What To Do When Your Kid Asks “Am I Going To Get Bullied?” Parenting Tips For New School Jitters
The kitchen counter still smelled like lemon Pledge the night before Milo’s first day at our new elementary school. I was folding his extra hoodie into his backpack, and he was twisting the strap of the new dinosaur bag he’d insisted on picking out, even after calling dinosaurs “baby stuff” two months prior. He’d been quiet for ten minutes, picking crumbs out of his peanut butter granola bar, when he looked up and asked, “Am I going to get bullied?”
The 12-year-old kid down the street had stopped by the day before to bring us a plate of cookies, and offhandedly mentioned that new kids get picked on first. He’d thrown in a story about a 5th grader who got shoved into a trash can two years prior, like it was just casual small talk. I’d thanked him for the cookies, but I saw Milo’s face shut down after that.
I almost did what most of us do: I almost blurted, “Of course not! Don’t be silly, everyone will love you.” I’m a former 4th grade teacher, though, and I’ve heard this question enough to know it’s never actually a yes-or-no question. When a kid asks if they’ll get bullied, they’re not asking for a guarantee. They’re asking if they’ll be okay if it does happen. They’re asking if they have what it takes to handle it, and if you’ve got their back if things go wrong.
So I wiped my hands on my jeans, hopped up on the counter next to him, and said, “I don’t know if it will happen. Most kids go the whole school year without anyone messing with them on purpose, but it does happen sometimes. Instead of guessing, let’s figure out what you’ll do if it does, okay?” He relaxed a little, stopped twisting the strap.
First, we picked a specific safe person before the first day. A lot of people tell kids “go find a teacher if you need help,” but that’s too vague when your heart is racing and you don’t know anyone’s name. We pulled up the school’s staff page together, found that the recess aide who monitors the playground near the bike rack – where Milo planned to hang out during lunch to skate before the bell – was Ms. Lopez. We wrote her name on a neon pink sticky note and stuck it on the inside flap of his backpack, so he could glance at it if he forgot. If anything felt wrong, that’s who he’d go to first. No guessing, no wandering around looking for someone he doesn’t know.
Next, we practiced two specific lines he could use in the moment, instead of the useless advice to “just stand up for yourself.” If someone teased him or called him names, he’d say, “That’s not cool, I’m leaving,” and walk straight to Ms. Lopez. If anyone touched him or his stuff without permission, he could yell “BACK OFF” as loud as he needed to, and leave immediately. We practiced once; he yelled so loud our beagle ran under the dining table, and we both laughed, which took some of the scariness out of it.
Last, we set a specific daily check-in. I know from experience that “how was school?” almost never gets you anything but “fine.” So we agreed that every day after school, we’d split a chocolate chip cookie on this same kitchen counter, and I’d ask two questions: “What’s one thing that went well today, and is there anything that bugged you that you want to talk about?” If he didn’t want to talk about it, we didn’t have to. But the door would always be open.
His first day, he came home, pulled off his backpack, and split the cookie with me. He said one kid called his dinosaur backpack dorky when he walked into class. He used the line we practiced, walked to the back of the room to sit by the window, and that was it. No big scene, no crying. A week later, he told me that same kid asked him to skate after school. Turns out he just teases everyone he meets, and it never went further because Milo knew what to do to end it early.
I talk to a lot of parents who panic when their kid asks this question. They think they have to fix the fear, guarantee it will never happen, or rush off to email the principal before the first day. But you can’t control every interaction your kid has at school. All you can do is take away the helplessness that makes the fear feel so big. When I was teaching, I had a 3rd grader who transferred to my class after being bullied at his old school. He kept a scrap of paper with my room number written on it in his pocket every day for the first two months. That small, concrete thing made him feel safe enough to start making friends. It didn’t stop every bad thing from happening, but it gave him a lifeline when he needed it.
Last week, Milo came home and told me a new kid joined his class. He showed him where the water fountain is, and where Ms. Lopez hangs out at recess. He said he told the new kid, “If anyone messes with you, just come find me and we’ll go to her together.”
I still don’t know if Milo will ever get bullied badly enough that it sticks with him. I can’t guarantee that. What I do know is that the question he asked that night before school wasn’t really about bullying. It was about being scared of the unknown, and wanting to know he wasn’t going into it alone. We didn’t give him a perfect guarantee. We gave him a few small, specific things he could hold onto. That’s enough, for now.
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