Help raise awareness of bullying

To coincide with Anti-Bullying Week 2011, you may want to bring discussions about bullying into everyday family life.

By encouraging your children to talk about their experiences you can hope to help them to understand why people bully and what can be done to stop it.

The national campaign will be held from November 14th to 18th and will use the slogan “Stop and think – words can hurt” and will primarily tackle the issue of verbal bullying.

This can have “serious long-term psychological effects on self-esteem, confidence and identity”, according to the National Children’s Bureau’s Sue Steel, who is also coordinator of the Anti-Bullying Alliance.

Ms Steel went on to explain that evidence suggests that children recover more quickly from physical bullying than verbal bullying and often it is not dealt with as seriously by parents and teachers.

She also advised that adults should be aware of the risks of cyber and text bullying, as these can often go unnoticed, with children too afraid to tell anyone about it.

Posted by Alice Rowe