- Bully Vaccine Toolkit Lesson 1 – Operant Conditioning Primer
- Bully Vaccine Toolkit Lesson 2 – Real Life Examples
- Bully Vaccine Toolkit Lesson 3 – Documenting Bullying
- Bully Vaccine Toolkit Lesson 4 – Why Bullies Bully
- Bully Vaccine Toolkit Lesson 5 – Developing an Action Plan
- Bully Vaccine Toolkit Lesson 6 – Parent’s Responsibility
- Bully Vaccine Toolkit Lesson 7 – Getting Help
- Toolkit Extras
- Toolkit Downloads
Lesson 6: Parent’s Responsibility
It is heartbreaking to know your child is being bullied. However, always remember, your child needs you to help them learn how to navigate these difficult and possibly dangerous situations. Your job is to teach them what they need to know and to support them and help them when they need help and are unable to complete a task on their own.
There are fairly simple things you can do to get a bully to stop. It takes courage, emotional balance (gained through the practice of compassion) and a willingness to stick at it until the bullying stops. The main reason why kids fail to get bullying to stop is because they try something and it doesn’t work so they give up. Don’t give up. Giving up will only make your situation worse and more unbearable. Stick with it and ride out the blow out and get it to stop. Once and for all.
In this section you will get 7 tips for parents as well as additional information on how you can help your child overcome bullying.
I encourage you to read through my 7 tips for parents report. This will help you better understand how to support your child through a bullying situation.
It is important to remember, you can’t fix this problem for them. All you can do is help and encourage them to learn the skills they need to tackle this on their own by providing them ith the support and information and practice they need to be successful.
To get through this, you and your child have to work together and your child needs to know you will help them learn the skills they need and will help them with the tasks they can’t complete on their own.
When it comes to learning how to cope effectively with bullies, you need to be the one who teaches your child the skills they need. That means, you need to educate yourself on exactly what is required to get a bully to stop. This knowledge will help you help your child and will also help you cope more effectively with the difficult people you face in your life as well.
Don’t Give Up
The key to getting bullying to stop is to be consistent in your approach until it stops. Getting a bully to stop is difficult because you are extinguishing a behavior. The bully will cycle through a blowout and things will likely get worse before they get better. Your child and you will wonder if it is worth it and whether it is even working. My advice is to don’t give up.
Bullying can be stopped if your child is consistent in their responses and refuses to give the bully the reinforcement they are looking for. Will it be hard? Yes. Will your child want to give up? Yes. Should you let them? No.
If they give up during a blowout, the bully will learn that all they have to do to control your child is to be super obnoxious. Your child needs you to remind them of that fact and that it is worth sticking it out and keeping at it. Eventually the bully will break. And it is usually at that moment when your child most wants to give up that the breakthrough will come. So don’t let them give up.
Learn more about extinction bursts with this video
Ways to keep your child motivated
It is hard for a child to stick with a program when they can’t see the results right away. If your child performs their words and behavior properly, let them know how proud of them you are. It takes a lot of courage to even attempt standing up to a bully. Your child needs that effort appreciated.
Find ways to encourage them. Let them know what actions you are taking to back them up. Let them know what sort of progress is being made on your end with the school administrators. Has the offender been written up? What is the process? Often the school will initiate proceedings based on a report, but it can take a few weeks before any action is taken. Heck, in my county, it can take more than a week for an incident report from the bus to trickle through the system. It is important your child understand why there is a delay and that they need to keep doing their part if this is to work.
Questions to ask yourself
- When my child comes to me to tell me about a problem at school – do I give them my full attention?
- Am I willing to intervene with the school on their behalf?
- Am I willing to go out of my way and be inconvenienced to help them avoid dangerous situations?
- What specific skills does my child need to learn?
- Can I help them practice their go to phrases?
- Can I follow up with their teachers?
- And most importantly, what do you need to do to help your child continue when they are ready to give up because they are facing an escalation of bullying behavior due to a blow out?
Coming Up
Lesson 7 will focus on how to get help. How to mobilize the school and other resources to assist your child in getting the bullying to stop.