Parents, school staff, and other adults in the community can help kids prevent bullying by talking about it, building a safe school environment, and creating a community-wide bullying prevention strategy.
Research tells us that children really do look to parents and caregivers for advice and help on tough decisions. Sometimes spending 15 minutes a day talking can reassure kids that they can talk to their parents if they have a problem. Keeping those lines of communication is critical and can help prevent bullying.
Erin Reiney is the Director of Injury and Violence Prevention at the Health Resources and Service’s Administration (HRSA) Maternal and Child Health Bureau (MCHB). She leads HRSA’s Bullying Prevention efforts, and serves as project officer for the MCHB Sudden Unexpected Infant Death (SUID) Resource Center Consortium and the Children’s Safety Network National Resource Center.
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“First, we can help kids understand bullying – talking about it, learning how to stand up to it safely. It’s important to keep the lines of communication open.” Erin Reiney is a public health specialist at the Health Resources and Services Administration. “If a youth is being bullied, we really encourage them to talk to an adult they can trust and to not keep their feelings inside.” “It’s important to tell somebody so that you can feel less alone.” “We also encourage them to go to the website, go to the Kids section, and through watching our webisodes, they can learn more strategies about what to do.” You can learn how to take action against bullying and prevent it from happening at stopbullying.gov. Stay connected with stopbullying.gov on Twitter and Facebook. A product of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.