Action points – bullying

Helping your child to avoid being bullied or becoming a bully:

• Express unconditional love and support for your child.
• Praise and reward good behaviour and efforts to change.
• Increase their self confidence by recognising and developing their strengths.
• Teach your child positive ways to mange anger and frustration.
• Model non-aggressive behaviour yourself.

Encouraging your child to talk:

• Make time to listen to your child.
• Encourage your child to talk to you by being supportive.
• Take an interest in issues that concern them.
• Give the child time to explore their concerns.
• Never play down what may seem trivial to you but try not to feed their anxieties.
• Be careful not to make any quick judgements.

Helping your child to overcome bullying:

• If they are being bullied, reassure them that it is not their fault.
• If they are bullying, try to find out why and encourage them to accept responsibility.
• Boost their self esteem at every opportunity with lots of praise, affection and encouragement.
• Make every effort to find out exactly what has been going on and for how long.
• Help and support your child in developing their own solutions to bullying.
• Identify any unpleasant behaviour which may lead to being bullied and help them to change.
• Use role play to practise set responses to the most frequent insults and threats.
• Encourage new interests, activities and friendships.

Working in partnership with others

• Record any incidences of bullying that your child tells you about.
• Explain the situation to the appropriate adults (e.g. school, club leaders) calmly and clearly.
• Cooperate with others in any ways they suggest to solve the problem.
• Try and keep in touch with other involved adults.
• If bullying continues ask that it is investigated and that action is taken.
• Review progress and request follow-up meetings if needed.