Bullying is something we as a society are very aware of yet it still occurs in our lives, whether it be in the playground, sporting ground, cyber world, workforce or adult life. Unfortunately bullying occurs all around us.

The long term effects of bullying can last a lifetime, on both the bully and the victim.

Prevention starts in the home environment not in the schoolyard. We cannot give our children to the school and say fix them – it needs to start at home in the first place.

Here are 5 essential tips to prevent bullying in your child (as either a bully or victim of bullying):

1. Deal with your personal issues:

Happy Mum = Happy Kids! When mum is feeling happy, confident and in control of her life, this will have a flow on effect to her children.

The more we can look within and work on our own stuff the better mother we will become.

2. One on one time:

Give your children quality one on one time. When a child has quality one on one time with their parent it helps your child to feel valued and worthy of your time and attention.

When our children feel valued in the home environment, they will be less likely to go outside for validation and look for it in their peers at school.

3. Communication:

Talk to your children about the small stuff and then when the big stuff comes along, they will feel at ease to discuss with you.

Model to your children how to communicate with others and how to communication with your children. We need to step up and be the parent in arguments making sure we lead by example and not get caught up in the bickering.

4. Do not label your children:

Do not call your children shy, rude, naughty or terrible etc. Labelling your children will be counteractive and end up reinforcing the behavior that you are trying to avoid.

If you call someone a name long enough, then that is what they will become and believe themselves to be.

5. Discipline your child with love:

It is very easy to get caught up in the emotion of anger and frustration when we are disciplining our children.

When we discipline with anger we are not teaching our children to be compassionate and understanding. We are teaching them how to be angry.

When we discipline with love allows this allows us to give appropriate consequences and models to our children how to deal with their own anger through modelling appropriate anger management within ourselves.

The most important thing here is that children learn 80% of their behaviours, actions and reactions from their parents role modelling.

Which is why it is so important that we teach our children these essential steps through modelling not through commanding and telling them what to do!

As parents we need to walk the talk and show them how to be compassionate, caring and confident within the home environment, this will enable them to do it with ease outside of the home and especially when they are around other children.

For more information on how you can deal with a lot of these bullying issues click on this link to read more about my book called Beyond The Schoolyard.