Supporting Your Child’s Wellbeing: How to Handle Bullying and Mental Health

October is National Bullying Prevention Month, and it’s important to talk to our children about bullying, how to stop it, and how it can affect their mental wellbeing. 1 in 5 students report being bullied during their time at school. This of course can lead to negative side effects such as poor academic performance, low self-esteem, and fractured relationships with family and friends.

Bullying often takes place when adults aren’t present or there is minimal supervision, i.e. the hallways at school, the lunchroom, and even online. This is why it is extremely important to talk about bullying with our children so that they recognize it, stop it, and prevent it even when a trusted adult may not be around.

How to Prevent Bullying in School

The first step is to always talk about it. Adults have the responsibility of bringing awareness to the reality of bullying and how it can affect someone. Adults should reinforce kindness and be very clear about building an anti-bullying culture. Parents, teachers, and students alike all need to be on board to make real change.

This can be done by:

• Reading anti-bullying books

• Hanging signs in hallways and other public areas with anti-bullying messaging

• Watching videos and other educational material about bullying and its impact

• Taking an anti-bullying pledge

These simple steps can make talking about bullying a bit easier for both adults and children.

Bullying and Mental Health

It’s no surprise that bullying has an affect on a child’s mental health, both immediately and as they grow older. Bullying can result in injury, stress, self-harm, and even death. Bullying can also lead to poor mental health, causing depression and anxiety. But bullying also has negative effects on those who do the bullying. Children who bully others are at an increased risk of substance misuse, academic issues, and experiencing violence down the line. Bullying is often cyclical, and youth who both experience bullying and bully others are at an even greater risk for mental health and behavioral problems.

Taking Action to End Bullying

As mentioned above, prevention is an especially important step to end bullying and have a positive effect on a child’s mental health and wellbeing.

Adults should:

• Help youth understand bullying and its impact on their peers

• Encourage kids to participate in activities and events that they find joy in, to build confidence and passion

• Model how to treat others with kindness and respect

• Communicate and check in with kids often, proving that you are listening and that there is a safe adult available to them

At Starting Point Behavioral Healthcare, we take children’s mental health very seriously. Our Prevention Program partners with Nassau County schools with evidence-based programming for students in order to prevent drug use, alcohol use, bullying, and other destructive behaviors.