PARENTS ARE THE MOST VALUABLE RESOURCES FOR CHILDREN BEING BULLIED OR BULLYING OTHERS
Cyberbullying, school bullying and bullying in sports or activities teams is very common and has a huge impact on young people and children. Bullying is just as damaging as any other form of child abuse. The paper below describes the similarity in impact between child abuse as we currently define it and peer abuse which has very similar damaging outcomes and long term negative consequences.
As a parent you will be concerned for your child’s emotional state as a result of bullying, but their bullying can also effect you.
Bullying effects parents in a number of different ways:
1. You may be concerned that your child is being bullied (download free kidwatch© quiz)
or
2. You may believe or worry that your child is a bully. (download free bullywatch© quiz )
Complete the quizzes with as much honesty as possible and consider the result. A majority of positive responses may mean your child is being bullied or is behaving as a bully. Neither of these is good news.
Once you have thought carefully about the things that you have noticed about your child that worry you , you will be in a better position to help your child and seek support in school or other places where the bullying is happening.
You need to take action by :
- discussing your concerns with the teachers or other personnel with authority at your child’s school or sports club
- showing them the quiz results and asking for help with each item indicating bullying
- talking to your child about the things that concern you about their behaviour and fears
- get your child to complete the Selfwatch© quiz to see if they feel bullied ( see kids page)
See also
- The facts about bullying (download a fact sheet here)
- What we know about bullies (download a brochure here)
WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT BULLIES brochure
- see the BULLYGUARD © Resources in the bookshop for workbooks and other materials to use with your child to address bullying.
3. You may be concerned about the efforts and approaches available to or being used at the child’s school in regard to bullying . (download free schoolwatch ©quiz)
You may feel you are not listened to about what is happening to your child at school, and you may feel that they are being ‘fobbed off’ to other agencies to address what is essentially a school matter.Parents may feel they are not consulted about policy -it’s a school decision.
- See the BULLYWATCH MANUAL© available in the bookshop for the development of a whole school approach to managing bullying, which empowers all school community members by involving them in the policy and decisions needed to address the very serious matter of bullying in school.
4. You may be worried that the bullying occurring in your neighbourhood is not seen as a serious matter by community agencies and police.
Each of these issues above is addressed and resources are available on this site to assist and support parents to help their children develop resiliency and their school and community become more aware and informed in this area.
- see also ‘Childhood Bullying -A Deadly Serious Matter’ in bookshop at a discount or available from Amazon,which exposes the more severe impact of bullying and provides information to help understand the psychology of peer abuse and its implications.
All resources have been developed on the basis of research by the author.