Should I tell them to hit back?

It is a common instinct and it puts the child in a worse position — it is the version most likely to end with them in trouble, and it does nothing about the power imbalance that defines the problem. The more useful preparation is deciding in advance which adult at school they go to, and rehearsing the actual sentence they will say. A named adult and a practiced sentence is a plan; 'stand up for yourself' is not.

The school says they didn't see anything.

Usually true and not the end of it. Most of it happens where adults are not — corridors, changing rooms, the bit of the playground nobody watches, and increasingly a phone. What a school can act on is a specific, dated account: what happened, when, who, and which of the three features it had. Vague concern is easy to file; a written record is not.

When it happens · 4 min read

I think they are being bullied

Something has changed. They are quieter, or angrier, or the stomach aches have started, and when you ask, you get almost nothing.

Before deciding what to do, it is worth being clear about what you are looking at — because 'bullying' and 'a bad week with a friend' need different responses, and the word gets used for both.

Last updated August 26, 2026

Three things, and all three have to be there

The Child Mind Institute's definition is the useful one, and it has three parts. It is intentional — an attack, a threat, a rumour, or being excluded from a group on purpose. It is repeated, an ongoing pattern rather than one bad afternoon. And it involves a power imbalance: someone with more physical strength, or more popularity, directing it at a child who has less.

All three matter. Two children of equal standing falling out badly and repeatedly is real and painful and is not this. A single cruel remark, however awful, is not a pattern yet.

This is not pedantry about a word. The three features are what a school has to act on, and being able to describe which of them is present makes that conversation land very differently from 'somebody is being mean to my child'.

How you react decides whether they tell you again

This is the hardest paragraph on the page, and the most useful. Child Mind is direct about it: listen and express empathy without treating them as if they are fragile, and model a confident we-can-solve-this attitude.

And specifically, do not express shock and anger and vow immediately to go to the school. Which is exactly what most of us want to do, and it is the response most likely to end the conversation — a child who has just watched their parent come apart has learned that telling you has a cost.

Taking it seriously and staying steady are not in tension. The child needs to see that you believe them and that you are not frightened by it. Whatever you are actually feeling can happen later, out of the room.

What the signs look like

Often the first thing is not a report. It is a change: the stomach aches and headaches before school, the sudden reluctance to go, sleep that has gone wrong, mood that has dropped.

Those overlap almost exactly with the school-refusal picture, which is not a coincidence — bullying is one of the things underneath it. If they will not go and cannot say why, this is one of the possibilities worth holding.

The absence of signs proves nothing either way. Plenty of children show none, and plenty of children with all of them are dealing with something else entirely.

When they ask you not to tell

It happens constantly, and the fear behind it is rational: they think it will get worse, and sometimes they are right about the short term.

Where you can, take them with you rather than going around them — tell them what you are going to say, ask what they are afraid of, and see whether the school can act without making them the visible cause. Schools do this routinely when asked.

But their wish is not the deciding vote when there is physical harm, when it is following them home through a phone, or when they are coming apart. Safety is not something a seven-year-old gets to sign away, and it is fair to say that to them plainly.

Common questions

Should I tell them to hit back?: It is a common instinct and it puts the child in a worse position — it is the version most likely to end with them in trouble, and it does nothing about the power imbalance that defines the problem. The more useful preparation is deciding in advance which adult at school they go to, and rehearsing the actual sentence they will say. A named adult and a practiced sentence is a plan; 'stand up for yourself' is not.
The school says they didn't see anything.: Usually true and not the end of it. Most of it happens where adults are not — corridors, changing rooms, the bit of the playground nobody watches, and increasingly a phone. What a school can act on is a specific, dated account: what happened, when, who, and which of the three features it had. Vague concern is easy to file; a written record is not.

Still not sure

This page is the general answer. Yours is a specific child.

The advisor can be. It has read everything here, and it knows how old your children actually are — which is the whole difference wherever guidance changes with age. Ask it anything.

She's got a temperature of 100. Is that something to worry about?
He's obsessed with space and galaxies — what toys are worth getting him?

Get the weekly note — and the advisor

Free. It comes with the note.

It answers from the same cited pages you are reading, and when the question is where to go, from the real clinician, hospital and childcare records behind this site — not a link to go search them yourself. It says so when we have not written about something, and it is not a doctor; for anything urgent it gives you the threshold and tells you to call.

Where this comes from

How to know if your child is being bullied — intentional, repeated, and a power imbalanceChild Mind Institute
What to do when your child will not talk about being bulliedChild Mind Institute
When a child does not want the school toldChild Mind Institute
Warning signs for bullying — and that not all children who are bullied show anyStopBullying.gov

Every claim on this page traces to one of these. See every source we use →

Written from the sources named above, and it is not a substitute for your own doctor. If something feels wrong to you, that instinct is a good enough reason to call — you know yourself and this family better than any page does.