reventing Bullying

    No parent wants his child to become a victim. Equally serious is letting your child become a bully. Victims are afraid and hate being teased and hurt, but child bullies end up as adults worse than children who were victims. Bullies who grow up have more trouble with school, with families, with jobs and with the law.

    One of the many jobs a parent must do is to prevent a child from either becoming a victim or from becoming a bully. Very young children cannot themselves prevent bullying. Children 1 to 5 should not be left alone to play without some adult nearby. If a child begins to cry, the adults should act. They should help the children solve the problem non violently. A good phrase is "use your words!"

    Tommy and Jack are playing and you hear crying.
    "What it going on?"
    "Tommy is hitting?"
    "Tommy what is happening? Use your words."
    "Jack won't share his truck."
    "Try asking Jack to use another truck or take turns with the truck or play another game."

    You are watching Sally and two of her friends for the afternoon. Suzy tells Mary not to talk to Sally when the three of them are playing together. Sally begins to cry.
    "Sally, use your words. What is happening?"
    "Suzy and Mary won't talk to me?"
    "Why is that?" Sally says, "I don't know." The other girls say nothing.
    "Mary, what is going on?" "Suzy told me not to talk to Sally."
    "Suzy, what is happening?" "We don't want to play with Sally."
    "Today your mothers left all three of you here together to play. In the future you don't have to play together, but today you have to get along until your mothers come. What kind of game or activity can you do together for the rest of the afternoon? Suzy what do you think? Do you three need some help finding a project?"

    You are preventing fights, and you are teaching kids how to work things out themselves.

    You can have a rule, "No Bullying." You also need to teach that whining and crying won't solve problems very well either. Preschool children are by definition immature, so they cannot be expected to know how to solve most conflicts without violence yet.

    As kids get older you want to teach all kids how to solve problems non violently and to help their friends who are having trouble in a conflict. Helping does not mean 'jumping into a fight.' Helping means trying to listen to both sides and finding a good solution for both.

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