How to help keep your kid from being bullied

It also follows that neither parent should accept being bullied by any of the kids. That may sound ridiculous (or at least it should!), yet I know many moms and more than a few dads who are very reluctant and even actually afraid of saying “no” to their kids or standing up to them. Not only is that intolerable, but it sure isn’t doing the kids any good to grow up believing that they can manipulate, torment, or bully adults or peers and get away with it.

Yes, it may work in the short run, but the real world will not tolerate that type of behavior, and your child will pay dearly.

Living the Law
Don’t allow physical aggression in your home. Bullies tend to come from homes where physical aggression is used by parents to punish their children, folks have a negative attitude toward their kids, or they tolerate aggressive behavior between members of the family. So try using negative consequences that are not aggressive or physical in nature (such as timeouts or losses of privileges), set limits on how much physical or verbal roughhousing you’ll let the kids engage in (if any), and adopt a supportive, positive attitude toward your children.

Teach bully-coping skills. Encourage your child when confronted by teasing or bullying to throw the aggressor off track by making a funny comment. For example, tell your daughter that if the perpetrator continues to tease her about her braces, to respond with something like “Oh, so you’re the new braces monitor. I didn’t realize that!” Or have your son manipulate the bully when being teased about his failed attempts at shooting hoops by saying, “Thanks for noticing. I appreciate your interest!” The point is that your child needs to learn to maintain his self-control in these uncomfortable situations, and by doing so he actually controls the bully-victim relationship. You should role-play various responses with your kids until they get good at it. The process can actually be fun!

Encourage social competence. Some victimized children may have deficits in social cognition or social competence. To avoid this, engage your child at an early age in playgroups or playdates, and consider preschool activities as well. As your child matures, continue to encourage group activities so that she learns how to enter into a new group of friends and to effectively work a crowd. Some kids need a boost in terms of learning socially appropriate behaviors, how to read and understand group actions, and how to start conversations even in awkward moments. Inclusion in group situations can go a long way in helping your child to feel more comfortable with others.

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Help your child to fit in. Children who are socially aware tend not to be picked on as much by others. Sure, this is superficial and it shouldn’t be that way, but until we succeed at changing how kids view popularity and they become more humane with each other, I recommend that you expose your children to what’s important to kids their age — be it sports, music, movies, or fashion. However, if it looks like your kid is not interested in typical gender- or age-related activities, help him seek out other avenues of interest. Odds are that he’ll find a buddy on his baseball team or he’ll make a friend through Cub Scouts. You can help initiate and cement friendships by talking with the teacher and finding out which classmates may be good matches for your child. Pursue this by contacting their parents and offering a playdate or a sleepover. Often, kids just need a jumpstart to a relationship and then it takes on a life of its own.

Be assertive about bullying at school. If your kid is being bullied at school, contact the administration about the problem. When students do not tolerate bullying (kids report aggressive behavior to school authorities, interrupt bullying behavior, or defend victims), the rates of victimization and bullying decline. It’s possible that the school administration has been giving “implicit tolerance” to bullying on the belief that students must learn to deal with bullies themselves, or that coping with victimization is a normal part of growing up. It doesn’t have to be, though. It’s becoming apparent that when teachers, school administrators, and the students themselves do not tolerate bullying behavior, the incidence of this abuse decreases significantly. So don’t be afraid to talk to school personnel about the issue — it could save your child a lot of grief and misery!

Put it all together. Kids who have buddies, know how to be a good friend themselves, are compassionate with others, and are taught not to tolerate teasing and bullying tend not to become bullies or victims themselves. Encourage your child to pick friends wisely — perhaps by looking for middle-group pals who will be true companions even when the going gets tough.

NEXT WEEK: The importance of having kids do chores

From “Laying Down the Law: The 25 Laws of Parenting to Keep Your Kids on Track, Out of Trouble, and (Pretty Much) Under Control,” by Dr. Ruth Peters. Copyright ©2002 by Dr. Ruth Peters. Excerpted by permission of Rodale. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

Dr. Peters is a clinical psychologist and regular contributor to “Today.” For more information you can visit her Web site at www.ruthpeters.com. Copyright ©2005 by Ruth A. Peters, Ph.D. All rights reserved.

PLEASE NOTE: The information in this column should not be construed as providing specific psychological or medical advice, but rather to offer readers information to better understand the lives and health of themselves and their children. It is not intended to provide an alternative to professional treatment or to replace the services of a physician, psychiatrist or psychotherapist.

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