Years ago, school bullying wasn’t such a big ordeal. There were fist fights in the cafeteria or playgrounds and the students got their aggressions out. Sure, they might get detention or a pep talk from their parents but generally, kids handled their own bullying issues. Times have certainly changed. School bullying is more common than ever today and it is often times something that parents are not even remotely aware of. Unless you’re one of the lucky parents, you may never know that your child is being picked on at school. You might not have a clue that they feel threatened or intimidated. If you’re lucky, your child will talk to you. However, most kids hold onto the notion that if they tell someone about what is happening, the attacker will retaliate and harm them even more than previously.

Nowadays, school bullying needs to be taken very seriously and dealt with promptly. We’ve all seen the school shootings and know what can happen. Look at the two teens at Columbine. Clearly they had been the victims of school bullying and isolation over the years. They dressed differently, talked differently and in the end – unleashed all their frustrations and differences out on their classmates. Now, not all school bullying is going to end in some shooting rampage but it is something that isn’t shocking to individuals anymore. It is more and more common. It is also quite common that when students or parents go to a teacher or principal to make them aware of a bullying instance, the report is overlooked or forgotten in moments. Unfortunately, when authority figures don’t want or care to do anything about the situation, it can get worse. Or, it can get better.

Parents need to be teaching their children about school bullying and how to combat it. They need to be teaching their children to respect their classmates and not fall into the mistake of bullying someone else. As parents, we can strive to be more involved in our childrens’ lives and be sure that we do know what is going on. We may be met with some resistance but we can learn a lot, observe quite a bit and perhaps step in and offer some solutions before things get out of hand. Too many parents are solving their kids’ problems for them nowadays instead of teaching them how to properly handle a problem. When our children don’t effectively know how to solve a problem, they resort to other means of coping. That’s when school bullying begins.