My daughter was the target of a bully in the 3rd Grade. Being the strong, friendly, active, imaginative child she is we didn’t think about bullies when we moved and switched schools.  She didn’t mention the bullying but after a few weeks of having tummy aches and not feeling like going to school I realized something wasn’t right.  I asked outright if something was happening but she didn’t fess up.

Bullying In Action

Luckily I was able to see the bullying first hand one day when picking her up from the after school program. I saw a girl pinch my daughter right in front of me. The reaction from my daughter led me to believe this wasn’t the first time this happened. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing so I just came out and said “Did you just pinch my daughter?” and the girl said “No.”  Wow, she lied right to my face and it turned out since I was talking to the after school teacher at the time, the teacher saw the pinching as well and we realized that we had a problem.

Resolving bullying

It was pretty upsetting to see my child be the target of a bully and when the details of the abuse came out: pushing down the stairs, daily pinching episodes and excluding my daughter from social groups, it was all I could do to hold myself back from advising my daughter to defend herself physically. Calmer heads prevailed and I decided to follow the recommended steps and called the school Principal and had a meeting with the school counselor and teacher.  Our advice to our daughter was:

• You aren’t the problem – the bully is the problem
• Tell an adult right away when you are bullied
• Avoid the bully when you can
• Strengthen friendships so the bully has less power

It is really hard for schools to help when there are 400 kids in a school and teachers aren’t always around to monitor playground activitiy. They talked to the bully and also the bullies parents but in the end nothing changed.  We gave our daughter skills to dealing with the bully and explained that she wasn’t the problem but in the end we decided to pull her out of the school because we felt that was the best solution for her.  In her new school she doesn’t have the problem and we’ve been able to heal those wounds.

Recommended reading

Books on bullying for parents and kids

I found a great article about steps for dealing with a bully situation and included are real, sounce pieces of advice from SavvyMom.ca called Anti Bullying Tactics to Teach Your Kids.

Bullies2Buddies offers great resources and strategies for parents and kids that help with bullying.

If you aren’t quite sure what to say to your child there are some helpful phrases from the Public Safety Canada website called First Steps To Stop Bullying for children ages 4 to 11 – the phrases are towards the bottom of the page.  For older children First Steps to Stop Bullying and Harassment for children ages 12 – 17 has advice for older children.