MOTHERHOOD; MY EXPERIENCE!!! PARENTING; DEPRESSION IN CHILDREN Part 3

Hello friends,
Welcome to another episode on my experience parenting; Depression in children
Recall in episode two how I narrated how the Holy Spirit helped me in my children’s upbringing. The role of the Holy Spirit in parenting cannot be overemphasized.

There are different types of bullying;
1. Physical Bullying
2. Verbal Bullying
3. Relational Bullying
4. Cyber Bullying
5. Sexual Bullying

Physical, Verbal, Cyber, and Sexual Bullying can be easily noticed, but Relational Bullying is often unnoticed by teachers and parents. It’s a form of emotional/social bullying whereby rumors are spread or situations are manipulated in a group. As a result of this, the victim is detested, disliked, or not accepted in the group. A relational bully aims to gain more attention for themselves and increase their social standing. This type of bullying affects a child’s confidence in himself or herself, makes the child feel less important in society, or not competent. It makes the victim feel irrelevant, that he or she is not useful and cannot make any positive impact on society.

This intends to affect the child’s performance in school and relationship with his/her mates, as they often try to avoid him/her. The victim tends to suffer from anxiety, lack of self-esteem, difficulty adjusting to life, and depression, which can prompt suicidal ideas, in more serious cases. This is because the victims are often rejected by their peers.

One needs wisdom which the Holy Spirit alone can give, to handle this type of bullying, because if the case is reported, others may feel that the victim is weak and the bullies are accused wrongly because this form of bullying is often unnoticed.

My Son was the class captain of his class, when he was in basic V. He had a female assistant. His role as the class captain was to get to school and arrange the books on the class bookshelf, call in each subject teacher to teach at the appropriate time (usually based on the class timetable), and distribute books to other classmates. Also, he is to ensure decorum in the class and report noisemakers.  He had the right to assign duties to his assistant.

Unfortunately, he could not perform his duty as the class captain, nor assign duties to his assistant as she took over the duties. In the process, she made other classmates feel that my son was not competent to be the class captain, that she is better and more capable. This went on for a while, he did not tell me about it. It was unusual because he always tells me things that happen in school, about his friends, teachers, and so on. This is because God has helped me to create a free flow of communication with my kids, maybe because he felt I will be disappointed in him that he was not capable of performing his duties as the class captain.

How did I notice this, since it’s a Relational Bullying and is often unnoticed?
How did I handle it, as I mentioned earlier, handling this type of bullying needs great wisdom, in order not to seem like the bully is wrongly accused?

Watch out for my next episode where I will be sharing with you how I noticed and how I handle it.

Have a great Holy Week and Easter celebration.🤗