There has been quite a bit of publicity lately regarding bullying and rightly so. 80% of bullying is witnessed by others and it’s doing great harm to the emotional safety of a child. As a society, we can no longer allow this rash of hurtful words and actions to continue to spread through our culture.

Bullying behavior is so detrimental to a child’s development. The formative years of a child’s life are already filled with questions, “Who am I?”, “Where do I belong?” As parents, our job is to make sure our child feels valued through every step of his development.

Bullying is so dangerous because it can not only cause physical harm, but emotional. If children are constantly reinforcing negative perceptions about themselves, they can easily slip into a depressed state. And, if your relationship with your child is not strong, they may not feel comfortable reaching out to you if they are in physical or emotional pain. They may already believe the harmful messages they are hearing from a bully and in turn they may be telling themselves they deserve what they are receiving or it really is their fault.

What is a parent to do about bullying?
If you suspect bullying, the following 3 steps are a must:

1. Talk to your child to empower him/her.
   Children lose their own personal power and confidence when they start to believe they are not worthy of love and respect of others. Tell your child, they are strong, that you believe in them and there is nothing you can’t work through together. Show them their self worth and how the words of others do not have to hurt them. Offer suggestions on how to handle the bully if it happens again. (Carolyn – you may want to add to this here, or, we can even make it a 2nd blog article)
2. Explore their feelings with them.
   Talking about the problem will help them process it. Be a good listener. Help draw them out if they get stuck and validate their feeling. The more they talk about it, they can process what happened (even if it’s the same story that they want to talk about over and over) and that takes the power away from it so they can regain ownership in their lives.
3. Focus on positive aspects of their life.
   Is the bullying around something that may be true, such as a weight issue? Whether the issue is an actual reality or just feels true, the experience is the same for your child. Help them see all the wonderful things about themselves. Have them tell you or write in a journal every day “3 Things I Like About Me”. There is always something positive in your life you can be grateful for, help them see it and reinforce it as often as you can.

Learn more on this video from a segment I did with Channel 6 news and I encourage you to see The Bully Project movie in theaters now. http://thebullyproject.com/