What would you do if you found out your child was being bullied?
As a parent, is this something that worries you? Does it scare you? Or maybe it doesn’t even enter your head because you’re confident your child will never be bullied?
My friend Jillian didn’t think she would ever have a problem with her daughter Jane being bullied. In primary school Jane was full of life, friendly, confident and talented. Jill and her husband thought she would just breeze through life.
But they were so wrong!
BULLYING IN HIGH SCHOOL
When Jane got to high school, the bullying started. First it was insults on a regular basis, by people she regarded as friends. For a young girl just starting to find herself in the big, new world of high school, you might be able to imagine this would be pretty intense.
The bullying continued in every year, where the ‘mean girls’ were a group of supposed friends who excluded her and rebuffed her at every opportunity, with evident enjoyment. Jane moved to another school in Year 12 where all the students were amazingly friendly – and inclusive!
But … the damage had already been done! She was suffering from anxiety. She had developed eating disorders and was feeling very depressed!
WHY DID I WRITE THIS BLOG?
When I first began to think about writing on this topic, and sharing the 7 Ways to Bully Proof your child, I realised most informed people are probably well aware that bullying is a HUGE issue, and it has been for quite some time.
BULLYING IS A HOT TOPIC!
Bullying is a topic that is all too common these days!
But why should we just assume that, if bullying is in schools, that schools are going to fix the problem? If bullying has been around for so long, and it hasn’t been sorted yet, what makes us believe it’s going to get fixed without some form of intervention, and I mean INTERVENTION in the strongest sense of the word.
There’s been lots of talk – but no real action, well at least so far!
MEDIA COVERAGE ON BULLYING
Bullying is gaining more media coverage than ever before because more and more celebrities are sharing their experience, and telling us that they were bullied when they were children, growing up, and even sometimes, as adults.
Bullies don’t seem to mind who they target, as long as they find someone who is different, someone they can ‘lord’ it over. ‘Different’ could be anything that makes someone stand out from the rest – emotionally, mentally or physically.
CELEBRITIES WHO HAVE BEEN BULLIED
It’s difficult to believe from her photos, that the beautiful Jessica Alba, rated #3 on The Hottest Celebrities of All Time has been bullied, but according to reports, Jessica faced some pretty tough bullying in high school. She was picked on because she was an awkward child with buck teeth and a Texas accent.
Christian Bale, who played Batman in the Batman trilogy, and who has also starred in many other well-known movies, started acting at the age of 13. His fellow classmates used this as a reason to bully him, and beat him up.
Those are just a couple of the many famous celebrities who were bullied when they were children or teenagers. Fortunately, for most of them, it didn’t stop them from achieving greatness in whatever area they chose to pursue.
When I did some research on bullying of famous people, I was astounded by the numbers that came up. Barack Obama was bullied, and went on to become the first African American President of the United States.
BULLYING CAN CREATE RESILIENCE
The human mind works in mysterious ways and sometimes bullying and adversity can trigger something greater inside a person, making them want to excel, or to go in a direction they never thought they would, developing values they may not have found in themselves in normal circumstances. For example, a child may try to gain approval or attention from a parent. The parent may have spent most of the child’s life ignoring them or even treating them badly. But by working hard and achieving well, the child’s hard work in turn develops into an extremely high work ethic. In the end, they achieve the attention they were seeking, not always from the parent, but perhaps from areas outside the family.
This can go the other way though, and the attention the child attracts is negative and they end up in trouble with the police. It’s all attention seeking, one outcome is positive, and the other negative.
I heard a story of a boy who became an extremely fast runner. The beginning of this talent was when he had to run very fast to escape his bullies. He then went on to excel in track and field.
When bullying goes against someone, rather than creating resilience, it can unlock states of anxiety and depression. This unfortunately, can also lead to the most tragic outcome of all, when a child takes their own life.
BULLYING CAN STEAL PERSONAL POWER
Adversity can be a good thing, and can create some very powerful character traits and life skills, but unfortunately, it doesn’t always happen that way. What can often happen is that kids feel like the bullies have ‘stolen’ their personal power. They feel unworthy; they lack self-esteem, self-belief and confidence in themselves. There are too many instances of children being so badly affected by bullying; they choose not to go on. They decide to sadly and tragically end their lives because they can’t take the taunting, the exclusion, the feelings of despair, desperation, depression, of being powerless and alone anymore.
The reason I decided to share ‘7 Ways to Bully Proof Your Child’ is because bully proofing children has become a passion for me. Based on my close friend’s personal experiences, I wanted to give the power to help our children, and protect them from bullies, back into parent’s hands.
I saw firsthand how badly my friend’s daughter was affected, and this is something I would never wish on any child, or parent. Everyone suffers! The feeling of helplessness, of not knowing what to do, is heartbreaking. I didn’t know what to do, but I felt I had to do something!
The program I created below to help others is my ‘something’!
RESEARCH INTO BULLYING LEADS TO A 7 STEP SOLUTION FOR PARENTS
RESILIENCE IS THE KEY
Eventually, after years of research and study, I found the reason why bullying affects some children more than others – they lack RESILIENCE!
What does that mean? Resilience is made up of many attributes, but the main 3 are self-esteem, self-belief and confidence.
I developed an effective solution, a powerful program; a toolkit of simple, scripted activities parents can easily do with their children in just a few minutes, to help bully proof them, to help parents create a ‘Bully Proof Vest’ for their children.
This program puts the power into the hands of the parent and child, where it should be. Not into the hands of the bullies!
When children are bullied, sometimes they are unable to stand up for themselves. I don’t necessarily mean physically standing up for themselves but, they lack resilience, or emotional strength, to just turn and walk away, or to say ‘STOP IT!!’ They lack the self-esteem to know that they are ‘good enough’, that they’re ‘worthy enough’, and they lack the self-belief of knowing they deserve better.
I’d like to explain that it’s possible to bully proof your child in just 7 simple and guided steps. The book and program contains all of the details, but below is a very quick and simplified overview explaining how the program works:
- Create Positive Anchors or Resources
You can guide your child to create anchors (sometimes called a ‘conditioned response’). They can be of strong, positive emotions your child can tap into, in an instant if the need arises.
- Create New States
You’ll also be able to teach your child simple ways to enable them to quickly change their emotional state.
- Instilling the ability to make positive choices and gain personal power
You will teach your child to realise they have choices in life and also help them create an imaginary circle of personal power they can carry around with them anywhere they go.
- Develop Emotional Intelligence
You will help your child develop emotional intelligence, or the ability to read body language more easily, to become aware of others’ feelings.
- Develop Empathy
You will help your child develop empathy by role playing and learning to see events from different perspectives.
- Instil Positive Beliefs and Values
You will guide your child through an activity to instil positive beliefs and attributes about themselves.
- Build self-esteem and confidence
You will help your child build their self-esteem and confidence, and uncover new emotional resources, or tools, they will be able to use now, and into their future.
THE BULLY PROOF YOUR CHILD FREE 30 MINUTE PRESENTATION
Do you want to find out more about bully proofing your child?
I have provided more information and detail in a free presentation, so if you want to know more about how you can Bully Proof Your Child, please subscribe below.
When you subscribe you will also receive a FREE download of ways to assess whether your child is being bullied.
I welcome your feedback.
Vicki Kirss is an author, Master NLP Practitioner & Life Coach
www.bullyproofed.com.au
