up for yourself, parents should teach their children to politely tell their bullies to stop and walk away from them. The bullies practically develop a level of respect for them because of their braveness. Even when the bully comes back to try to taunt them with insulting words or rude comments, ignore them and walk away or just do something else that shows that what the bully is saying doesn’t affect them, after a while the bully would leave them alone.
4. Tell them to talk to their teachers: the first thing a child should do when he or she is being bullied is report to their teachers, this helps the teacher assess the situation and report to the necessary authority and make the bullying stop.
5. Encourage them to talk to you about it: some children are too ashamed to talk about being bullied, but it is the job of the parent to encourage communication in their home, so that when their child is being bullied in school they can come to the house and tell them about it so they can all find a solution to it.

Parents should know that bullies are also been treated badly be it in their homes or the environment. While helping your child overcome these bullies, you are also helping the bullies become a better version of their self when you take action.