Protecting your child against the bully

BECOMING AWARE that your child is being bullied can be a very distressing experience for a parent. It is through our children that we are most vulnerable when they suffer, we suffer.

If you know your child is being bullied, the first thing to do is to assure the child that the problem lies with the bully. This helps to remove the guilt that many people feel when they are bullied.

It can help to ask the child, "Did you ever wonder why that person feels the need to call you names/jeer-you/hit you? Would he treat you like that if he felt good about himself? Perhaps he is jealous of you."

A child who is being bullied also needs to be listened to in a supportive way. Parents need to be careful not go give the impression that they do not believe this is a serious matter, or that the child may be imagining or exaggerating. To a child being bullied, it is a problem of major proportions.

However, a child may sometimes be over sensitive. They need to learn to distinguish between the kind of treatment everybody can be subjected to from time to time, often in fun, and behaviour where there is a deliberate intention to hurt.

A child who has high self esteem is most unlikely to be the victim of long term bullying. Parents can help to build self esteem in their children by encouraging them, by making them feel good about their appearance and getting them involved in activities inside and outside school.

Moreover, a written record of incidents should be kept with details of date, time, place and people involved. If the bullying is serious, the school should be approached in a low key way, either by telephone or letter or at a quiet time. A child being bullied may be afraid of being called a "rat" or of what their classmates will think if their parents contact the school.

Children who are being bullied need to develop techniques to help them cope.

Slagging is one of the most common forms of bullying. Repeated comments about your physical appearance, your accent, where you live, what your father works at (or the fact that he may not have a job) can really hurt, particularly ff said in a certain tone of voice and accompanied by the so called "look". If you are older it may take the form of remarks about your sexual orientation, or jeering of members of your family.

Aggression feeds on fear. When bullies know that you are afraid or anxious, it is like a magnet which attracts them and they do it even more. I have found that if younger children visualise a large wall all around them and imagine the names and comments as arrows which strike the wall and fall to the ground, it can help keep the negative ideas out. It is when they allow their minds to become filled with these thoughts that confidence can be affected. This approach can even work for older children.

Younger children can also use their voices to good effect. If, for example, they are being continually picked on in the playground, shouting "get away and leave me alone" has a good chance of attracting a teacher's attention the kind of attention bullies do not want.

Learning to be assertive is the best defence against being bullied. Eye contact and positive body language (bead and shoulders up), allied to an air of confidence, are crucial. A child who has been bullied needs the support of parents and teachers to develop this.

Retaliation, in the case of physical bullying, can be a dangerous option first, it can give the bully an opportunity to say he/she was acting in self defence. Second, if it is unsuccessful it can make a person more vulnerable in the future, having shown the bully physical inferiority. Third, this kind of physical exchange can provide a lot of "fun" for other class members.

The best advice is for the child to talk to someone about the situation a parent, a teacher that they trust, a friend. One of the major problems with bullying is that the person being bullied will build a barrier to keep the bully out but ends up keeping everybody else out as well. In time, the victim may become an easy target and even be described as a loner. The worst part of bullying is the loneliness, and that is why children who have been bullied must be encouraged to reach out to others.