Strategies To Prevent Bullying and End Violence Amongst Children

If you’re a frequent reader of our blog posts, you must have noticed one central theme in all my writings. Yes, it’s all about children’s wellbeing. Let me give you a bit of a background in case you’re wondering why I’m so passionate about children’s wellbeing.

As a child, I was loved and cherished as the last of seven children and the second daughter among five boys. So, my childhood was fun at home.

But I was a victim of bullying and violence among my peers at school. This started at elementary school and continued to secondary school. My parents and siblings never knew about this because I didn’t tell them.

I was a happy child at home but sad when I go to school as I would often avoid staying in my class whenever the teacher wasn’t there. And after school, I would hide somewhere and wait for the bullies to all go before I leave for home. On some unfortunate days, they would arm bush me and attack me on my way home.

These experiences never left me, rather they have become the steppingstone to my deepest desire to support children that may be going through everyday challenges like I did. Children who may be struggling with embracing their true selves, communicating effectively with family and friends, and are struggling to cope with the different curveballs that life throws at them. These challenges come in different shapes and sizes, and like me, many children for some reasons do not communicate these with their parents or trusted adults. And that is why I hold kids’ life coaching so dearly.

I see this non-judgmental and unconventional approach as a strategy to partner with parents to enhance their children’s wellbeing. So why wait for things to spiral out of control? Why wait for your children to experience violence, bullying and abuse even among their peers, when you can take action by equipping them today?

According to school psychologist Rebecca Branstetter, bullying is not a one-time event or a random act of mean behaviour but rather a pervasive, ongoing pattern of aggression targeted toward another child who in some way has less power in the relationship .

Hymel at al stated that although bullying is a common experience for students around the world, it is a complex social problem that can have severe negative consequences for both bullies and victims. The most common forms of bullying, according to Gradin and Hammarrstrom , are verbal harassment like teasing and name calling.

UNESCO Member States declared the first Thursday of November, (November 4th, 2021) the International Day against Violence and Bullying at School Including Cyberbullying, recognizing that school-related violence in all its forms is an infringement of children and adolescents’ rights to education and to health and well-being.

Bullying is common and has now gone digital hence we hear of cyberbullying. And it is terribly harmful for the bullies, victims, families, schools, and communities. One of the major effects of bullying is its “carryover effect”. Research shows that even the children who bully suffer from different challenges as there’s no one profile of a bully.

Experts believe that children who display aggressive characteristics usually exhibit a deviant behaviour such as sexual harassment, violence, wife battering, gang attacks, child and elder abuse in later teen and adult life. And for the victims of bullying, it is believed that they go to school every day with the fear of harassment, being scoffed at, and humiliation. And this insecurity continues to later teen and adult life – even into marriage.

A survey we conducted some time ago on school children between ages 5 to 15 years old about their daily challenges revealed their dire need for belonging, support and education. When one or more of these needs are not met, the result is an unwanted behavior.

Children grapple with different challenges on a daily basis. While some communicate these challenges with their parents and or other adults in their lives, most of them keep their challenges to themselves and the consequences in later teen and adult life can be grave. I was fortunate to recover from the effect of bullying and violence early on with the help of my older sibling whom I now refer to as my kid’s life coach.

The good news is that children’s brain and personalities are still developing and equipping them to embrace self-growth and stronger family connection at an early stage of life sets them up for meaningful living. Therefore, everyone with children’s wellbeing at heart must work together so that the next generation could live heathy lives, escape bullying, violence, and abuse against and amongst children.

With children’s wellbeing at the heart of what I do, I offer hands-on, practical, and measurable solutions to everyday challenges children may be facing before they spiral out of control.

This preventive strategy enables us at Equipping the Child Studio, to focus on the present moment as we inspire, motivate, and ignite the potentials of the children in our programs. We do not deconstruct the past or try to ‘fix’ perceived weaknesses.

Our weekly virtual group coaching workshop commences Saturday 20th November 2021. These weekly sessions are for children ages 5-16 years grouped in an age-appropriate manner. Kids life coaching programs prevents childhood challenges from impacting on the child’s later teen and adult life. Find out more about our packages and how we can support your child by contacting us on info@equippingthchild.com.

Deborah Lucky-Deekor
Certified Kids Life Coach, Founder – Equipping The Child Studio
Lagos, Nigeria.