Bullying

This week I have heard of two different incidents of bully occurring at school.  It really struck me and broke my heart.

Kids can certainly be mean and unkind. I remember seeing it happen when I was taught elementary school and in fact I remember it in school when I was growing up.  Bullying is a different thing all together.

So that we are all on the same page, the simple definition of a bully is a person or group of people who are socially or physically in “power”.  It could be someone physically or socially stronger.   This noted person or group then intimidates, abuses, or coerces another with the intention of doing harm…harm either emotionally or physically.

What is going on in this world?  My first inclination is to blame the parents for the bully behavior.  Numerous questions rise in my mind:

• Where is your son/daughter learning this behavior from?
• How can you not see they are doing this?  Are you involved?  Are you watching what they are doing on technology?
• Are you having conversations?

But I have no control of what goes on in another person’s home.  What I do have power of is arming my children with the skills to deal with it.  I really like these tips from kidpower.org

• Teach your children to act with calm, awareness, and confidence
• Learn to leave a situation in a powerful, strong way
• Teach to set boundaries when faced with difficult or unsafe situations
• Find your voice
• Harden your shell
• Speak up
• Identify/Tell an adult
• As a last resort…physical self-defensive

We do a lot of role-playing, parent coaching, and practice at home.  This really helps a lot.  I am not so naive to think these things will magically solve the problem.  What I do hope is that my kids are aware and have a supply of strategies to try.  I also want to include if they see someone else being bullied, they need to tell an adult.

It is never too early to work on this…life is happening as we speak.

 

“It’s not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.” – Epictetus