Help your child become more resilient to bullying:

• Help to develop talents or positive attributes of your child. Suggest and facilitate music, athletics, and art activities. Doing so may help your child be more confident among his or her peers.

• Encourage your child to make contacts with other children that are in a mutual club, organization, team sport, class, etc. Your child’s teacher and leaders may be able to suggest children with whom your child can make friends, spend time, or collaborate with.

• Teach your child safety strategies. Teach him or her how to seek help from an adult when feeling threatened by a bully. Talk about whom he or she should go to for help an d role-play what he or she should say. Assure you child that reporting bullying is not the same as tattling.

• Ask yourself if your child is being bullied because of a learning difficulty or a lack of social skills. If your child is hyperactive, impulsive, or overly talkative, the child or adult who bullies may be reacting out of annoyance. This doesn’t make the bullying right, but it may help to explain why your child is being bullied. If your child easily irritates people, seek help from a counselor so that your child can better learn the informal social rules of his or her peer group.

• Home is where the heart it. Make sure your child has a safe and loving home environment where he or she can take shelter, physically and emotionally. Always maintain open lines of communication with your child. Make it a routine to check in and see how they are doing and feeling.