What You Can Teach Your Child to Do If They are a Bystander

The role of the bystander in a bullying situation is vital to the bully. They are the audience and they provide the attention that the bully is seeking. If the bystander does not provide that attention, the bullying may stop. I think this group is the easiest to effect change with since there usually is no emotionally commitment attached to the bullying situation on the part of the bystanders. Make sure that you point out to your child the significant role that the bystander plays and how they can make the situation better just by reacting in a different way.
I hope that the following phrases become common place to all children when they find themselves playing the role of the bystander in a bullying situation: Speak Up, Speak To, Speak Out.

Speak up suggests to the bystander that they go seek out the nearest trusted adult if they see someone being bullied. I believe that bystanders should always go find a trusted adult when physical bullying is involved because if they step in and try to stop it they may be walking into something that they cannot control. Consider this scenario. A child comes upon a child beating up another child. They assess that the bully is smaller than they are and chooses to intervene. What happens if the bully has a weapon or has a black belt in karate. Now there are two people getting hurt and no one going for help. When discussing this with children, they can come up with all kinds of scenarios of their own. The one that most frequently comes up is: what if we are in the middle of nowhere when this fight occurs? My suggestion then becomes to keep a distance from the situation and utilize a distracting technique like shouting out “Look, a pink polka dotted elephant”. I know this sounds like a bizarre idea but sometimes a distraction like that breaks the trend of thought that was angering the bully and stops the behavior.

Speak to has the bystander attending to the victim after the bully leaves. A few carefully chosen words from a bystander can make all the difference with how the victim ends up feeling about the situation. Imagine the power of having someone come over to you after you’ve been bullied and asking if you’re alright and making sure that you know that they didn’t believe what the bully was saying. I have seen a victim go from hysterically crying to a huge smile just because of the words of a bystander. Pretty powerful stuff.

Speak out suggests that the bystander address the bully with a statement like “we don’t do that here” or “cut it out”. Be carefully to instill in your child that this is not to become some kind of shouting match between them and the bully, just a statement of fact. In the bullying situation, it is common for a bystander to come to the defense of the victim by bullying the bully. This is not the intent of Speak out. Be sure your child understands the somewhat subtle difference between these two.
Every bully prevention conference that I have attended and all the books that I have read on this subject have one thing in common. They all believe that the bystander is the most significant player in effecting change to the bullying situation. Educating your children about what they can do as the bystander, may go a long way in making your child’s environment safer.

Bullying: The Bully

If you are sitting there reading this because you have just come to the realization that your child is the bully, know that you are a very strong individual. Know that you are not alone in this realization and that many parents have had to face that reality over the years. When surveyed, over 30% of children surveyed reported that they had been the bully. Keep in mind that the figure is probably much higher. So when I stated that you are not alone, I wasn’t just trying to make you feel better.


In previous blogs, I indicated that there was not much that could be done to change a bully’s behavior. Much of my focus is on how to change the victim’s and the bystander’s behaviors which will in turn change the bully’s behavior. If I have not totally lost you yet with that explanation, here are some things that may assist you in helping your child.

There is good news, bullies typically are outstanding leaders. They have an uncanny ability to get people to do what they want. If you could redirect these leadership skills towards something more positive like community service, sports, or student government, this may all but eliminate the need that is filled by bullying.

Help them to develop empathy for others. Children, who can place themselves in the shoes of others and imagine what they would feel like if it were happening to them, are less likely to engage in bullying behaviors. This can be accomplished with dialogue about how a person in a television show may be feeling, or by modeling empathy for others in front of your children.

Often bullies choose bullying behaviors when they are angry. Help your child to develop anger management skills and they may not engage in bullying behaviors as often. I will be discussing anger management techniques in a separate posting because I feel that this topic deserves more attention than just a paragraph at the end of a blog posting.

I hope you realize that acknowledging that your child is a bully, is more than half the battle. Now is the time to do something help them to change their ways. With all the laws being passed to address bullying, if they don’t change their ways they may be facing serious consequences.

As always, contact us at ParentSharing@aol.com with anything you want to say, or "like" us on Facebook.  Our podcast on "The Bully" is now live on iTunes, and on the player to the right of this blog.  We'd also love your ideas on topics and guests for future interviews.

New Podcast-Bullying: The Bully

Our latest podcast is live.  Check it out on the player to the right, or download it from iTunes.  You can e-mail us at ParentSharing@aol.com or check out "Parent Sharing" on Facebook and iTunes.

Bullying: The Victim (Part One)

A study recently reported that 60% of all children interviewed admitted that they had been bullied at one time or another. I think that the actual number is much closer to 100% than that (like probably 100%). In today’s society, when victims are lashing back with unspeakable acts of violence or suicide after years of being bullied, it is imperative that we teach our children a different way to deal with being bullied. Ignoring and pushing down the feelings isn’t working, it just allows the anger to build inside the victim until they can’t take it anymore. Teaching your child some methods of dealing with bullies and practicing these techniques with them through role play, may save lives. Help your child learn to be part of the solution, instead of part of the problem. All of these techniques will not be effective for your child, which is why the practice is so important. Help them find what works for them.


First and foremost, be sure that your child understands where the bully is coming from and what the bully is trying to achieve. It is important to help your child understand that one of the reasons bullies often lash out is because of their own insecurities. They may feel that by lowering others, they elevate themselves. Bullies often pick on things in others that they don’t like in themselves. Understanding where a bully is coming from may go a long way in eliminating the power that a bully has over your child. More on that in our blog about the bully.

Talking to a trusted adult or close friend may be helpful to your child. Letting them know that they can come to you about anything. Sometimes they just need a place to vent, and we as parents have a difficult time staying passive when our baby is telling us that someone is hurting them. They are not always looking for you to be their knight in shining armor; sometimes they are just in need of a sounding board. Knowing when you should just listen and when you need to take action may be difficult. Often direct intervention on your part may make the situation worse; your child may be seen as “a tattle tale” or something worse. Stop and think about what intervening will accomplish and whether this will make the situation better or worse. We are not telling you when to take action, that’s up to your judgment. Simply consider the ramifications for your child when you consider your options.

I believe that an empowered child is a happier child. Giving them ways to address a bullying situation may change their feelings about the situation from helplessness to empowerment. Anger management also offers tools which may help your child deal with bullying. We will discuss that in a future blog. In our next blog we will talk about helping your child prepare for direct contact with the bully.

Contact us through the blog, on Facebook, or at ParentSharing@aol.com for more information, or with specific comments, concerns or questions.

Bullying (an Introduction)

Today, bullying seems to be a very hot topic, even though it has probably been around since the time of the cavemen. Many states are passing laws to protect the victims and many news programs and newspapers are talking about bullying statistics. I believe the focus on this topic needs to change to one that is more proactive. Since many of the school shootings and violent acts are being committed by the victims, and not the bully, we need to take a different approach when talking to our children about being bullied. I believe the way to stopping this increase in violence is by educating our children on a better way to handle bullying. I will be addressing what you can teach your children to do differently as the bully, the bystander and the victim in separate postings. First, I think it is important to give our children a clear understanding of what bullying is and what it isn’t. Below is the widely accepted definition of bullying. I believe that many of these terms need to be defined for our children. I will define several of the terms in this definition and I suggest that you sit down with your children and do the same.


Bullying involves repeated acts of direct or indirect physical, verbal, or nonverbal behaviors that may include intentional hurting and an imbalance of power

Repeated acts mean that in order for there to be bullying, the behavior needs to be done over and over again

Direct bullying occurs when the bullying of the victim is done by the bullies themselves.

Indirect bullying occurs when the bully talks someone else into doing the bullying for them.

Physical bullying is the type of bullying we are most familiar with. This includes: hitting, kicking, shoving, spitting, and tripping.

Verbal bullying behaviors include: taunting, teasing, name calling, spreading rumors and threatening.

Non-verbal behaviors include – threatening or obscene gestures, deliberate exclusion from a group or activity, isolating, shunning, and cyberbullying.

Intentional hurting means that the bully intended the behavior to hurt the victim either physically or emotionally.

Imbalance of Power indicates that the bully is more “powerful” than the victim. This does not always mean bigger in stature, although that is the picture that comes to many of our minds when we think of a bully. This imbalance can also occur if the bully is perceived to be smarter than the victim, more athletic, or more popular.

In addition to giving your child a clear understanding of what constitutes bullying and what is just “messing around”, it is also important that your child understand the roles that each participant in a bullying situation plays in order for them to better handle these situations when they occur. There are three types of participants in the bullying situation: the bully, the victim and the bystander. Although it is the bully’s behavior that needs to be changed, the best way of effecting that change is by changing the behavior of the victim and the bystanders. This may seem strange to say, but as long as the bully is getting what they want from the situation, attention or control, they will continue to bully. If the victim and/or the bystanders do not have the desired response, the bully will stop bullying.

Future postings will specifically address what you can teach your children to do when they find themselves playing the role of the bully, the victim, or the bystander. Although, it is important to understand what is bullying and what is not bullying, it is a hundred times more important to help your child understand what to do in these situations that they will find themselves in.