You asked

What can I do to prevent my child from being bullied?

Here are some tips on how to deal with preventing and reducing bullying:

Explain bullying
Speak to your child regularly about how you disapprove of bullying and why it’s wrong. Tell them you never want them to take part in mistreating another student. Students who come from families that are united in opposing bullying are less likely to take part in bullying because they know their families would disapprove.

Outlaw bullying
Do not allow any type of bullying to occur at home and deal firmly with instances of sibling bullying.

Encourage your child to be positive
Try to get your child to see the positive attributes of her fellow classmates.

Model and encourage respect
Set an example and encourage respect for others. Also it's important to teach your child the importance of behaviours and values such as compassion, cooperation, friendliness, accepting differences in others and respect. 

Explain rights of others
Emphasise seeing things from another's point of view and how the rights of others are not to be mistreated.

Report incidents
Ensure to report all incidents of bullying that you are aware of, not just incidents involving your child. Don’t let any child’s suffering continue needlessly.

Encourage assertiveness
Teach your child to have the courage to look a bully in the eye, stand up to him and walk away. It’s a very effective anti-bullying technique but it also takes practice. You can practice with your child at home and teach her how to be more assertive. 

Respect and confidence are key
Teach your child about respect and help children to distinguish between people who care about them and people who don’t. Children require skills to avoid people who don’t treat them with respect.

Help build friendships
There’s safety in numbers. A  child with a solid group of friends will give your child confidence and keep her from being singled out. It's a good idea to help your child build and sustain caring and genuine friendships. This could mean encouraging your child to join after school ativities such as school plays, play dates or sports teams. 

Don't ignore feelings
Encourage your child to voice their feelings of feel and anger instead of just bottling them up inside. 

Monitor internet and phone use
The anonymity of the internet makes it the perfect breeding ground for cyber-bullying.To reduce the risk of your child being bullied, keep all computers in a common household area and monito internet access. Teach your child to tell you straight away if he receives an abusive message or text.

Be available
You can’t fight all your child’s battles for him, but it's important that your child knows you are always there should he need you. 

More questions

It's important to speak to your child about bullying to help them understand what behaviour is and isn't acceptable.
Recently, there has been an increase in the amount of children being sent abusive text messages.
There are many ways that you can help your child make friends at school. 
It's an unfortunate fact of life but kids do tease each other. It's important to teach your child how to deal with being teased. 
Children who bully want to exert control over their lives-even if it's just making someone else's life miserable.
This can be a difficult realisation to come to but there are some signs to watch out for which could indicate that your child is a bully. 
Parents often fear that if they report that their child is being bullied to the school that nothing will be done.
Your child's school should have a very clear policy on how to deal with bullying.
In recent times, cyber bullying has become all too common. 
There are lots of things that you as a parent can do to help prevent and reduce the chances of your child being bullied.

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