National Runaway Safeline

To get them to listen to her, she makes sure to listen to them and what they’ve got to say instead of telling them to shut up all the time. The 5 year old asked her a few months ago why you can’t eat food that was on the floor after picking up food on the floor, and she explained it calmly and clearly. He asked 4 other questions after that and she answered all of them. He was satisfied and happy with the answers, and ever since he hasn’t done those things. She lets them gush and gush about Hot Wheels or Team Umizoomi and engages with them and counts with them and everything, so they never feel alone or neglected enough to not want to obey.

My friend lets them make mistakes by themselves on the rare chance they don’t listen so they can learn from them and let that be punishment enough. For example, the younger one we’ve been telling not to go near the dog cage because he doesn’t like dogs. He went near it a while ago, got his hand licked, freaked out, and hasn’t been anywhere near it since. The board on the wall that she uses has a column for each boy horizontally, and vertically are all the traits she wants them to have, like being nice, listening to her and their teachers, eating their food, cleaning up, having manners, etc. They get a sticker whenever they do it for the day, and they lose all their stickers when they break a habit. That’s enough punishment for them, so they don’t break it.

Bullying that happens online can be just as harmful as other bullying — and sometimes it’s even worse. That’s because it’s hard to get away from and it can reach people no matter where they are or what they’re doing.

What can I do if I’m being bullied online?

Getting bullied on social media or through text messaging can feel really terrible. Being connected to your phone, tablet, or computer all the time means that a bully can sneak into your life and make it feel like there’s no safe place to be. But there are things you can do to help stop online bullying.

Change your privacy settings. Make sure that all of your social media accounts have very strict privacy settings. Set your accounts to “friends only” or “private.”

Block and un-friend. Block any harassing accounts, email addresses, or phone numbers.

Keep your personal details private. Don’t post your home address, phone number, school name, or any other personal information about yourself.

Take a break from your phone or computer. If it feels like the online bullying just won’t stop, take a break from social media. Turn off your phone or put it out of your sight.

Save harassing emails, texts, or messages. Take screenshots of harassment. This can be important evidence down the line.

Report bullying where it happens. Report online abuse to Facebook or Twitter if you’re bullied on those platforms. You can report to other site admins if you’re bullied on their sites.

Tell an adult that you trust. Talk with a parent, teacher, coach, counselor, or someone who you think will be supportive. Adults can only help if they know about the problem.

Don’t respond to mean or threatening messages. This can make bullying worse.  Also, you could get in trouble if you make threats back.

Report serious threats to the police. If someone threatens your safety or shares sexual pictures or video of you, report it to the police immediately.

It may be hard to care about a bully’s feelings, but people who bully are often in pain and insecure about themselves. So they might be unfairly taking their bad feelings out on you. It isn’t right, but it might help to remember that their mean actions are not about you. Their bullying is probably about their own issues or insecurities. You’re valuable. You’re important to this world. And no matter what anyone might say, you didn’t do anything to deserve this.

Check out more tips about everything from relationships to masturbation in our Teen Survival Guide>>

Don’t separate your class by gender or sex, it can make trans* students very uncomfortable and it completely writes off individuals that do not identify in the gender binary. You can’t tell how someone identifies from how they look, and their experiences could differ wildly from your own.