Dr. Bridget Biggs on Bullying

the most effective strategy for dealing with bullying is really changing that environment and making it more respectful so for parents who who are concerned about either their child being a bully or their child being uh victimized by other children it's really important to team up with the community support what's already happening in the school or support getting programs started within the school environment that promote inclusion and respect bullying is any form of aggression that is repeated and usually involves a power differential so from one kid who has more power than another kid or an adult

who has more power over another adult we see this peak especially around the junior high years and bullying because everybody's trying to be Top Dog and there are two ways that you can kind of be top dog you can be really nice to people and you can be really mean to people and some people are both if um The Bullying that's experiencing is creating a lot of distress so whether that's worry about the next time it's going to happen worry about what other people think of them or depressed mood you know things just aren't fun

anymore I'm having you're feeling depressed having tearful a lot of tearful episodes those would be signs um to seek psychological help for somebody who's being victimized even asking questions about suicidal thinking you know thoughts have you know have you ever had any thoughts of hurting yourself in any way have you ever had any thoughts of wanting to die um asking those question questions is a good thing to do um and it some PE some parents worry that asking those questions is going to put ideas in their child's head um and research just wouldn't support that

oftentimes if those thoughts are in a child's head it's a relief that somebody's asking them about it and it can break down a wall that can help a conversation to help the kid out of that