Mental Health - General

Parents: What Can You Do If Your Child Is a Bully?

You will need to work closely with the school to resolve the situation. Being informed by the school or another source that your child is bullying other students may be a difficult fact to face. Making excuses and playing down your child’s behavior will not help him or her. On the contrary, you should act quickly for the sake of the victim and for your own child’s future. As mentioned earlier, children who are aggressive toward their peers are at high risk for what is known as anti-social development, including criminality and misuse of alcohol, tobacco, and illegal drugs at a later stage in their lives. It is, therefore, important to take time now to guide your child on to positive paths.

What Can parents Do?

If you suspect or it is obvious that your child is being bullied by other students and the school has not already informed you of the situation, then it is important that you contact the school immediately. Parents should have the right to expect the school to take this seriously and to investigate the facts in the case. This will usually involve talks with you and your child, with the suspected bully or bullies and with other students in the class. Also, if appropriate, talks with a number of other parents (for example, the parents of the bullies) who may have important information to contribute.

The following information from ANRED (Anorexia Nervosa and Related Eating Disorders, Inc.) is vital for anyone whose friend or loved one is anorexic or has another eating disorder.

Please visit their site by following the link below for excellent information and resources. The only changes I have made to the following text is to add emphasis in two places.

Meditation: All Roads Lead To Rome…
By Steve Ross, MA

There have been a number of studies over the years about the health benefits of Transcendental Meditation (TM). To read a recent one, click here. However, I would like to suggest that these positive results are not the sole propriety of TM. One does not need to belong to any group or subscribe to any particular set of beliefs to receive them. I worked with TM and other forms of meditation for over a decade, on a regular, disciplined basis. My conclusion is that any form of meditation, spiritually oriented or not, will show similar results if done regularly for the same amount of time.

In early July, 2006, British experts said that soccer is being used in an indirect way to help men battle mental health issues such as depression and low self-esteem. This applies to attending matches, as well having therapy sessions on the ball field, away from a traditional clinical setting.

Providing psychological treatments for children under ten with anxiety disorders is problematic for health professionals, as the approaches that are most successful with teenagers and adults are difficult to apply to the very young.

Although Omega-3 fatty acids have been effective in treating adult depression, no studies have been done on children, until now.

Dr. R.H. Belmaker, of Ben Gurion University of the Negev, and colleagues conducted a trial on 28 children between the ages of 6 and 12 with depression.

A new booklet, The Truth About Self-Harm, has been published by the National Inquiry into Self Harm among Young People, jointly run by two British charities, the Camelot Foundation and the Mental Health Foundation.

A drug believed to have no side effects in humans and used for years to treat tuberculosis has been shown to alleviate symptoms of post-traumatic stress, and Bay Area researchers seek to test its effectiveness in returning war veterans.

Depressed men often suffer in silence, under pressure to keep up a macho front, according to a recent study in England.

Health services should be made more "male friendly" to stop men turning to alcohol, binge-eating or smoking to deal with their problems, researchers said.