Hes Never Going to the Bathroom at School Again Fight

Empowering Parents caught up with Peggy Moss, a nationally known proficient on bullying and a tireless advocate for the prevention of hate violence, to hash out bullying and what parents can do when they doubtable their child is beingness bullied. And what they can practise—together—to try to cease information technology.

Q. Are proper noun-calling and teasing merely function of growing up, a rite of passage that all kids go through?

Many people out there call back that adults are making too much of a fuss most it, that we should leave kids to their own devices. Nosotros know better now.

I have talked to 80-year-olds who call up the name of the person who tormented them in schoolhouse. And the name of the child who stood up for them in commencement grade. This is pain that has lasted a lifetime.

We have the data to stop bullying now, so why wouldn't we?

Related content: What to Practise If Your Kid Is Bullying Other Kids

Q. How tin you tell if your child is being bullied?

In that location's a good hazard your kid won't walk up to yous and say, "I'm getting teased and bullied at school, the kids are calling me names." Instead, information technology'due south going to manifest itself by your kid saying, "I don't want to go to schoolhouse today."

If this seems to exist happening a lot, consider the possibility that bullying might be the reason behind the sick days.

Also, look for signs that kids are hurting themselves. Self-mutilation can be a sign.

For boys, one archetype symptom is that they are teased so much nigh being gay or existence atypical that they're terrified to get to the bath. Since at that place's merely one way in and one way out of a bathroom, it's an ideal place to tease other kids. Boys who are bullied oft won't go all day. If your kid races home and goes to the bath every 24-hour interval after schoolhouse it could hateful that there's a bullying problem.

These are all possible signals that your child might exist the target of teasing at school.

As a parent, instructor or health care worker, add "Bullying" to your radar when y'all're trying to figure out what's going on with a child—add the possibility that your kid is getting tormented at school.

The injury is real when kids go teased. Unchecked, information technology tin can be devastating.

Q. If my child comes to me and tells me he is beingness bullied, what is the best thing to do?

I would say let your child talk about it. Listen in a non-judgmental way about your kid and almost the teaser. Permit your kid do the talking. Don't try to solve the problem. Ask your child:

"What happened? How did that make y'all feel?"

Don't make the assumption that your kid has done something to bring on the teasing. Teasing isn't always logical, and for your kid it doesn't affair why—information technology but matters that it'southward happening. Therefore, don't say, "What did you exercise that made them tease yous?" That's not going to assist.

Also, effort to find out more about the child who'south doing the teasing. But don't say, "Oh my God, what a rotten kid," because you're simply getting a part of the story.

Your child doesn't demand you to go ballistic or take on the trouble as your own. Your kid needs to know that he's beingness heard and that his feelings affair. Once y'all've got the whole story out, depending upon what's happened, y'all can take your next step.

For a parent to be explosive about the situation will cause a kid to recoil. If I march to schoolhouse and confront the bully on the playground, my child is not going to feel prophylactic telling me annihilation virtually this again. I'm taking on his battle for him.

Related content: Is Your Kid Being Bullied? 9 Steps Y'all Tin can Take as a Parent

Q. What tin can I practice to terminate the bullying?

The short respond is to let your kid come up upwardly with ideas. Ask him questions similar:

"What do you think y'all can say side by side fourth dimension? What exercise y'all think might work?"

Help your child see what the outcome might exist of their words and actions. Assist them encounter that this is a problem they can solve on their own terms.

For example, your child might come up with the idea of saying to the smashing, "Leave me alone, you jerk." Instead of the parent maxim, "That's a bad idea," respond with:

"What practice you lot think is going to happen if you do that?"

Let them figure out that the bullying might escalate if they resort to proper name-calling.

Your child might then shrug and say, "I could walk away from the bully." Y'all can suggest that they walk abroad the commencement time and say what they demand to say the next time.

We have to exist honest virtually how difficult it is to confront a tormentor. It's also of import to ask your child this question:

"What's going to make you feel better about this situation?"

Only make sure you're non the one coming up with the solution. It'south of import that your child feels like they're solving the problem on his or her own terms. It's a skill you tin teach them that volition last a lifetime.

Q. What if my child won't talk to me about being bullied?

As long as they feel like they have a prophylactic identify to go, that is what'south of import. And if you lot feel your kid can't talk to you, swallow difficult and say, "OK, my child is not talking to me, merely my kid needs to talk to someone."

Put someone else in that room with them that they can talk to, whether it's an aunt or uncle, teacher, counselor, double-decker or family unit friend. Unless that conversation tin start, it's very difficult to become to the heart of the problem.

Q. When should I approach my child'south teachers well-nigh it?

Get in pretty early on, as soon as your child starts coming home and mentioning that they are beingness teased. If your kid is coming home more than than in one case a week and saying, "These kids are teasing me and I don't like to get to the bathroom," go in after schoolhouse when all the kids are gone.

Call the teacher and set up an appointment. Teachers are like anybody else, if you lot mention something in passing, it won't deport as much weight. If you brand an appointment, they will listen.

A caution to parents: often when your child is getting bullied, their teachers don't know it. Kids are smart plenty not to do it in front of the teacher. Deport in mind that when yous go to a teacher you shouldn't be conveying a hatchet in your back pocket. It may not be that the instructor is doing a bad job, it might mean it's happening out of earshot.

So, don't go into school assuming that you'll exist received with, "Oh yes, we've seen this happening." Say things like:

"My child is coming home and talking about this."

And so say:

"This is how it'due south impacting my child."

The impact on your kid is what teachers need to know because information technology may not exist obvious to them. You lot're basically asking them to keep an heart on your kid and to keep an middle out for trouble. Afterwards, y'all can follow-up with email and inquire the instructor for an update.

If the bullying doesn't terminate, or it's really bad bullying, yous should go to the principal. A really great pull a fast one on is to get in with a question:

"I talked to Ms. Johnson a week ago, and my daughter is notwithstanding coming dwelling house with this complaint. What should I do?"

Put information technology into the lap of the main and ask:

"When tin can I wait to hear back from y'all about what you've done? What's the side by side step?"

And so y'all can tell your child that you will be getting an answer on Thursday virtually what steps will be taken. Information technology'south too all right to ask educators to go along your conversations individual, and and so you lot can reassure your kid about this also.

Q. What about when it's gone beyond verbal abuse and in that location is a physical threat?

One time you've got a threat, you've got a criminal offence—information technology's called "criminal threatening." It's time to alert the police.

Y'all want to be in touch with the schoolhouse long before you've got a threat of violence. When the threat of violence comes, you're in police territory.

That's why in that location's then much uproar nearly teasing and bullying, because once a child has been threatened with violence, it'southward a really big wound. Information technology's hard to tell that child that they tin feel safe at school always once again. Especially if the threat is bearding.

For the child who gets an anonymous threat, going to school is terrifying minute-to-minute. There is no mode a kid tin focus on her math test if she'south trying to figure out who wrote the note proverb they were going to kill her. By the time you become to that betoken, you lot are in crisis way.

Function of it is getting a sense from teachers about what's really going on in that school. As a parent, information technology's much more than complicated. If you tin't figure out who is making the threat and the police force can't figure it out, you really accept to decide whether the child is safe in the schoolhouse and whether y'all desire to keep her in that location.

Q. The bulletin to kids in your book Say Something is that kids take the power to terminate bullying behavior at school themselves. Can you explicate how this works?

When nosotros talk to kids nigh bullies, remind them of this truth: Bullies are cowards. About bullies won't tease two kids together, and well-nigh never will they pick on three kids at once. Even in a group, bullies single out one or two kids.

In terms of plain one-time teasing, bullies like to put other kids down, to make someone else feel lousy so they tin feel powerful. Most kids who are teasing and putting downwards other kids are looking for approval from peers.

Teach your kids that there are a lot of ways to show that you don't corroborate. If someone just speaks up and says, "Whoa," or "Ew," or "That'due south not cool," it can be effective. If another kid can walk up and say, "Hey, come over here, you want to go play?" to the person getting picked on, that's huge. It often will defuse the whole state of affairs.

That smashing is unlikely to follow, and he has just been told in public that what he'due south doing is non cool. Whether a teacher or kid breaks the assumption, now the kid getting picked on knows that not everyone agrees, and and then does the slap-up.

It doesn't e'er take to have a lot of backbone. Kids should know that they have the power to change their situation, especially when they work together.

Peggy Moss has worked to eradicate bullying for more a decade, first equally a prosecutor with the Department of Attorney Full general in Maine, and subsequently every bit an educator and curriculum developer with the Center for the Prevention of Hate Violence and the Cromwell Disabilities Eye.

Peggy has written three honor-winning books for elementary-anile children on bullying, Say Something, Our Friendship Rules, co-authored past Dee Dee Tardiff, and One of Us.  She also gives seminars and bullying awareness workshops to healthcare providers, educators, students and parents in the U.s.a. and Canada.

Peggy is a graduate of Princeton University and the Washington Higher of Law at American University. She currently lives in Toronto, Canada with her hubby and two daughters. For more than information, see world wide web.SaySomethingNow.com.

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