Bullying in schools: Ways to identify if your child is bullied at schools.
Many children are bullied. But if your child is a victim of bullying — in real life or online — there are steps you can take.
According to stopbullying. According to stopbullying. gov, bullying is unwanted and aggressive behavior among school-age children that involves a real or perceived power imbalance. The behavior can be or is repeated over time.
Nationwide, about 19.2% of students in grades 6-12 were bullied during the 2021-2022 school year. Victims of prolonged bullying have the highest risk of developing problems with behavior, mood, school performance and family or social relationships.
Many children are reluctant to discuss bullying with an adult. Celia Heppner, Psy. D., a pediatric psychologist at Children’s Health℠ and an assistant professor at UT Southwestern, shares what you should look for if your child is being bullied and what to do if your child is being bullied.
Types of bullying
Physical bullying
Defining Physical — This includes hitting, pushing and kicking by one or more children that are meant to harm the victim. It may also involve throwing food or taking belongings.
Cyber bullying
If a child uses social networking sites (e.g., Facebook, Instagram), text messages, websites, or other electronic media to say hurtful things, lie, post pictures, or spread rumors about the victim). Unlike traditional bullying, cyber bullying may involve the bully impersonating another person, or even impersonating the victim.
Verbal bullying
When a child or multiple participate in bulling the victim by naming calling or throwing an insult.
Relational bullying
When one or more children intentionally excludes the victim from events, refuses to invite the victim to parties or speaks ill of the victim.
Indications that your kid is being bullied
- Mood and behavioral changes – No one knows your child better than you. If you notice immediate changes in the mood of your child, or mindsets that are out of the ordinary (such as sleeping changes or eating habits) these could be signs that something serious is happening in their life, and might just relate to bullying.
- Stomach aches, nausea, headaches or pain – Bullying can be a very stress inducing thing for children to go through. That stress can take a toll on children’s bodies, manifesting in stomach aches, nausea and intestinal problems, headaches and other pain. So if your child has symptoms that reduce during long school breaks and/or symptoms that tend to come on just before the start of school, that might be an indicator that your child’s physical symptoms could be linked to bullying or other school-related problems. At times, the physical symptoms will even improve on weekends and begin to worsen Sunday evenings.
- Interest in school or other activities – Kids who are bullied at school, in extracurricular activities or in the neighborhood may begin to feel unmotivated to take part in anything. Sometimes depression and loneliness can cause victims to stop wanting to do things, even when bullying is not occurring in that moment.
- Avoiding school — The child who is frantically trying to get out of going to school, particularly if they were previously excited about school, may do so as a reaction to being bullied. If you are at this point and the school aged child is avoiding going to school, it may be helpful to ask open ended questions to find out about what your child dislikes and what they don’t look forward to at school.
- Dropping grades — Children are at greater risk for being bullied when their grades and learning are suffering, but failing marks can also be an indication that a child is being bullied at school. There are several factors why a child who is bullied may experience falling grades, such as hesitating to raise his/her hand to ask questions in class, inability to focus in class and losing motivation to perform well at school.
- Not invited to friends’ houses/birthday parties – Children who are bullied may be uninvited or no longer invited to friends’ houses or birthday parties due to friends being the ones doing the bullying or simply because friends no longer want to spend time with a child who is being bullied.
- Frequent loss of items – If your child starts losing possessions frequently, such as books, electronics or jewelry, this may signal that other children are bullying your child and taking his/her items.
What parents should do if their child is being bullied
Ask questions
You are the best advocate for your child. If you are worried your child is being bullied, ask open-ended questions about how the child feels things are going with peers in school or in your neighborhood.
Be supportive
Creating a loving, supportive home environment is one of the best ways to help bullied children avoid emotional, social and behavioral problems. Sometimes that requires just listening, rather than immediately jumping in to try to help solve your child’s problems with a bully.
Do Not Be Overcontrolling or Overprotective
When your child is being bullied, the last thing you might want to feel is less engaged in their day-to-day world. But attempting to dictate every facet of your child’s life, or attempting to shield your child from the slightest chance of being bullied, can communicate to your child a powerful lesson: they are not capable of handling adversity. Limiting exposure to peer situations also removes your child from potentially powerful, developmentally critical experiences in building important social skills.
Set the example
Kids observe parents to acquire the rules for how to handle adversity, how to communicate with difficult people, how to problem solve and how to manage interpersonal conflict. By modeling confidence, assertiveness and pro-social behavior, you can show your child how to interact with others and how to feel about themselves.
Foster best friendships
Even those kids who are bullied for lengthy periods can be shielded from subsequent depression and anxiety — so long as they have at least one close friend. Continue to nurture friendships for your child by encouraging your child to spend time with close, supportive friends outside of school.
Promote outside of school activities
Team activities are powerful for bullied kids because they provide skills development around relationships with other kids their age who have interests in similar types of activities. So even when your child is bullied at school, finding a team your child can belong to without being bullied may insulate your child from depression and anxiety.
Do not blame the victim
Teaching your child and guiding him or her through problem solving and social skills improvement can equip children with the skills they need to manage bullying. But be careful not to send your child the message that bullying is his or her fault.
There’s no need to keep everyone at school in the dark.
Once you have that information from your child, you might consider seeking a meeting with your child’s teachers, school counselor and other pertinent school personnel to create a plan of action to support your child. That plan can include working to identify an adult either in school or outside the school whom your child knows they can talk to when there is bullying, increased monitoring of unstructured settings like lunch or recess, and/or moving your child’s seat or classroom.”
Know when to seek help
That your child has been bullied is only the first step in keeping your child safe. If you see, in addition, further changes in your child’s mood, behavior, performance in school, motivation level to engage in activities or family relationships, get help from a psychologist or other mental health professional.
