What to do if your child is being bullied
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On a beautiful Saturday morning, I took my kids to their usual playground, where they spent their time playing with other kids and having fun, when I noticed my son being bullied.
As a new dad, I didn’t know how to handle the situation nor talk about how furious that made me.
I couldn’t just imagine why kids could be this mean to their own age mate.
I can say that the other kids picked on my son because they didn’t know I, the father wasn’t that far from them.
You might be wondering what I encountered them doing to my son, which made me lose my cool.
It was something he absolutely had no control over; they were teasing him for having big eyes.
I could only wonder why kids can be this cruel to their mates. Though there was nothing wrong with how his eyes were. I might be wrong, but I lost my cool on that day.
But as a parent, I knew they didn’t really know what they were doing and how it could harm their colleague. I was able to handle the issue maturely, but I will reveal how I went about it at the end of this article.
Getting home, I decided to research what to do when your child is being bullied into verifying if I went too far with my approach.
Many parents might also see themselves in this situation one day, so I thought it wise to put my findings here to help you prepare better so that you don’t find yourself wanting when it happens to your child.
Without going on too much, let’s quickly look at two main effects bullying can have on our kids and why we must do everything possible to deal with that situation to prevent it from happening among our kids again.
Effects of bullying on children.
1. Depression; This is one of the significant effects bullying can have on children and adults, making one become very sad and feel worthless. Imagine how hurtful this could be to a child who is just learning how things work in our world.
2. Bad academic grades;
If your child starts thinking that he is worthless, it will be tough for him to concentrate in school and learn.
This will definitely have adverse effects on his school life unless that thought is totally uprooted from his mind.
The effects listed above are the main reason why you must take action immediately you notice your child is being bullied.
What to do if your child is being bullied
1. Report;
The first thing you can do when you come across your child being bullied is let the bully take you to the guardian he might have come with (that is, if this happens outside school) and let his ward take action on how the situation should be addressed.
If it happened in school and you find out about it, go and report the issue to the school authorities. There are a lot of punishments for bullying in schools that will deter children from engaging in it, so that probably can help put things in place.
2. Let your child ignore;
Another way to go around this is to let your child ignore the bully. Let him know that he cannot let the bully get under his skin and that paying attention to the bully will only give him more power over him. One thing is that if the bully sees that he is being ignored anytime, he tries to bully your child, he will eventually give up because it wouldn’t be worth it anymore.
3. Take him away from there;
You can’t let your child be in that toxic environment where he is constantly being bullied. Take him from there to where he is welcome and appreciated among his friends.
Allowing him to stay around his bully will only make him sad and depressed, which can generally have a lot of adverse effects on him.
Conclusion;
Never allow your child to be close to children who only want to pick up on him because this will destroy your child’s life if the issue isn’t noticed and addressed quickly. And oh, before I forget, I promised to talk about how I handled the situation of my son being bullied.
Well, I didn’t let it slide like how most parents would. I asked the bullies to stop what they were doing immediately, or they will face severe consequences, and I warned them never to try that again.
I don’t know whether I went too far, letting my emotions have the better of me.
Do you think my approach was okay? Let me know via the comment section.
