“My daughter has been bullied in school, and now she isolates herself at home. What can I do for her?”

First of all confront the bully's parents and the bully. Build your daughter’s confidence by letting her know how beautiful she is daily. Complements builds confidence!

Being bullied and watching you kid unravel from the incident is very difficult. At all time, social respect is a must. Your daughter needs rebuilding. Re-build her sense of self, if you can get therapy now, also do a active fight back program. By fight back I mean call the school, get the parents involved, find area's of interest for your child, consider homeschooling, and at this point in time, there are on-line schools. When classes resume, consider enrolling her into another school system. You are in a very difficult situation, your child needs to know she has the right to be respected. Bullies only bully when they have an audience, and when the power is in thier home court. Be your child's audience, protect her, she may need a friend to accompany her as she ventures out.... that may be you. She needs to know she is worth fighting for.... Great book on this is "When your child is hurting" by Dr. Kevin Lehman. It has good information. I hope this helps.

Hi,

Thank you for your question. Since your 8-year-old daughter has been bullied in school and is now isolating at home, she may need some extra support to help her cope with these difficult experiences. Support may come in the form of listening and talking with her, providing empathy and understanding, normalizing and validating of her feelings, etc., and it may
also come in the form of bringing her to therapy where she can get this support from a mental health professional.
I hope this has been helpful!

Best,

Jenna Torres, PsyD

Every child is different, but overall everyone just wants to be loved. My suggestion would be to make sure that her home is a safe place. That when she comes home from a bad day at school, she knows her family is there for her to love her no matter what. Focus on positive things. Give her compliments and hugs, even if it seems like it doesn't make a difference (it does). Play games together. Eat dinner together without distractions like TV or cell phones.
Also, make sure the teachers and adults at school are aware of the bullying. Follow up with them to see what is being done about it.
And counseling is always an option as well.

Find a good child therapist who can help her build her self esteem and process those traumatic experiences of bullying. Validate her emotions. Find her some good friends. Celebrate her.
Watch the movie Wonder with her.