Teach Children How to Identify Bullying

This month is National Bullying Prevention Month, and we believe that martial arts is a great way to support the anti-bullying movement with a buddy, not a bully, approach. Our instructors are trained in teaching kids to befriend their peers but also identify dangerous situations that require help from their parents or teachers.

More importantly, understanding what bullying is and why someone bullies is the first step in preventing a child from encountering bullies or becoming a bully themselves.

So, what is bullying?

If someone disagrees with you or gets mad at you, does that mean they are a bully? Not usually. Sometimes people just have disagreements. If you meet someone for the first time and they say, “You're ugly," is that bullying? The answer is no. To qualify as bullying, the behavior has to be repetitive.

If someone does something that bothers you, but they might not even be aware of it, is it bullying? The answer is no. For behavior to be considered bullying, it has to be intentional. Bullying must be intentional and repetitive. Without these factors, anything could be labeled as bullying.

Bullying is when someone deliberately tries to hurt other people with words or actions. It is a behavior, not a person. Bullying is mostly psychological and sometimes physical. People who bully try to take others' power away from them. They use this power to harm others by hurting their feelings, publicly humiliating them, spreading rumors, name-calling, or physically hurting them.

These are only a few ways bullying can manifest itself, and it can occur in many places. With the internet playing a significant role in our children's lives, cyberbullying has become a real threat.

By understanding what bullying is, you can help your child be aware and recognize malicious intent from others. We teach strategies to stop the cycle of bullying and defend oneself against bullies in our martial arts classes.

If you know or suspect that your child is experiencing bullying or engaging in bullying behavior, please reach out to our academies