Bullying in kindergarten: How to help your child

The forms of bullying in kindergarten

One speaks of bullying in kindergarten when a child is humiliated by other children or excluded from groups over a longer period of time. A distinction is made between physical, verbal and indirect bullying. Physical bullying is when your child is attacked. For example, it is pinched or pushed. Most often, however, children bully on a verbal or indirect level. They laugh at their victim, use derogatory language, shame them, yell at the child concerned, exclude them from groups, spread rumors or intentionally break objects belonging to the child concerned.

A child who is constantly being humiliated feels helpless, frustrated, sad, or withdrawn. Some children also react with increased aggressiveness. In the worst case, self-esteem suffers extremely from such incidents and the little ones lose the joy of dealing with other children. Psychosomatic complaints such as anxiety attacks, bedwetting or nightmares are often added. You usually only find out about your child’s worries relatively late, because they don’t like to talk about such experiences. So watch out for signs so you can intervene quickly.

Signs of bullying in kindergarten

What looks like bullying in kindergarten are often conflicts that are part of your child’s social development. Most conflicts among preschoolers don’t last long enough to actually take the form of bullying. However, the basic forms of bullying already occur in kindergarten. This includes, for example, emotional blackmail. The little ones then threaten with sentences like “Then you’re no longer my friend!”. When a child is successful at this, they learn that they can exercise power over other children and thereby get their way. Signs that your child is affected by bullying in kindergarten are:

• Your child doesn’t want to go to kindergarten
• In the evening before going to bed, he often complains of stomach pains and headaches
• Your child has little contact with peers and often plays alone in kindergarten or on playgrounds
• He is very anxious, appears depressed or even depressed
• Your child talks negatively about themselves
• It suffers from loss of appetite, trouble sleeping or nightmares
• It has excessive bruises and scrapes

Of course, if one of these signs applies, it does not automatically mean that your child is affected by bullying in kindergarten. Nevertheless, you should always be attentive and, if necessary, address your child or the educators to your suspicion.

How you can help your child

• Look closely! Try to interpret the signs correctly and talk to your child’s educators. In this way you can correctly classify, evaluate and act on the observations together.
• However, do not take action without first talking to your child about what you are doing. Otherwise it will have to deal with the other children unprepared.
• Be patient if they don’t want to share their concerns right away.
• Find and encourage your child’s strengths. This allows you to build their self-confidence and prevent them from easily becoming a victim of bullying. Your child also needs to learn to say “no.”
• Support friendships outside of kindergarten.
• Be there for your child! He should be able to trust you and know that he can come to you with his problems at any time and not have to deal with them alone.
• Ask the educators to intervene in cases of bullying and not stand idly by.