Bullying – How It Happens and How to Deal With It
For many parents, bullying is one of their worst nightmares. No parent ever wants to hear that their child was bullied.
Bullying can happen to any age group and this includes toddlers. A recent video of a 5-year-old girl being bullied on a Dallas school bus made this evidently clear. Now, countless parents are speaking up about bullying. They want to know how to prevent it and deal with it if it does happen.
The Dallas Bus Bullying Video
One recent case was in Dallas. The school bus security footage captures a 5-year-old being bullied by other students. There were a total of three older students bullying a defenseless little girl.
In the video, the child is tortured constantly by all three kids through pushing, poking, pinching, punching, smacking, and even grabbing. As the video progresses, the physical abuse only becomes more intense. You will also see in the video that the bus driver does absolutely nothing to help the child or stop the awful bullying.
Despite the child calling for help and eventually crying, as well as the many times she tells the kids to stop, nobody comes to the rescue her.
The video is only a little bit over a minute long, but it was a 45-minute bus ride to the little girl’s school. It’s hard to imagine what that poor child had to go through for the rest of the bus trip.
A Mother’s Cry
This Dallas school bus gives rides to children from multiple schools, so the three bullying students belong to a different elementary school. The mother of the child, Audrey Billings, no longer allows her daughter to ride the bus to school after having seen the horrific video.
She even stated to a CNN reporter that the school charged her $600 just to be able to watch the video. As a result of seeing the video, Audrey Billings immediately reached out to the Dallas Independent School District (DISD) to ask for changes to be made to their bullying policy and its procedures about dealing with bullying.
Fortunately, the response from the DISD was positive regarding the changes and the driver was relocated to a different bus route. However, many witnessing parents to the video, as well as Audrey herself, was not fully satisfied with the “light” punishment that the school and the bus driver received.
The People’s Plea
On every news page that contains this terribly sad video, you will see large numbers of comments from parents about how distraught they were over the child’s situation and how disappointed they were about the lack of punishment that resulted from the incident.
Many of the supporting parents said that they would have sued the school if it was their child, while others wanted the driver to be completely fired rather than “simply” moved.
Does Bullying Happen to Toddlers?
Naturally, when we think of bullying, we tend to think of teenagers or young adults. In these thoughts, we associate bullying in high schools or the workplace, which are all true and unfortunately are also very common.
For example, according to studies recorded by StopBullying.gov, most bullying of young children happens in middle school, which covers the age group of 11-13. If children during their toddler years don’t get a handle on their bullying experiences, then it is most likely going to continue in their later years, especially if the child is the bully.
When you look at your sweet and innocent little toddler age child, however, you just can’t imagine that they could get bullied at preschool or kindergarten. But, nonetheless, toddler bullying does happen and many parents are becoming aware of this sad and surprising reality.
What is Bullying
Bullying can happen to just about anyone. This topic is specifically a hot topic of discussion for many concerned parents, especially to bullied victims.
A bullying prevention center, Pacer.org, states that 1 out of 5 young students are bullied during the school year, with most bullying incidents happening outside of the classroom, such as the staircase or hallway. Bullying on school buses is also a common place for students to be bullied.
The term bullying can be used to describe physical abuse, such as what was seen in the video mentioned above. Although bullying can come in many forms, the intention of the bully is always the same – to intently or purposely cause harm to the individual.
Bullying is also not just limited to physical abuse but can be emotional, verbal, or even cyber. Whatever the method of abuse a bully uses, there are three common characteristics of bullying. These are:
Hostile intent – Obviously, to bully someone is to want them to suffer some sort of pain. A sad fact is that some bullies just enjoy the sight of others suffering.
Imbalance of power – This might be the most common reason why bullies do what they do; because they feel intimidated by that individual. Even children can feel intimidated at school, because of a teacher that is more caring toward another student or a parent that is more loving toward their child. Whatever the reason is, bullies just want to feel like they have more power over their victims.
Repetition – The final and common trait that all bullies have is their repetitive actions or behavior. Typically, if you already know about the bullying, then it has most likely been happening for a while or it at least may not be the first time. This is one of the initial fears that most parents feel when hearing their child has been bullied.
What to Do if Your Child Has Been Bullied
The good thing about toddler bullying is that the kids are still young, so the damage may not be as bad. However, if the issues are not addressed, then the bullying or the effects of bullying can become long-lasting and even permanent.
The research done by BullyingStatistics.org has confirmed that one effective way to assist in lowering the chances of bullying, or prolonged bullying, is to immediately inform someone. The sad truth is that about 58% of kids have admitted later in life that they never ended up telling an adult if they were bullied. This is an astounding truth that people, especially parents, should be aware of and shows the importance of helping our kids to be honest with us.
Stop the bullying before it escalates
Because toddlers are still in their precious years of development where they can’t yet fully comprehend the difference between right and wrong, most of the responsibilities of the child’s behavior fall on the parents, and also their teachers. The statistic above tells exactly why it is vital that the first thing we should do as parents is to address the bullying as soon as we recognize or hear about it.
Keep a watchful distance
After having spoken to the child’s teachers or even the bully’s parents, there isn’t much you can do other than to continue to observe your child. You want to regularly check on how your child is doing at school. That way, you can see what they’re like in comparison to being at home, as well as how they interact with other children.
Help your child communicate their feelings
Children will undoubtedly always express their feelings and, just like us, they too can feel frustrated. Because children are not yet experienced in finding ways to deal with their emotions, you need to help them find positive behaviors to express them. This is especially crucial if your child is the bully. If you notice that they bully another child because they have something that they don’t have, then you can suggest an alternative way to distract them or reinforce a positive behavior.
A child psychologist mentioned in a Today news article , said that toddlers mostly act on their emotions rather than intentionally choosing to bully someone. She goes on to say that children at this age are still developing, so if they get used to behaviors such as pushing or hitting to get what they want, then they will continue to do that and eventually become “proper” bullies.
Help your child become socially competent
Around the age of three, children will begin to develop their social abilities. As a baby, they were used to communicating through expressions, such as screaming or crying. As they grow older you want to teach your little ones few polite words to use, such as please. It is also important that you build your child’s confidence by praising them for doing good things. Praises and encouragement can really go a long way when it comes to helping your child overcome troublesome situations that are out of your control, such as bullying.
Teach your child to defend themselves
Last but not least, teach your child to know how to defend themselves from bullies or how to react to their attacks. We’re not referring to martial arts or self-defense techniques. What you want to teach your child is how to get out of these situations or how to avoid them. For example, you can do a role-play scenarios where you show your child signs of bulling. Or, you can help your child learn how to cope with being bullied, such as who to call for help and what to do in the moment.
Conclusion
Unfortunately, as frustrating as it may be, us parents cannot always control what happens in our children’s lives. The best thing that we can do is place our trust in their teachers and make sure that we teach our children the right way.
If you’re looking for some resource materials to teach your child about bullying, then Childhood101.com has some amazing videos on anti-bullying that you can use.
Helpful Books on Bullying
(We have no affiliation with Amazon and these authors. We are not making any money from these links)
