What Parents Can Do
Parents are an essential element in the school’s effort to create a safe and orderly learning environment.
Parents can do the following:
- Set standards of behavior, limits, and clear expectations for your child, in and out of school.
- Provide a secure attachment for your child. Make sure they know you support them and are there for them.
- Be as positive as possible with your child. The goal for parents is to provide five positive comments for every negative one directed at a child.
- Monitor your own behavior and aggression. Demonstrate behavior at home between adults that is not bullying or aggressive. Children copy parents’ behaviors-good and bad.
- Provide appropriate models of conflict resolution.
- Exhibit empathetic behavior (behavior that shows you trying to understand how the other person feels).
- Offer suggestions/advice for dealing with problematic peers.
- Encourage children who are bystanders to bullying to act appropriately.
- Be concerned and responsive regardless of whether your child is the reported bully or the victim. Offer support, but do not encourage dependence.
- Become involved in your child’s school life by reviewing homework, meeting teachers, reading with your child, and attending school functions.
- Build a network of other adults, parents, and students to discuss school safety and other issues.
- Give your child the social skills they need to navigate through their own school experience.
- Teach your child to have respect for differences.
- Explain the difference between an assertive (self-confident, firm) and an aggressive (violent, belligerent, hostile) response.
- Be an advocate for bullying prevention in scout groups, athletic programs, and other youth activities.
- Share stories about your own childhood experiences with bullying.
Source: U.S. Department of Health & Human Services
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