The Vancouver Sun is running a great 3 part series on bullying, the first of which is “Standing Up To Bullies”. The article is very in depth and has some amazing tips in it. The one thing that I felt was missing though, because this article was focusing on the victim, so aka, your child, is making sure that your child has enough sense of self worth before these incidences occur, to know that it is wrong, and they should tell someone. Perhaps another article on how to preemptively prepare your child for bullying would cover this, but I really felt that it should be mentioned in the article. The first point is to ” Regularly bring up the topic with your child’. I think that it should have been mentioned here, when bringing it up, that as a parent, you should always talk about how and why the bullying behaviour is wrong, and when your child does come to you, you should praise them for coming to you for help as well as their knowledge that this was not ok. The article mentions not to react with a strong emotional outburst, but fails to point out that you should give positive feedback to your child. By praising their actions and allying with them, the likelihood that they confide in you if a second episode occurs must rise exponentially.
This area is one that is on my mind a lot, especially since, as the article mentions, there is a reversal in popularity of the bully, anyone remember Mean Girls? Yup, the “A-list girls were the meanest, cattiest and most popular girls in school.Unfortunately I think that pop culture has aided in this image shift, that the bully is no longer the stereotypical outcast,large knuckled schoolyard boy- bully, but the cute blonde cheerleader who snippily cuts down the geeky computer girl, flicks her hair to the side and takes her well deserved accolades.
The article is great, and one that I will definitely be keeping as a reference.