Reynolds, ChrisEli (fictional name) is in sixth grade and is afraid to ride the bus to and from school and comes home hungry at the end of the day because bullies at school take his lunch money away from him and taunt him on the school bus. Eli becomes anxious, has a hard time sleeping at night, does not want to go to school, and even his grades are starting to suffer.

After one week of this bullying, Eli decides he needs to do something about this, so he tells his parents. His parents are glad that he came to them for support, but they don’t know how to help him solve this problem.

Research has demonstrated that 30% of children in grades from 6-10th are involved in bullying, whether they are the bully or the one being bullied. There are a lot of different ways that a child can be bullied. These include physical or direct (hitting, shoving, pushing), verbal (name calling), indirect or relational (excluding someone socially, spreading rumors, creating embarrassing situations), cyber bullying through email, text messaging, Facebook or MySpace instant messaging or blogs.

Ways that a parent can help a child with bullying is by first being aware of the subtle signs of bullying, which may include:
• A sudden drop in grades
• Taking different routes to and from school
• Extreme hunger after school
• Racing to the bathroom when getting home from school (the child avoids using the restroom at school because of bullying)
• Talking negatively about peers or not talking about them at all

Next, if you do find out that your child is being bullied, contact the teacher, school counselor, and if need be, the principal, and then advocate for your child. Let your child know that they are good kids and should not be treated this way. Discourage your child from responding with violence against the bully as this may only escalate the problem.

After bullying, a child’s self esteem is challenged. Some ways to build their self esteem and to build new friendships include:
• Encourage hobbies
• Journaling to work out their thoughts about being bullied
• Explore social activities away from the bully and plan more quality family time.

It would be a good idea for schools to have in place an anti-bullying program so that our culture can change from a culture of seclusion to a culture of inclusion. These programs focus on bystanders to discourage the bullying behavior as it happens and to reach out to kids who are socially awkward, isolated or bullied.

In the end, Eli went to his teacher and let her know about the problem and she in turn had a discussion with the students and their parents that were bullying him. The bullies realized that they were not going to get away with their bad behavior. The bullying episodes stopped after this.