Bullying is one of the saddest and unfortunately most common problems that occurs during any child’s childhood. It is also known as bullying and involves abuse, whether physical or psychological, towards a minor. It usually occurs in boys and girls under 17 years of age. To be considered bullying, this type of attitude towards the child must be extended over a long period of time. It can even last several years. Typically, several children are in charge of applying it to a single minor, taking advantage of their numerical superiority over the child. The children most prone to bullying are those who are more sensitive and somewhat withdrawn in their behavior. They may be shorter, wear glasses, be of a different race, or have some other physical characteristic that makes them different from the rest. Something as absurd as your hair color or a small chin can be the beginning of practical jokes between colleagues that end up devolving into constant persecution that, over time, turns into bullying.
This article may also be of interest to you: How to Recognize Workplace Harassment.
Unfortunately, social networks have triggered this type of abuse and have taken it out of schools and recreational environments for children. Currently, bullying can be tracked through WhatsApp message chains, on Facebook or even with videos uploaded to YouTube. Many of our children, without understanding what their behavior could mean, end up being part of those chains and making the persecution suffered by one of his companions stronger. Luckily, some children are capable of filtering this content to adults because it seems cruel to them and thus helping to break the chain.
Unfortunately, many of the cases of bullying that occur end with the death of the minor, who, unable to withstand the social pressure and the repeated mistreatment of his peers, ends up committing suicide. One of the latest cases that has occurred in Spain is that of little Arancha, a 16-year-old girl who could no longer bear the harassment of her classmates and decided to take her own life. It was the only solution she found to deal with bullying. Imagine how alone she had to feel to make such a decision. And Arancha has not been the only one. We can see a multitude of cases in the national territory that give us a lot to think about in our society. According to an articlefrom El Mundo, between 5 and 10% of students in Spain suffer serious bullying.
Some associations, like Save the Children , try to help the little ones in everything they can, including the fight against bullying. This NGO has been in charge, since 1919, of achieving a dignified childhood for all the children of the world.
Is it possible to detect if our child is being bullied?
Although it is a very difficult problem to discover, since children tend to hide it and not tell their parents, there are a number of signs that can help us detect if our child is suffering some type of bullying. Remember that you have to be very patient with your son and try to remain calm even if he initially does not want to tell you what is happening to him. Even if it costs him, once he makes the decision to do it, he will end up opening up and telling you everything. Always support him, let him see that he will never be alone. There are many adults who do not give excessive importance to this fact, because it is something that has always been experienced and many do not consider it so dramatic. However, the consequences can be brutal both psychologically and physically for our children, so if you see no other remedy to end this bullying, change schools to prevent them from continuing to suffer repeated persecution from their classmates. Your mission is to help him grow up happy and secure into a balanced adult who can lead his life independently. If he trusts you, if he sees that you are always by his side, protecting him and being the man to cry on, there will be no problem for him to trust you. Soon you will be able to face this problem together and as a family.
Instructions to detect if my child is being bullied
Read this post to find out how you can avoid it.
- An indication that can reveal to us that our child is being bullied is a possible change in behavior that increases relatively over time. Even if your child isn’t very outgoing, if you start to notice his more reserved demeanor and his shifty gaze, it may be a red flag that he’s hiding some kind of problem and is afraid to tell you about it.
- If your child has stopped resting at night and has begun to have nightmares, it is an obvious sign that something is bothering him and that he does not know how to solve it. It may be nothing, that he has simply seen a movie that has affected him or that he has had a hard week of exams at school. However, do not let your guard down and if his insomnia persists over time and the signs of fatigue begin to take their toll on his body, try to talk to him calmly to find out what is happening to him. It is very important that he always feels protected and listened to.
- If your child has started to have a fever, intermittent and increasingly common stomach aches, intense headache… in general psychosomatic symptoms that are not related to any apparent illness, it may mean that their anxiety level is skyrocketing and is beginning to show physically. These signs can be even stronger at the end of the weekends, when the minor sees the return to the school where he studies close.
- Temporary loss of appetite. On many occasions, bulling also affects our children’s appetite. It may be that, due to the anxiety that is being generated every time they have to go back to school, they end up losing their appetite and gradually begin to lose weight.
- His grades begin to decline at school. Although he has never been a very bright child in studies, if his school performance begins to decline precipitously as the year progresses, this may be a clear sign of a problem developing within the school. Talk to him and ask him calmly (it’s very important that you don’t get angry because his grades aren’t good) to find out what is worrying him and why his school performance has worsened.
- Skip class. It is possible that your child begins to make “balls” from a certain age. It is not strange that he does it to experience what it is like to be outside of school and have fun one day breaking the rules. However, if this attitude becomes habitual and he never leaves with other classmates, it is quite possible that he has stopped going to class to avoid confrontations and to stop suffering harassment from his classmates.
What do you need to detect if my child is being bullied?
- Talk a lot with your child.
- Know the way of being and the character of your child.
- Be informed of what to do in case of detecting bullying in your child.
Tips to detect if my child is being bullied
Last minute tips
- The worst thing we can do is provoke a greater feeling of guilt in our children. Precisely thinking that they are doing something wrong, that we are going to scold them or that we are not going to understand them, are usually the reasons that lead them to remain silent. Try to be patient with them and don’t raise your voice to them. Regardless of whether they are bullied or not, in this way you will achieve a much healthier relationship with your children and increase their confidence in themselves. Something very important for his future life as a healthy and happy adult.
- If you have detected that your child suffers from bulling, talk to the school. The school may react to this and try to help you to avoid further bullying. Unfortunately, on many occasions, the help of the school is not enough to stop this type of attitude. Many children take advantage of the absence of adults around them to continue harassing other classmates when no one is watching them. If necessary, change your child’s school. It is possible that the situation will resolve itself over time, but it is also possible that it will not. It is not worth taking the risk and letting your child suffer another minute of time if you do not see the solution clearly. It is easy to see if the help from the school has an effect, you just have to observe your child’s attitude. If he is still withdrawn and afraid, remove him from the center and target another with new partners.
- One way to help end bullying is to educate our children so that they can deal with this attitude at school. We have to teach them to respect others and to help their classmates if they see that they are having a hard time. If, for example, one of our children observes how a child is insulted for wearing glasses or being bad at gymnastics on a regular basis, we should encourage them to approach them and try to talk about the problem. In no case should we allow our children to join those who insult the child in question. If we educate children to try to talk and comfort others, we will be preventing them from becoming abusive and helping the boy or girl who is going through it not to be isolated and therefore increase their sense of failure and guilt.
- If you no longer know who to turn to, you can contact associations like Save the Children that fight for children ‘s rights around the world.
- Many adults have experienced bullying during their childhood and have ended up overcoming it. Hopefully soon this issue will become a thing of the past and the education of our children will be good enough to avoid abuse of other classmates. It is in our hands to achieve it.