I think its a safe statement that one of a parent's biggest fears for their child(ren) is that they will be the victim of a bully. It starts with that first play-date, furtively glancing (or blatantly watching) as your child interacts with his or her peers and ready to step in at the first sign that things aren't going well. Then we send them off to daycare or school and hope to hear that everyone is getting along well. Now, a study has revealed factors that can help parents better prepare their children and make them less vulnerable to being bullied or having other social issues with their peers. Lead researcher Clark McKown of the Rush Neurobehavioral Center in Chicago found that kids with social problems had problems in at least one of three areas of nonverbal communication: reading nonverbal cues, understanding their social meaning, and coming up with options for resolving a social conflict. It can be a vicious cycle for kids with socializing deficits. But parents, teachers, and other adults can help teach skills to kids who are at risk for bullying. Richard Lavoie, an expert in child social behavior who was not involved with the study, offers this advice in his book "It's So Much Work to Be Your Friend: Helping the Child with Learning Disabilities Find Social Success" (Touchstone, 2006):
1) Ask the child what happened and listen without judgment.
2) Ask the child to identify their mistake. (Often children only know that someone got upset, but don't understand their own role in the outcome.)
3) Help the child identify the cue they missed or mistake they made, by asking something like: "How would you feel if Emma was hogging the tire swing?" Instead of lecturing with the word "should," offer options the child "could" have taken in the moment, such as: "You could have asked Emma to join you or told her you would give her the swing after your turn."
4) Create an imaginary but similar scenario where the child can make the right choice. For example, you could say, "If you were playing with a shovel in the sand box and Aiden wanted to use it, what would you do?"
5) Lastly, give the child "social homework" by asking him to practice this new skill, saying: "Now that you know the importance of sharing, I want to hear about something you share tomorrow."
Tell us, Truu Moms, has your child been the victim of a bully? What effective ways have you found to help your child?
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