What can parents do about their children being bullied

Qu Yun, a psychological consultant, dialyses school bullying from the perspective of children’s psychology and growth, and teaches parents how to help the bullied children out of the shadows.

School bullying is a problem that all parents must raise their awareness of when their children are growing up. In Australia, though, most schools have a written policy on how to manage student behaviour, including bullying, to prevent and deal with such incidents. It may even involve the police in serious criminal cases. However, in most cases, parents need to pay attention to their children, timely discover their children’s emotional and behavioral abnormalities, guide them to resolve conflicts skillfully, and even take actions to protect their children.

Sydney-based psychotherapist Qu Yun says the first step in dealing with bullying is to distinguish it from normal conflict or conflict. Generally speaking, school bullying tends to happen repeatedly, rather than occasionally, which brings psychological or physical harm to the victims and even affects their personality development.

Many children are reluctant to tell their parents after being bullied. Qu yun said that this is a natural psychological security for the child, and the fact that he or she doesn’t want to recall or restate the bad experience doesn’t mean that he or she is not close to you. At this time, parents need to be sensitive to the children’s emotional and behavioral abnormalities, to share or chat to understand the context of things, to help children to determine whether the school bullying. If the child does not want to speak, he or she can check with the school, other students or parents. Such communication is very important for parents to get to the bottom of the facts and intervene appropriately.

In general, most children will encounter conflict, and may be a little confused for a short time before they find their own way to deal with it, perhaps by confronting it, or bypassing it, or finding some other way to get along. But there are also some children because of age, personality and other reasons, need the guidance of the outside world, to help them draw inferences, analyze what lessons should be learned when encountering such a problem, how to try and explore in the future, to find a better coping strategy. Parents can help the child find a solution, which will make the child feel powerful and more confident.

As adults, parents should get involved in dealing with school bullying when necessary. Because it takes time to develop a child’s ability to deal with conflict, a strong mind can’t be developed in a day. Just like teaching a child to swim, it is impossible to throw him/her into the stormy sea on the first day. If the child is really facing great pain and can’t bear it, parents need to take care of it, whether it is to transfer the child to another class, another school or a move.