Bullying: A parent’s guide to fighting back

On September 6, 2013, President Noynoy Aquino signed Republic Act 10672 or the “Anti-Bullying Act of 2013,” which requires all elementary and secondary schools in the Philippines to adopt policies to prevent and address bullying in their institutions.

The law defines bullying as “any severe or repeated use by one or more students of a written, verbal or electronic expression, or a physical act or gesture, or any combination thereof, directed at another student, that has the effect of actually causing or placing the latter in reasonable fear of physical or emotional harm or damage to his property; creating a hostile environment at school for the other students.”

Under the law, bullying acts include cyber-bullying, inflicting physical harm to the child, and utterance of slanderous statements or accusations, such as the use of profanities, name-calling, and commenting negatively on the victims’ looks, clothes, and body, which causes the victim undue emotional distress.  Physical contact like punching, pushing, shoving, kicking, slapping, tickling, headlocks, and teasing are prohibited. Also included are social bullying — which refers to any deliberate, repetitive, and aggressive social behavior intended to hurt others or belittle any individual or group — and gender-based bullying, or humiliation of a person on the basis of their sexual orientation and gender identity.

But whatever the law’s definition of bullying is, today’s experts agree on this: If mean behavior is intentional and the child being targeted feels powerless to stop it, it’s a serious problem.

Effects of bullying

A 2008 study of Britain-based Plan International shows that one in two school children in the Philippines is bullied or suffers from other forms of abuse. Most incidents go unreported due to fear of retribution, it adds.  Plan International states that such school-related violence against children and the youth has always been detrimental to the realization of the children’s full potential. “Children who are being bullied are at significant risk for a cluster of symptoms, including depression, anger, anxiety, sleep problems, headaches, and stomachaches,” says Jorge C. Srabstein, MD, a psychiatrist and medical director of the Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, DC.

Researchers have consistently found that teens who had been bullied in the past and those currently being bullied, tended to have a lower quality of life, compared to those who were bullied less or not at all.  These students scored lower on measures of physical and mental health.

These negative social, physical, and mental health effects of childhood bullying were found to be still evident nearly 40 years later, according to research by British psychiatrists, published two months ago in the American Journal of Psychiatry.  In the first study of its kind to look at the effects of childhood bullying beyond early childhood, the researchers said its impact was “persistent and pervasive,” with people who were bullied when young more likely to have poorer physical and psychological health and poorer cognitive functioning at age 50.

The parent’s role

If your child feels singled out, here’s how you can minimize the emotional and physical damage:

• Find the root of the problem.  If your child has become a target, find out what’s going on.  Start by asking if there are certain circumstances when incidents occur, like only when he’s on the bus, at lunch, after school, or in front of a certain kid.  “The more specific you get with your questions, the more you can brainstorm with your child and problem-solve together to keep it from happening,” says child psychologist Joel D. Huber, author of Bullyproof Your Child for Life.

• Build a firm friendship foundation. Kids who want to gain social skills and develop strong relationships are more effective at dealing with bullies than those whose main concern is to become popular, found researchers at the University of Illinois.  “Explain to your child that it isn’t about who their friend is, it’s the quality of the friendships that really matters,” says Karen D. Rudolph, a psychology professor at the University of Illinois.  “It’s important that a child nurtures friendship that she gets trust and support from, and it isn’t important if it’s with the kids everyone else thinks are cool.”

• Moderate their reaction. The advice we got from our parents still resonates:  Kids pick on the ones they can get a rise out of.  “Help them reduce their reaction to teasing and taunting, and it will help them now and later in life,” Haber says.  With his own clients, Haber asks children to role-play the aggressor, and he acts as the child.  “When I show them what their reaction looks like to a situation, they become more open to seeing how it can change.”

If the bullying doesn’t seem to be severe, give children a chance to fix the problem on their own.  “Some kids are also able to use humor to diffuse a situation, so find out what works for your kid,” Haber says. “Once you diffuse a situation, there is no more power play.”

• Encourage a healthy lifestyle.  Obese children are more likely to suffer both socially and emotionally, according to a recent study in Pediatrics.  Sign them up for group sports activities to help burn extra calories.  It also will help them bond with other kids and build self-confidence — two time-tested ways to prevent them from being bothered.

• Check in with your child.  Many kids feel shame if they’re being bullied, and it prevents them from bringing it up.  And an undetected problem is impossible to solve.  “Parents should ask their children on a regular basis, ‘How are things going in school?’”  Scrabstein says.  “Not just in terms of grades, but if people are being nice to them, and if they are being nice to others as well.”  Having an open line of communication with your child will help free them from their alienation.

• Take your kids seriously.  Most acts of bullying go unreported to adults, so if your child is upset enough that they’re talking about it with you, don’t cop the dismissive “kids will be kids” attitude.  “These days, there’s more awareness of the effects of psychological bullying,” says Deborah Temkin, research and policy coordinator for bullying prevention initiatives with the US Department of Education.  “Even if you think it’s harmless teasing, it is affecting your child and it needs to be addressed.”

• Ask for assistance at school.  If your child is being physically assaulted or terrorized to the point he doesn’t want to go to school, get teachers and administrators involved.  “Your kids need a safety plan if they are at risk, and the school must help provide that,” Haber says.  It may be possible to have your child monitored without the bully knowing, so ask if a teacher or counselor can keep an eye out in the hallways, at lunchtime, and at recess.

• So what’s a parent to do?  For starters, monitor your child’s Internet and mobile phone use closely.  “Be friends with your kids on Facebook, so you can see for yourself what’s going on,” Temkin says.  You can also install parental control software on your home computer and limit your child’s access to mobile devices.

If your child has received an electronic taunt or threat, make sure you keep a record of what’s going on so you can share it with school officials or local authorities.  “Parents often want to get rid of the offensive message or posting,” Haber says.  “But if the problem escalates, you need to have evidence of continuing trend.”

Cyberbullying

If you grew up before the Internet age, you can’t draw from your own experience to advise on how to handle pop-up attacks in the form of instant messages, emails, texts, and social media posts.  “With traditional bullying that happened just at school, a child could leave the situation and go home to a protected environment,” says Temkin.  “But now, kids have cellphones by their beds, and they’re on the computers late into the night.”

The other novel factor is that kids and parents may not even know the identity of the person who is inflicting the misery.  “Kids can create email or Facebook accounts with fake names, steal passwords from other users, or join social media groups that allow them to post hurtful messages anonymously,” says Haber.  That makes it more difficult to identify and resolve the problem.

Experts say no data show that cyberbullying is more harmful than the traditional type.  But cyberbullying has been linked to a spate of teen suicides.

What if your kid is the Bully?

Much media attention is given to the children who are picked on, but what about the ones inflicting the damage? “Frequently, kids are both victimizers and being bullied at the same time,” says Scrabstein.  “These rules change very frequently.”  In other words, the good kid-bad kid distinction isn’t as sharp as it may appear.  “We need to be supportive of all of children,” adds Scrabstein.

If parents or educators have told you that your child is picking on others, take a step back and see if you can determine a root cause. Research shows that aggressive behavior is a driving force to help a child climb a school’s complex social ladder. “If your child feels like he has to be aggressive to another student to maintain social status, talk to him about how he can be a leader in his school in a more positive way,” says Temkin.

Yes, there’s a lot parents can do to fight back against bullying!

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Additional resource:  StopBullying.gov.   This US federal government’s site has resources for dealing with — and preventing — bullying for children, parents, and teachers.