RULE 72

Teach them to stand up for themselves

No, I’m not suggesting you should tell your child to punch anyone in the face who gives them a hard time. But bullying is a part of human nature and it happens in all schools (though some deal with it better than others) so you need to be prepared for it. If your child is being bullied, we’ve already seen that you have to do something about it. I’m here to talk Rules and I haven’t got room for a whole book on dealing with bullying, but that may well be what you need.^*

So what’s this Rule about? Well, if your child is facing – or might ever face – bullying, the most crucial thing you can do is to teach them to handle it before it goes too far. Do you know why kids get bullied? For being different. And researchers have found that 75 per cent of kids have been upset by teasing or bullying about their appearance. In fact, one in five have skived off, played hooky, pulled a sickie to avoid being taunted about the way they look. Pretty scary figures, huh?

The two traditional methods of handling bullies are at opposite extremes. One school of thought says you should tell your child to hit back. However, not surprisingly, although this can work, it more often leads to an escalation of the problem. The other popular advice is to ignore it and the bully will stop. This is a piece of advice that some parents give because they want it to be true. But it isn’t. All the evidence shows that the reverse is actually true.

So what’s the answer? Your child’s best bet is to look confident, make eye contact, and distract the bully by changing the subject. Of course it doesn’t work in every scenario, but if your child is naturally confident, has good self-esteem and cares about their appearance, they’re halfway to not being bullied in the first place. And you can give them all those things well before they meet their first bully.

I’m not saying it’s your fault – or theirs – if they get bullied. And it’s not their fault if they wear glasses or have a disability. But I do know kids who wear glasses and have disabilities or disfigurements who never get bullied. This is about not giving other kids ammunition to single your child out. Of course, the occasional rather too cursory hairbrushing won’t be noticed, but routine scruffiness or smelliness or tangled hair will. I was at school with a kid known universally as ‘Smelly Denton’. Can’t even remember what his first name was. But I can remember how he smelt, and the excuse it gave everyone to pick on him.

You can help prevent your child being bullied by making sure that they are:

• confident and self-assured
• not overweight
• well presented (washed and tidy, with clean nails, hair brushed and the like).

It’s a huge start and if, on top of that, you let them know about the importance of eye contact and not looking intimidated, you’ll know you’ve done every thing you can to protect them before trouble starts.