While school and other social settings are supposed to be a safe place designed for children to learn and make friends, bullying is a reality and can have a major emotional and psychological impact on kids. While physical bullying is easier to recognize because it leaves your child with physical injuries, there are other warning signs of bullying that can help you identify whether or not your child is a victim of bullying in school, so that you take the necessary actions to ensure that bullying ends.

There are a variety of signs to look for if you suspect that your children are victims of bullying at school:  

• Change in Behavior: Changes in the behavior and mood of school age children are often the most important indicators that your child is a victim of a school bully. Such changes can include decreased confidence, anxiety, unusual shyness, stammering and being extremely withdrawn around others. However, some victims of a bully become aggressive themselves, and often bully others, particularly younger children
• Change in Usual Route to School: If your child expresses anxiety or fear about his usual route to school, then it may well be a warning sign of bullying. For example, your child may be scared to walk to and from school like she usually does. Or if your child usually takes the bus to school, she may ask you to drive her. These are all potential signs of bullying in school, as the child associates school with feelings of dread.
• Decreased School Performance: Similarly, if your child is a victim of bullying at school, a negative change in her school performance is one of the signs of bullying. If, for instance, your child is strong at math but then begins doing poorly on his math tests, you should consider the possibility that your child is being bullied. Decreased school performance is one of the effects of bullying because kids who are bullied at school cultivate a fear and hatred of school, which affects their academic performance.
• Possessions Go Missing or Are Damaged: If you begin to notice that your children are routinely losing their possessions or that their possessions are regularly becoming damaged while at school, this could be a result of their being a victim of a school bully. For example, your child might constantly ask for lunch money. Or, she may come home with damage done to her clothes or books; all are potential signs of bullying.
• Decreased Appetite: A loss of appetite in kids is one of the most common symptoms of bullying. If your child pushes his food around on his plate and shuns food that he previously enjoyed eating, you should consider this as a potential sign that he is being bullied at school.
• Having Nightmares: Often times victims of bullying will experience recurrent nightmares about their bullying experiences. Schoolage bullying victims might also redevelop fears they had associated with bedtime when they were younger, such as being scared of the dark. This is because  bullying victims feel most vulnerable at night time, which reminds them of the helplessness they feel when they are being bullied at school.
• Physical Signs: Warning signs of physical bullying include unexplained cuts, bruises and scars. If your child is constantly coming home from school with such physical injuries, it is a likely indication that your child is a victim of a school bully.
• Suicide Threat or Suicide Attempt: The most serious of bullying warning signs is when a child threatens suicide or actually attempts to end his life. Such an action can be a result of extreme bullying at school, and is usually a result of both physical bullying and psychological bullying. If your child talks about death or ending her life, or appears depressed, speak to your health care provider or a child psychologist immediately.  

·      

How To Deal With Bullies
Stop bullies by teaching your child bullying coping strategies.

- tell an adult when bullying happens, remember that telling is not being a tattle tale!
- stay calm and respond firmly
- alternately, say nothing and walk away calmly
- make friends that stick up for each other
- don't hang out in unsupervised school areas
- take a different route to and from school
- act confident

·      

·      

We appreciate your many referrals. Thank you for telling your friends. More than 60% of our business comes from Word of Mouth. If you want to introduce a friend to your Academic Advantage tutor please make sure to contact Academic Advantage directly. Our tutors are on contract and have agreed to work through Academic Advantage when referred by an Academic Advantage client to a new client.

"Mother Nature, in her infinite wisdom, has instilled within each of us a powerful biological instinct to reproduce; this is her way of assuring that the human race, come what may, will never have any disposable income."  ~Dave Barry     

Tutoring Survey

Please Let Us Know How We Are Doing- It takes just 2 minutes or less