Ignore the Bully
Teach your child to ignore the bully. Your child should not make faces, cry, sigh, or make any gesture signaling distress. Often, when bullies don't get a reaction, they stop.
Walk Away
Your child can choose to walk away in a confident manner - head up, back straight and with a normal walking pace. Your child needs to be aware of being followed and walk to a safer place, usually near adults. If the bully says mean things, continue to ignore and walk away.
Tell the Bully to "Stop"
Keeping a distance of 1½ to 2 arm lengths, have your child say, "Stop!" or, "Cut it out!" Teach your child to:
Make eye contact.
Express confident body language; head up, back straight, arms down in front or on the side of the body and feet at shoulder width. No fidgeting!
Speak clearly - a steady tone, not too loud, too soft, whiny or sarcastic.
Make short statements such as, "Stop!" or "Cut it out!"
Then turn and walk away.
Go to a Trusted Adult
When other strategies fail, or there is immediate danger, tell your child to go to a trusted adult. This is not tattling; this is requesting assistance with a serious problem.
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1 comment:
As a child, I was hazed, verbally, and physically harrassed by both children my own age and older. Time and again I was given the advice to either ignore, walk way from, or turn the other cheek in cases of verbal harrassment. However, on more than one occasion, turning my back lead to an escalation of the bullying into physical form when the harrassers did not get the desired result. The result was I led a life of isolation and seclusion, fearing contact with many of my peers. Often, even being the new kid in school where no one yet knew me, I still experienced violence, as if these children, like wild animals, could somehow sense my fear and apprehension. From grade school to graduation, teachers and administrators alike prompted my reports of bullying and hazing with the question "well, what did YOU do to provoke this confrontation?" Also, I was often met with abject disbelief, and often was given the exuse that "Well, no one does things like you describe- unprovoked- so you MUST have done SOMETHING to cause this behavior." I began to lash out against people and especially adults who never seemed to trust that I was telling the truth. I have and continue to deal with serious trust issues and feelings of inferiority, despite constant verbal affirmation by those close to me...it never seems to be enough to cover up the hurt and pain from a traumatic childhood that also included a broken home and "dysfunctional" parents who were too wrapped up in their own issues to care about me on a real, personal level. I still feel resentful of people who are considered "popular" because I often feel their success in society is unwarranted because many of these people were cruel, hateful children who are now conniving and self-centered adults.
School administrators simply brushed my concerns with bullies under the proverbial rug, even when near-adult aged students physically assaulted me both on-campus and off. I was even followed, blocked into a parking space at a local mall, and verbally harrassed by two females who had been students at my high school AFTER having graduated. Had I not locked myself inside the car, I might have been beaten by these hateful young women. To this day, I honestly have no idea what I did to them to provoke this incident and others by them, or why they hated me so much. This took place in Hardin County Schools in Kentucky, which, supposedly has very high standards for confronting the bullying issue now (but certainly not in the late 1990s!) I continue to lie about where I attended high school on job applications and do not acknowledge that I ever lived in Kentucy due to the severity of my experiences while attending school in the state. I have since moved away, ironically enough to a northern state with no laws against bullying.
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