How Christian parents can respond to bullying

This week is anti-bullying week - Ruth Evans considers what Christian parents can do if their child is being targeted

‘Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words will never hurt me.’ This saying is now widely recognised as something which is far from the reality which, unfortunately, too many children and young people experience.

There are many reasons I personally find the thought of ‘Anti-bullying week’ an unusual event (we only want bullies to stop for one week? We only want to acknowledge that bullying happens once a year?) but let’s take the opportunity to consider what we, particularly as Christian parents, can do.

What is bullying?

Let us start by acknowledging the sad reality that bullying does happen. Many schools use the ‘STOP’ acronym to define bullying – it is when someone does something unkind to another person ‘Several Times On Purpose’. These unkind things can take various forms: verbal – either name calling or using words to deliberately belittle; physical – ranging from poking right through to punches and worse; emotional – this might be things like deliberate exclusion of a child or young person from a group, in a manner intended to cause hurt; digital – using email/text messaging/social media to deliberately cause hurt/upset.

Unfortunately, some children and young people feel that the way they can most control things around them is by putting someone else down or hurting them

Why do bullies bully?

Unfortunately, some children and young people feel that the way they can most control things around them is by putting someone else down or hurting them. Children who do that so often have other things going on, b