Analyzing how parents can break the bullying cycle, we find that bullies and targets often grow up in the same sorts of households.

Sorry, Mom and Dad, but your words of praise just don’t mean as much anymore as the child’s peers’ words do. As a child gets older, he begins to understand that the parent pretty much has to say nice things (you’re biased!) and that what you say doesn’t always match the way the rest of the world sees it.

If they need the stylish clothes and the hairspray and the contact lenses to feel okay about themselves for now, so be it. It’s not about wimping out; it’s about your child’s self-esteem and emotional survival in some very difficult years, where fitting in (and therefore “blending” in) is of primary importance.

True victory is achieved when the child feels friend-eligible and confident enough to know that no matter what a bully says, the child is still okay.

Once the crisis is resolved, we move to the third stage, which I refer to as the bullyproofing preservation phase.

Dealing with gossip and rumors can be maddening because kids want so badly to set the record straight and defend themselves against the allegations. But mostly, protesting backfires and keeps the gossip alive.

When someone hurts your feelings by bullying, sensitive kids expect the bully to be sensitive. When they’re not, often the sensitive kid wants to tell the bully how she feels, particularly when they’re young and the bullying is verbal.

It’s important to go over likely Bullying scenarios with your child to help her rehearse what to say and do when the problem occurs. Forget about insulting or threatening the bully. Forget about telling your child to “just ignore it.” “Cute” and snappy comebacks are tough to pull off, but possible if your child feels […]

Once you’ve established that something has happened that sounds like bullying, it’s time for the child to do a little assessment to figure out if the problem needs to be acted upon, and if so, how. The following are 6 questions your child can ask themselves while in the bullying situation, and afterward, when analyzing it

If your child used to talk to you, but now shuts down when talking about emotional things, this could very well just be a product of “growing pains” (young children talk openly to their parents much more than preadolescents and adolescents do), or the child may be humiliated about something, or it may be that you’ve reacted badly in the past or given off the wrong signals without meaning to.