What to Do If Your Kid Is Getting Bullied At School

Bullying is a major problem in the Western world and especially in the United States. One in five American students has reported some sort of abuse by their peers. What’s even worse, 40% of them believe that this pattern will continue.

Although most people don’t realize this, such behavior can negatively affect the victim, the aggressor, and the onlookers. It is hard to profile a potential bully as there is no mutual characteristic for all these individuals.

Keeping your kid safe in school is imperative. The best way to prevent it is by taking a proactive parenting stance. Unfortunately, this isn’t always possible as family members might not know that their kid is an aggressor. In most cases, the parents of the victim are those taking action.

Anyway, here is what to do if your kid is getting bullied at school.

1. Talk To Your Child

Most parents will take action as soon as they hear their kid is being bullied. But this isn’t enough. Keep in mind that your child is possibly abused for a longer period. So, it might have suffered a trauma.

Before you take action with the school and bully’s parents, make sure to talk to your kid. Often, victims of prolonged bullying can lose self-esteem, become anxious and depressed, or suffer other forms of trauma. As a parent, you need to explain that such things happen, that you support them, love them, and that you will fix the problem.

By having a proactive, caring stance, your child is more likely to disclose the full story. This will help not only your kid but will also help you determine how to behave and what kind of measures to take.

2. Get All The Relevant Information

Even though your child probably won’t lie about being bullied, keep in mind that kids tend to exaggerate and change information. So, ask your child calmly what happened. It is very important to get all the relevant info as soon as possible.

Nowadays, there is a lot of online harassment among the younger generation. Furthermore, kids that get bullied in public often get bullied on social media, as well. You can easily check this by going through your child’s threads.

If there is any electronic evidence, make sure to copy-paste it and save it in an email or on a computer. It is also good to take screenshots. They will be valuable when you, later on, confront the bully’s parents or the school.

3. Make Sure To Inform The School

The majority of harassment occurs on the school grounds. Although it might spill to the playground, this is the place where you need to make it stop.

Start by checking the school’s policies regarding bullying. The School district website should have all the information you need, so this is a good place to start from. If you need additional guidance, don’t hesitate to contact them.

Now that you have all that data, you should go to the teacher (if it happened in class) or to the principal (if it happened on school grounds). Besides sharing your side of the story, make sure to get theirs. Ask them if there was obvious animosity between the two or straight-up harassment.

4. Wait For The School’s Response

Although bullying is common in many schools and teachers often allow teasing between the students and other social dynamics, they can’t nor shouldn’t disregard an official complaint.

According to anti-bullying laws, every school needs to take a set of steps after receiving an official complaint. Among others, they need to launch an official investigation and revise all the documents you’ve provided.

It is very important to give the school space so they can gather evidence themselves. On the other hand, you should take note of everything that is going on and if the bullying continues despite your intervention.

5. Consider Hiring A Lawyer

According to The Barnes Firm, If the abuse continues, a person can file a notice of the harassment. In this situation, the case will no longer be in the principal’s hands but instead the superintendent and board of education. In some cases, even federal authorities might step in, but there are rare occasions.

Although this is the last solution, you should consider hiring a lawyer if all other attempts fail to make a difference. If the harassment continues, you will have to take matters into your own hands. Neglecting continuous physical or verbal abuse sets us a basis for the case of negligence.