How To Help Your Kid Through The Toughest Years Of Bullying

As a mom with one child leaving middle school and one about to start, I am very aware of what a complicated era this is in our children’s lives. Even outside of the context of other children, it’s a time of extraordinary change and transition — physically, mentally, emotionally, and more. Put a whole lot of people going through that in one school and, well: stuff happens, as they say. According to the National Bullying Prevention Center, bullying tends to peak in middle school. Great news for kids leaving junior high, but less great for those about to enter. How can parents help? TikTok creator and PhD Chelsey Hauge-Zavaleta shared some thoughtful advice on getting your child through middle school.

“Sixth grade is the worst grade for bullying,” she acknowledges. And even if your child escapes the brunt of bully behavior, they’re almost certainly witnessing it at school.

“Today your sixth grader saw one kid tell another kid that she couldn’t play basketball because girls don’t know how to play basketball and her face got all red,” Hauge-Zavleta says. “Then your kid saw another kid not be able to find a group during group work and nobody noticed and when he finally found a group everybody rolled their eyes and your kid didn’t say anything. ... On the bus home, your kid saw another child dump a little boy’s backpack. The bus driver didn’t see and the kid who got his backpack dumped picked it up all by himself and your kid didn’t say anything.”

That can be confusing and hard... and it can take a toll on them mentally, especially as they’re learning to navigate these situations.

“I know you asked your kid ‘How was school’ and they say ‘Fine’ but they didn’t know what words to say. They didn’t know how you were going to react,” she continues. “They didn’t know if you’d be mad or understand. They didn’t know if you’d be disappointed in them. And so they said nothing.

Hauge-Zavleta suggests that the best way to help them speak up about these things is by modeling.

“You need to talk about times when you have felt excluded. Your child needs to know that they’re not the only one with the hard story. Your hard stories give your child space to have hard stories.”

So instead of asking the basic ‘How was school,” she offers some alternatives:

• “Did you see anyone having a hard time today?”
• “Did you learn anything about that new kid?”
• “If you could change one thing about your school day what would it be?”

“Because literally tonight there are going to be millions of children ... whose parents ask them ‘how was school’ and they say ‘fine.’ But ... it was not fine at school today,” she concludes.

These conversations aren’t always easy, but neither is being a middle-schooler. Your child might not always open up to you, either. But letting them know you know it can be hard is an important step in letting them know you’ll understand if they do come to you.