Is your teenager THE bully?
Bullying today, is a topic we can’t seem to avoid when it comes to our children. Whether it’s emotional or physical, everywhere you turn there is a lesson to be learnt about how to help your child manoeuvre the stipulations of bullying. But what do you do when your child is the one causing the problems?
We know the basics of bullying- it can involve physical violence or sometimes it’s as ‘innocent’ as name calling, it can be face-to-face or through the use of social media. Often when a child is being bullied the signs are clear, especially when they are physical. But what isn’t so clear is when your child IS the bully. What can you do?
- Make it clear that bullying is never acceptable. Any form of behaviour in which another peer is put down in any means is bullying, children need to be taught these lessons. You can also gauge if your child is being a bully based on the tone they use to describe their peers, if it in anyway puts them down or if it is aggressive.
- Monitor their use of social media and devices. With teenagers using social media as their primary form of communication outside of school, it is important to supervise their online activity and the language they use in their younger years. This is to help the children as well as parents become more aware of how certain actions or messages can be interpreted very differently by other people and can constitute as bullying if the person on the receiving end becomes offended or negatively affected.
- Consult their teachers. Teachers will often have firm advice on how to handle your child. Sometimes a child joins a group of friends who are bullies, in order to fit in more. If this is the case, try to talk to your child more about different strategies to forming friendships and what is morally right and wrong. Sometimes they have been the victim of bullying themselves and become the bully to avoid it.
Solving the ongoing issue of bullying in school often addresses the problems of the victim but can often neglect the bullies behind the problem. While it is the school’s duty to facilitate an inclusive school environment for all children, it is the duty of all parents to ensure that their children are coming into school with a healthy mind set that does not seek to put other people down.