My child is being bullied

If your child or young person has told you that they are being bullied, this is a great first step to getting the help they need. Telling someone about bullying is not easy. It can come with feelings of guilt, fear and shame. The most important thing you can do as a parent or carer is listen without judgement. Let your child or young person tell you what’s happened and wait to ask any questions you may have until they have finished.

You might feel anger at what happened to your child. Try not to express blame or anger, but let them know they have been heard, that you believe them and that you will work with them to make things better. Let them know they have your support. 

A warm, supportive family can help protect children and young people from some of the negative impacts of bullying. Critical to this protection is how parents and carers listen, respond and help support their children and young people to recover.¹

How to respond

These are the most helpful things you can do if your child discloses that they are being bullied:

• Listen – actively listen, go to a quiet space with no distractions and give them your full attention, without interrupting. Telling someone you’re being bullied is an important disclosure; children need to feel heard when they tell someone what’s happening.
• Calmly ask questions – wait until they have finished talking and gently try to get a full picture of the situation. 
• Acknowledge their experiences and the impacts – ‘I can see this is very upsetting and I can understand why you’re worried about going to school ...’ 
• Help them to feel safe – let them know you will work with them to try to make things better. 
• Make sure they are involved in the response or plan – being bullied can feel like a huge loss of control and can impact self-esteem and confidence, among other things. Making sure your child has a say in how the problem is addressed can give back some control and ensures the response doesn’t cause more distress.
• Support them to recover – this includes offering emotional support, focusing on their wellbeing and supporting them to develop positive coping strategies.

Making a plan to help

Before making a plan (or going to the school), make sure you have as complete a picture as possible about what’s been happening.

Ask questions

Ask your child about:

• the bullying – when, where, who, how.
• how they feel about it, what they think about it and why they think it might be happening – this can help you get a better understanding of what’s going on from their perspective. Children and young people can sometimes blame themselves for the behaviour of others, and if this is the case, it’s important to know early so you can help them to understand that it is not their fault.
• how they responded – how did they react? This can help you to understand what they might be doing to cope and what they might have tried already to fix the problem.

What to include in the plan

When making a plan to help, make sure it includes:

• safe strategies for dealing with the behaviour
• how to seek help when it happens (such as by telling their teacher what’s happening or reporting it to the school or online platform)
• how they can be safe (for example, working with their teachers to create strategies to keep them safe at school, or reporting online bullying)
• how to support their wellbeing throughout the situation
• positive coping strategies to support mental health and help with recovery from the bullying.