Bullying Counseling Palatine, IL

Bullying Counseling Palatine, IL

In general, our society needs to pay more attention to the mental health of its children, which is why considering bullying counseling Palatine, IL families recommend at Lotus Wellness Center may be in your best interest. Anxiety is more widespread in kids today than ever before. Suicide has become the second leading cause of death among the nation’s teenagers. Some experts in the field of mental health have called this a public health crisis.

While the reason for it is complex and multifaceted, several contributing factors are more significant than others. These are caused by a combination of things, including bullying, social media, lack of well-established and enforced boundaries with technology, and loneliness. Reaching out to a counselor at Lotus Wellness Center can provide children and families in this community with supportive counseling. 

What Is Bullying?
Bullying can be both verbal and physical. Verbal bullying often involves name-calling, taunting, insulting, and more, while physical bullying involves hitting, pushing, shoving, and other physical abuse.

Another type of bullying that has become alarmingly prevalent with schoolchildren is social isolation. This is the deliberate exclusion of a student from activities. This form of bullying can even go to the extreme of classmates refusing to even speak to that student. The effects on the student are devastating, leaving them to feel ostracized and that they don’t fit in. The damage to the child’s self-esteem is serious.

Unfortunately, there is no way to completely eradicate bullying because there will always be those children and adults who need to harass others. The best way to deal with a bully is to understand why they are doing what they do and to learn how to protect yourself from the harassment. A bully will usually target someone who already has self-esteem. They look for those who typically have few friends or generally keep to themselves. In a bully’s mind, a person like this is weak and therefore will be an easy target to harass.

This is why it is important for a victim of bullying to learn how to stand up for themselves. When a potential victim pushes back against the bully, it shows strength, not weakness, and the bully will often set their sights on someone else. It can also be very helpful to make a bullying victim aware of why the bully does what they do.

People who bully often have low self-esteem and when they bully someone, they are actually projecting their own feelings about themselves onto the victim. When a victim is armed with that knowledge, it is often much easier for them to be able to stand up for themselves against the person who is bullying them. 

Unfortunately, a child who is being bullied often does not share what is going on with their parents or anyone else. This is why parents and caregivers need to be aware of the signs that indicated potential problems:

• There is a drop in the child’s grades or quality of their schoolwork
• The child’s personal items keep getting lost or destroyed
• The child often complains of headaches, stomachaches, or other illnesses
• The child does not want to go to school or school-related activities
• The child is upset or unhappy during the week but is happy and relaxed on the weekends
• The child is no longer outgoing or happy, but is instead often insecure and anxious
• The child has unexplained bruises, cuts, or other injuries

Factors Contributing to Mental Health Issues in Youngsters:

► Bullying is an ongoing problem for young people. It is sometimes harder to identify than other types of aggression. This aggressive tactic can begin as young as preschool age and often occurs among children whose parents also display bullying, model exclusion rather than inclusion, and engage in gossip in front of them. For help, consider counseling from our compassionate clinic.

► Social media serves to amplify feelings of loneliness in many young people. Before all the social media exposure, if someone was not invited to a party, get together, or social function, they might hear from others about it, but they would not see posts and pictures about what they were missing. Today’s youngsters are bombarded with pictures of their peers doing things together, and those images can leave deep scars.

► Lack of boundaries with technology has also led to many adverse outcomes in kids and teens. The current culture provides constant distractions from technology. Our counselors know that many people go through life without paying their full attention to any task they perform. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, children should be limited to one to two hours of screen time per day, as their brains are still developing. Those that spend many hours per day in front of technology are at a higher risk of developing mental health challenges. Children using technology continually may have a harder time solving problems with other people. When they find themselves in complicated, real-life situations, they must learn to put their full attention toward solving the problem to the best of their ability.

► Loneliness is also a common problem in youngsters, especially for teen girls. Counselors share that teen girls spend more time on their smartphones and social media than most other groups of people. Teens who spend their free time at home browsing through social media may become more isolated. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, too much time on social media can lead to anxiety and depression in teens. Furthermore, once teens start college, they are less likely to know how to solve their own problems and may be more reliant on their parents to solve their problems for them.

Parents Can Provide Support
Many ways exist to combat the problems of bullying, social media use, and establishing boundaries with technology. A counselor providing bullying counseling in Palatine, Illinois knows that parents must play a substantial role in the lives of their children and enforce firm rules within a loving and nurturing relationship. Ways to support children with social and emotional issues include:

• Pay attention to your children and show them kindness over and above praising their achievements. 
• Encourage children to work out their relational problems with their classmates without adult intervention.
• Encourage empathy for others in your children.
• Become a good model by limiting your use of technology, phones, and social media. 

While the problems today’s youth experience are more complicated than ever before, parents, adults, and therapy professionals providing counseling can help them in many profound ways. If your child would benefit from seeing a professional therapist, consider contacting Lotus Wellness Center today.

Epidemic Proportions
Bullying has become a severe problem in the United States. According to national statistics, almost 80 percent of students say they have been a victim of bullying. The incidents of bullying do not just involve children. Bullying takes place in schools, workplaces, and dozens of other institutions across the country. Unfortunately, although many people have witnessed incidents of bullying, few actually step forward to stop the attack. Part of that reason is that most people don’t know what the proper and safest steps are when trying to prevent or stop bullying. In many situations, bullying counseling can help.

Signs Your Child Needs Help
There are several warning signs that may mean that your child is affected by teasing, harassment, and other forms of bullying. As a parent, identifying these warning signs earlier on can reduce the devastating impacts that it can have on your child. Remember that not every child that gets bullied is going to come forward willingly and talk about what is going on. You may have to do some investigating on your own and watch out for red flags that bullying is occuring, such as: 

• Injuries that go unexplained
• Destroyed or lost books, jewelry, clothing, electronics, etc. 
• Recurrent stomach aches or headaches without apparent reason
• Feeling sick or pretending to be ill so stay home from school
• Changes in eating habits, including binge eating or skipping meals
• Frequent nightmares or difficulty falling asleep
• Grades suddenly declining and showing loss of interest in school
• Avoidance of social situations and loss of friends
• Exhibiting feelings of decreased self-esteem and helplessness
• Self-destructive behaviors including running away, self-harming, or talking about suicidal feelings

Why Children Stay Silent
As a parent, you may be asking yourself why your child hasn’t just told you about the person who is bullying them. Children often feel helpless when they get bullied and may want to handle it by themselves to feel more in control of the situation. Kids may fear that they will appear as weak or a “tattletale” if they get help from an adult. Children may also fear worsened treatment from the perpetrator of the bullying if other people find out. Children who get bullied may already feel isolated socially. They may think that no one cares or will understand what they are going through. Children may worry about rejection by their peers, so ensuring your child has a support system of trusted friends can alleviate this fear.

Call Lotus Wellness Center Today
We have seen for ourselves the devastating impacts that bullying can have on a growing child. As parents now, we may look back on our childhood and reflect on certain events where we were mistreated by a bully and how that carried into our adult lives. By getting your child help now, it can protect them from hurting themselves and support their healing process.

If you are not sure whether your child is the victim of bullying, you can try speaking with them or talking with teachers about whether they have seen incidents of bullying occuring. But as we stated above, your child may be afraid to say anything at all, which means you may have to rely on the warning signs and then get your child help from a therapist as soon as possible.

Our therapists can work with your child to help build the child’s confidence and self-esteem and teach them the tools to be able to stand up for themselves against the bully. If your child is a victim of bullying, a therapist for IL bullying counseling in Palatine from the Lotus Wellness Center can help, so call today to learn more.