Friday 9 March 2012

BULLYING and HOW TO COPE WITH IT

by Earlie Doriman
Are you certain your child is not a victim of bullying in school? Take a second look and observe your son or daughter and how he/she relates to you about her school experiences. Most often than not, children who experienced bullying are afraid to tell they are victims of it. They are scared that their parents would go and rush to their school and create an unbecoming scene or probably confront the perpetrators. As much as possible, they hide the experience and try to contain the embarrassment and torture to themselves. Some may get over the trauma and terror after some time, but many decide to stop and avoid going to school. The latter is a consequence that is most worrying, because parents might think their children have began to indulge in misdemeanours. Look again and find out.

My children are still young. In fact, my eldest is just nearly three years and I don’t think there is bullying in the nursery amongst his friends at his age. But I have been working in school for almost fifteen years and in this span of time, I have a first hand experience and knowledge to the issues of bullying inside the campus. Bullying is everywhere. You can have it even in colleges and universities. More concerning though is bullying in secondary schools where students are vulnerable and less confident to report matters immediately to authorities. As a college instructor for eleven years, I was privileged to meet students who shared their experience of some sort of harassment and what they did to stop culprits from doing it over again. There were some though who resorted the easy way by moving to other schools and did not bother to give offenders a lesson. That might be an immediate and less complicated solution, but the absconding attitude does not help to get rid of the root problem.
Working in one of the most diverse school communities in England where a higher percentage of students are Asians and other European ancestry, I have observed senior students who have the bent to bully younger pupils. What is brilliant in our school is that the policy on Anti-bullying is very serious; it includes essential guidelines about how and where to report it in the campus. The policy even covers bullying over the cyber world. Yet, not all students are interested to take this matter into proper attention. Even in the most secure school, bullying still find ground to beat up helpless victims.
So how do you know that someone or your child is bullied in school? But before anything else, take time to read issues about bullying and the corresponding resolutions to known cases. It is better to equip one self about the ‘ins and outs’ of the matter in order to explain it credibly to your child.
Common sense would tell parents to look for signs that your sons or daughters suffered bullying. Like what I mentioned, many children would not complain that they are bullied in school, but perhaps you would notice that their desire to go to school or join activities and campus clubs has changed and deteriorating. You should start to wonder why they become strangely aloof. Take your child’s distress earnestly and do not wait the issue to blow out of proportion. The earlier you will find it, the better because the need to prevent further damage is very important.
You may start to assess the situation if you sense it has gone so disquieting. Talk to your child calmly and find out if the bullying has gone physical, and if he is threatened with physical harm, you need to report it to the school authorities for an appropriate attention. Some school staffs are not too willing to entertain complains over the phone, so if you can visit he school and insist to them that your child needs the necessary protection, they would surely be alarmed about the gravity of the issue. If possible, you make your notification in ‘black and white’ and keep a record for yourself.





If your child complained about less serious bullying, you don’ have to be so complacent about it too. Violence starts from simple, unresolved difference. Talk to your child about how to cope with minimal harassment, brainstorm ways to deal with it and help your child make a plan to work it out. Advance the self-esteem of your child by giving him enough space and respect to manage affairs that you know he is capable at. You have to emphasize that bullying comes from a bully’s very poor self-esteem and such anti-social behaviour is a meaningful escape of such struggle. To further boost the confidence of your child, you also have to stress that bullies are generally cowards and they only hunt upon easy preys.
Aside from the more psychosomatic strategies, it may also work if you would enrol your son/daughter in martial arts classes or sports to develop the science of self defence. By saying that, it does not mean you have to encourage your child to fight back or challenge bullies to a brawl, it is just to assure that when bullying becomes physical, your child could protect himself before someone arrives to intervene.









28 comments:

  1. I always asked my eldest about his school especially the bullying .so far ,nobody is mean to him even if he an immigrant.When we enrolled him in school, bullying is one thing that we discussed to the school Principal and he made sure that our son is okay.

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  2. no..definitely..our kids are good and so their classmates..

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  3. if ever this happens to my soon to be child I'll definitely enroll him to some self defense classes, but teach him how to work it out calmly first before throwing a punch ehe.

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  4. I've never been bullied when I was in highschool.. thank God. Maliban sa physical na epekto ng bullying, yung psychological effects ang mas mahirap itreat. Madalas, nagkakaroon ng trauma ang isang batang nabully.. nagkakaroon ng very low self esteem.. at minsan nagkakaroon ng ugly rebellious side. These days, pati maliliit na bata.. marunong nang mag bully.. tsk..

    Those who can, do... those who can't, bully.

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  5. Bullying in actions or words can negatively affect one person in unpredictable ways. I hope if I will have a child in the future he/she won't be a victim of such in school/society.

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  6. EVerytime I hear about bullying, it is always a sad story. And thanks for sharing this. I know we cans top bullying. Kawawa naman, baka isa sa mga kapamilya natin ang nabubully na rin pala sa school. Tsk.

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  7. Communication with your children helps also plus you should always be updated with what's happening with them, so you'll know instantly when something is not right...

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  8. I have no idea yet as my daughter is only 10-months old. And if ever she gets bullied in the future, I'll teach her not to get mad. But rather get even. ^_^

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  9. I hate bullying, I'm a victim of when I was a kid. It is really a serious matter, parents should be supportive and open to their kids and build their esteem all the time.

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  10. No one loves/likes bullying :( Buti nalang I haven't experienced bullying or being bullied.

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  11. I think every child experienced being bullied at school or even in the playhouse. They tried to bully me but they ended up with bruise. Its not a good example though but that's the only thing I can do to cover me self up. This is hard specially when your child is very discreet, you will never know whats going on at school.

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  12. I HATE BULLIES!!!they must be properly dealt with to avoid further damage to others.

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  13. now that my niece is going to school, i'm starting to worry about this..

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  14. I was bullied as a child too. So I never developed my socializational skills and have inferiority complex

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  15. this is an informative post and i'm sure my child isn't bullied just coz i have no child haha. kidding aside, bullying in school exists so i am very protective of my 10 nieces and nephews whom i sent all to school. we interview them daily and on Mondays on our family home evening, we let them tell us stories about school and their classmates.

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  16. bullying... I never experienced this when I was still in school... when does this bullying started? seriously, I only see this bullying thing in american television shows... sayang, hindi pa uso ang bullying dati... sarap sigurong manapak ng bully sa school...

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  17. the parents should play a vital role in this. They have to talk to their children but unfortunately, sometimes the parent themselves are the worst bullies.

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  18. I agree with you and to all of the comments here, parents should guided their children in dealing bullying

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  19. Bullying exists everywhere. So parental guidance is always encouraged .I hate to say this but I was once a bully but i was not that cruel just so you know haha.

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  20. I was bullied when I was a kid and the feeling sucks. But somehow, those experiences I had inspired me to be a better student. I tried hard to be always on the honor list and finish a degree. So here I am now somehow made a place under the sun. While those bullies are still back in our little hometown. I was once sorry for myself but now...I feel so sorry for them.

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  21. I was bullied in grade school. It somehow made me want to be sick all the time, so I have an excuse not to go to school.

    I became a stronger person in HS.

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  22. if your son/ daughter started to say that he/she doesn't like to go to school. you have to ask them what is the prob . (if you could ask them everyday how's school much better) you must tell them that no matter happens mom/dad will protect you. is always be there for you.

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  23. when i watch some movies or read some articles about bullying, i felt some kind of a hard blow in my heart. i feel for the pain of the parents of the victims and i care about the young kids who are suffering from this kind of unjust treatment.

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  24. i think the school needs to have a more defined set of rules and punishments for bullies. schools are so lax about it. this is just my opinion. bullying in school should stop and this can only stop if the school has a firm hand against it.

    visiting via FBW

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  25. yeah i hate it..1year pa lang baby so medyo hindi ko pa talaga sya worry..kahit nga malaki minsan parents na kanit na parang biro lang..pero kong tingnan mo bully na rin yun..like they would say to a kid ay ang pangit mo naman kahit joke yun..dont say that..when my sister before is baby pa she live with me sometimes I bring her to my work,...my co-worker sometimes said she is ugly..hello!!!!!!!! okay ka lang?..pinagsasabihan ko talaga sila na wag yun ulitin..mas lalo na sa baby ko now no..

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  26. I was fortunate I was enrolled in a nice co-ed Chinese school. Unlike my friends who experienced bullying in exclusive schools, I never experienced it and I doubt that anyone in our school have gone through a bad case of bullying.. >.< I hope when I have my own kids in the future, they'd also experience a good childhood free from bullies.

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  27. I was a victim of bullying as a little girl. And although my family knows about my bullying experience when I was in kindergarten, I never really told them about the one when I was 12 years old, because I felt embarrassed and was afraid of being judged as sensitive. So yes, it is definitely important to look for changes in the victim's behavior because it has a huge impact on a person's self-esteem. And when the child finally speaks up, listen calmly and patiently to what the child has to say.

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  28. i was hoping that the school should have a department that will focus on this kind of problem, so that they would prevent this.

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