Advice on teaching your child how to deal with bullies
Teaching your children how to deal with bullying can be a complicated issue. You want them to be assertive in how they handle a bully, but you don’t want them to get aggressive and retaliate against when dealing with a bully.
TRANSCRIPT:
Physical bullying may happen to kids at any point in time but if your child gets physically bullied they have to let the kid know who’s doing it to stop. Use a strong voice and let them know that they crossed the line. You don’t want your kid to be overly dramatic unless they really are hurt and if so, give them this message.
If they’re so hurt that they need to go to the nurse, let a kid know that they really hurt you, if not just tell them to stop. That way your kid doesn’t look dramatic which will make a kid want to pick on them again but they show a child that is hurting them that it is unacceptable behavior.
And at that point in time if it happens again they can always tell an adult if it happens in school that they’ve tried to warn the kid and let them know when they’ve crossed the line so an adult can step in and realize that this isn’t the first time and they have to take care of their bullying kid.
Dr. Haber is available for speaking engagements and consultations to help your combat your school or workplace bullying issues.
Dr. Joel Haber