Bullying: Protect Your Child and Our Community
Here is a brief summary of ideas on the complex subject of bullying, with practical ideas that families might find useful.
School is happy to run a second Anti-Bullying Learning Forum if families would like to go deeper into any of the ideas explored here.
The school’s Anti-Bullying Policy may be found in the Family Handbook 2025-26.
Why can bullying reach a peak between between ages 8-18?
From age 8, your child’s peer group begins to gain prominence in their life; family begins, slowly at first, to adopt a supporting role to peer friendships. Your child needs to ‘separate’ from you in order to forge her own identity and value system. Part of this process involves developing a keen awareness of her social standing within the peer group; her own popularity and that of each of her friends.
With this emphasis on everyone’s social status, it is easy for control over others and power dynamics to creep in. A pecking order is often established, which can involve great anxiety and unhappiness for some children.
A Culture that Preempts Bullying
In school, we foster skills and attitudes that help prevent hierarchies and bullying dynamics.
Adults at home are invited to work alongside us in this.
These skills and attitudes include: self-expression, empathy for others, low levels of competition, a non-hierarchical, non-authoritarian environment, the celebration of diversity, and trusting, non-judgemental dialogue with adults.
Perhaps the most important of these is the ability of children to love difference and to practise self-acceptance and pride in who they are; no ‘toughening up’ for a gentle soul; no encouraging a child to iron out their unique quirks to become ‘acceptable’ to the group.
If adults create a culture where difference can flourish and injustice be tackled with confidence, we are on a good path to protecting every child.
Defining Bullying
Bullying is defined as something done
with the intention to hurt
more than once.
A clear definition is helpful so both children and adults can label and call out the bullying with confidence.
Bullying Scenarios
Let’s break down the above thinking with some real-life dynamics we might see, and some suggestions for dealing with them.
Do please remember to involve school if your child is drawn into any bullying scenario, whether she is on the receiving end, or witnessing it, or leading the dynamic. There is some level of distress for all who are touched by bullying.
Teasing or Taunting?
These are very common among children and young adults, and can mask an attempt to control.
We can help a child determine the level of control being used.
a. Teasing: light-hearted, not intended to hurt, stops if the other child becomes hurt, the teaser can tolerate being teased back by others.
b. Taunting: intends to hurt or humiliate, there’s a long-term imbalance of power, continues in spite of hurt / distress.
If we help a child to use more precise language (‘teasing’, ‘taunting’, ‘bullying’), he will become more confident and nuanced in his understanding of the dynamic.
In the case of taunting, we should approach it as a bullying dynamic.
The Controlling Friend
Why does my child remain so close to her controlling friend? She whispers, throws her mean looks, can exclude her- then, she’s her best friend again and all is forgotten.
A child can feel ‘safe’ if they are close to a dominant character, and may put up with unkindness if this means they can gain popularity by association.
Or perhaps your child is not clear on what constitutes ‘control’- she is, after all, just starting to learn emotional intelligence; you can help her see where the boundaries lie.
Some suggestions:
Don’t say ‘Just ignore your friend’ or dismiss the problem.
Do ask open questions and seek to understand the dynamic - allow your child to explore emotions and possible motivations.
Avoid judgemental language when describing a peer: ‘good’, ‘bad’, ‘selfish.’
Help your child to build their emotional intelligence and asssertiveness- a long process. See below for ideas (Building Emotional Intelligence in Your Child.)
Let the class teacher know about this dynamic so it can be closely monitored.
The Toxic Peer
This peer controls and humiliates more routinely than in the above dynamic. Yet your child remains in his grip and may even consider him a friend.
Adults can help raise consciousness in a child of what constitutes an abusive dynamic:
Encourage regular, open talk about how the unbalanced dynamic makes your child feel.
Together, keep a count / tally / a diary of unkind incidents: with time, your child will become objectively aware of patterns, rather than living in the present and forgetting past events.
Don’t appear impassioned or judgemental- anxiety is highly contagious. Instead, stay calm and help your child reach the decision for herself to create a healthy distance.
Guide your child towards friendships that are more balanced.
Speak to school promptly so we can work intensively with the children.
If Your Child is Being Bullied
If unsupported or unheard, the child being bullied is in danger of self-blame, silence, developing a sense of inevitability, entrapment and eroded self-esteem.
Combat this by:
Steering your child towards kinder, inclusive friendships - a more positive peer group.
Talking calmly on a daily basis, establishing facts and feelings through open questioning- then, always involving school.
Allowing your child to honour and express their feelings, a crucial life skill. If we say ‘I’m sure it’s nothing’, we are helping the bully to also override your child’s words and feelings.
Teaching your child to say ‘No’ in safe home contexts; to stand her ground where she disagrees.
Building self-love and pride in your child by celebrating the essence of his personality and what makes him different- not ‘toughen up’ or ‘retaliate’ if he is gentle or quiet, etc. His traits are strengths to be valued.
Encouraging her to build her own passions and interests out of school, as confirmation of her own identity away from the herd.
If your Child Bullies Others
If you see that your child is overly dominant or seems to enjoy controlling or humiliating his peers, do ask school for help.
The long road of adults modeling kindness, ethical choices and empathy can modify these behaviours; the human mind is infinitely capable of change.
In school, power dynamics will be closely monitored and redirected; we will work closely with you on this.
From Bystander to Upstander
‘Knowing what’s right doesn’t mean much unless you do what’s right.’ Theodore Roosevelt
School helps pupils to become upstanders; to know that standing by is to be complicit with the aggressor.
Standing up takes great courage and confidence but, in time, children can be empowered to do the right thing.
Adults at home can help their child develop their own moral code by holding regular open dialogue on tricky real life situations, inviting the child to consider the ‘right’ things to do.
Children’s stories and films are also great prompts for an ethics-based dialogue, full as they are of heroes, villains and children facing dilemmas.
Additionally, over dinner, families might like to ask specific questions about playground dynamics, ‘Was anyone left out today?’ ‘Did you invite anyone into your game who looked lonely?’ ‘How did this make you / them feel?’
Cyberbullying: Don t be Mean Behind your Screen
Hold off on mobile phone use until your child is 16. If this is not possible for you, agree on a window of time (30-45mins per evening) when it can be used.
Monitor your child’s online life; think of it as a children’s party happening in the next room and drop in regularly.
Apply all parental controls and teach your child how to block anyone who is offensive or a stranger.
Delete Day: hold a weekly clean-up of your own accounts and your child’s. Help him routinely delete personal information he has posted, unknown ‘friends’ and fake accounts, unkind comments and pictures, exclusive groups.
Hold open talk on what your child has seen online, particularly anything confusing or distressing. Help her make sense of this world and dispel any fears and worries.
Get informed about social media- ask a savvy teenager to explain each medium to you, what it’s used for and the pitfalls for a young person. Don’t ignore this world; it is likely to become a significant part of your child’s life.
Protect Your Child Against Bullying
Be preemptive:
Foster a sense of agency in your child: people with a sense of control over their own lives are happier and less passive than those who feel their life is externally controlled e.g. by school, parents, peers. Build this into your parenting by allowing your child to make regular simple choices and decisions; they can also set some of their own goals.
Give your child responsibility and a voice in the running of your home.
Teach and model in the home the idea that differences of opinion are healthy and interesting, not to be avoided or feared.
Ensure your child knows she can always ask a trusted teacher for help and that she will be heard and cared for.
Building Emotional Intelligence in Your Child
Most importantly, give your child the tools to manage unhealthy power dynamics:
Help your child manage their negative emotions e.g. disappointment, sadness. Discuss the context of each negative feeling to help them understand and process it. It’s valuable for a child to feel and learn to tolerate some natural disappointment and sadness; we should not shield them from these completely or blithely ask them to ‘Cheer up.’
Hear and validate their emotions, even when these are painful for us as parents to hear.
Teach self-regulation: give practical ideas to ‘regulate down’ a hot, fiery, extreme feeling such as anger or fear (with belly breaths, cool water, a stroll, a hug) or to ‘regulate up’ a low-energy, paralysing emotion such as sadness or apprehension (with happy memories, making plans, playing sport).
Flexible thinking; model this in regular chats with your child. How else might we look at this problem? What are some possible solutions? How is the other person feeling?
Build empathy: invite wonder about the secret lives of people on the street- awaken curiosity and compassion for passers-by on shopping trips, etc. Focus on their facial expressions, body language, mood. Particularly valuable if your child finds it hard to read social cues.
Use non-judgemental, nuanced, compassionate language about people; rather than, ‘He’s so selfish’, try the more empathic, ‘I wonder what happened to make him act unkindly.’
Model assertiveness by giving your own opinions calmly and without trying to persuade. Encourage your child to express herself without aggression or passivity.
When family and school work together on guiding our children to become confident, assertive, ethical young adults, we can create a strong anti-bullying culture for everyone.
Audrey Reeder, October
