Your child comes home looking tearful, not wanting to go back to school, and denying anything is wrong. After a week of pressing, they finally tell you that they’re being picked on by another child at school. They further explain that this has been going on for a long time.

Unfortunately, stories like this aren’t uncommon.

An estimated 10-40 percent of children are bullied within the United States each year, with a large portion occurring at school (Anti-Bullying Alliance, 2025; National Center for Education Statistics, 2024).

While some parents tell their child to stand up to the bullying, just ignore them, or may personally call the bully’s parents, these strategies often prove unsuccessful (Kazdin & Rotella, 2009).

Types of bullying

While bullying has been defined in many ways, it usually focuses on power differentials. Bullies engage in an aggressive use of their power to intentionally distress another person. Sometimes, bullies victimize others to feel powerful, popular, or important.

Other times, bullies are merely copying how they were treated by others, like their peers and family members. They may even be mimicking what is seen in popular media, like television shows and social media. (Brank et al., 2012).

There are numerous types of bullying, including: • Physical bullying that can include a bully hitting, kicking, biting, shoving, tripping, closing doors or drawers on, spitting on, beating up, stealing from, or damaging the property of another child. • Verbal bullying can include a bully name calling, mocking, teasing, using rude nicknames, or verbally threatening of another child. • Social bullying can include a bully gossiping, spreading rumors about, excluding from groups, or purposefully damaging the relationships of another child. • Cyberbullying can include a bully using online methods like email, social media, or artificial intelligence to create fake images or videos to threaten, harass, embarrass, socially exclude, spread misinformation related to, or damage the reputation of another child.

Bullying can be related to multiple factors including, but not limited to: • Age • Physical appearance and/or clothing • Sexual and/or gender identification • Race and/or ethnicity • Socioeconomic and/or disability status • Interests

What parents can do

There is no one-size-fits-all method of dealing with bullying.

It often needs to be addressed where the issues are occurring, like at school, and with the individual doing the bullying. Only working with the bullied child does not often fully address the issues.

Here’s what parents should do if they suspect someone is bullying their child.

**Continuously monitor your child’s overall emotional and behavioral performance to look for noticeable changes **

While children of all ages are prone to moodiness and irritability at points, you should monitor your child for any significant changes, either abrupt or slowly increasing over time.

More specifically, you want to monitor for changes in: • Mood, including increased crankiness or sadness. • Eating changes, including eating way more or way less than typical. • Disrupted sleep, including sleeping way more or way less than typical, and unexplained frequent wakings. • Loss of interest in activities usually enjoyed. • Moping around. • Withdrawal from others. • Attempting to avoid school by making excuses not to go. • Increased physical symptoms, including headaches or stomachaches, without a medical reason. • Increased anxiety. • Declining grades. • Increased attention issues, including distractibility and forgetfulness. • Regression in behavior, including increased wetting of the bed, crying, or immature speech. • Increased “losing,” “forgetting,” or “misplacing” of belongings that are typically not lost, forgotten, or misplaced. • Increased verbally or physically aggressive responding to others, including family members. • Coming home with ripped or overly dirtied clothing. • Coming home with unexplained or oddly explained bruising. • Lowered self-esteem. • Suicidal thoughts.

**Evaluate the reasons for changes in emotional and/or behavioral performance **

After recognizing changes in your child, take a moment to ask your child for details of what is happening.

Focus should be placed on remaining neutral and on problem-solving and processing and not on blaming your child for being bullied. You should seek to understand your child’s issues and allow an opportunity to get their thoughts and feeling out.

Information gathering should focus on collecting details that can be used to intervene, including: • Defining who the bully is or who are the bullies • What the bully is specifically doing (physical, verbal, social, cyber methods) • If the bully is also picking on others • Where and when the bullying takes place since it is often during less-supervised times of the day (before school, lunch, recess, switching classes) • Your child’s perceived reasons for why the bullying is occurring (child is being picked on due to a diagnosed disability or how they look)

Problem-solve with your child

Take time to educate your child on what bullying is, what it looks like in-person and online, and explain that it is okay to seek help should it occur.

Praise your child for sharing the information with you, indicating that you understand that it isn’t easy to talk about.

Problem-solve what your child can preventively do to limit the bullying, as well as what to do should the bullying occur: • Can your child engage in other activities with peers or around others that can limit the bully’s opportunity to pick on your child in-person or online? • What can your child do, per school rules, should the bully pick on them? • Finally, what can your child do to cope with feelings of sadness, anxiety, or other mental health-related issues?

Consult with the school

Once all information is collected, you should find an ally in the school system, like the principal, vice principal, teacher, school counsellor, superintendent, or school board members, who can help intervene.

Rather than instructing the school or teacher to monitor your child all day, which is unlikely to occur, use collected information from your child to identify the specifics of the who, what, where, when, and why, so that targeted intervention can be applied to specific individuals at specific times of day and in specific locations. Drawing issues to the school’s attention can allow for school-based monitoring and intervention for both your child being picked on and the bully. Further, it can potentially result in higher-level intervention, per school bullying policies and local laws, should the bullying persist.

Balance issues with self-esteem building activities

As bullying can take a toll on anyone, it is important for you to be proactive.

Beyond addressing the bullying, take time to boost your child’s strengths and interests to foster self-confidence through engaging in those activities, both encouraging their attempts and successes.

In this way, your child can see that they do have value and strengths regardless of what others may say or do.

Seek help from a mental health professional

Should you feel overwhelmed, be unsure what to do next, believe that your child being bullied need additional help beyond what you can provide, or require more hands-on help with consulting with the school, seek out assistance from a mental health professional, such as a psychologist, counselor, social worker, or psychiatrist.

Additional resources: • StopBullying.gov • National Center for School Safety • U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention • PREVNet

References: • Anti-Bullying Alliance. (2025). Prevalence of bullying. • Brank, E. M., Hoetger, L. A., & Hazen, K. P. (2012). Bullying. Annual Review of Law and Social Sciences, 8(1), 213-230. • Kazdin, A., & Rotella C. (2009). Bullies – They can be stopped, but it takes a village. • National Center for Education Statistics. (2024). Student bullying. The Condition of Education. U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences