Recent studies have shown that approximately 50 percent of children are picked on or bullied at some point in their lives. The incidence of children age five and under being picked on at daycare centers is increasing at an alarming rate. According to the United States Center of Mental Health Services, bullying is defined as “repeated acts of emotional, social or physical behavior.” Bullying behavior is always deliberate. It is also controlling behavior by a person who feels that they are superior to another child and can lord it over them. A child who picks on another child means to intentionally hurt the other person and/or instill fear for the future as well as to embarrass the child in front of others.

Bullying can take the form of intimation, threats, name calling, stealing something from a child or damaging something the other child owns, excluding a child from play, teasing a child and/or giving the child the cold shoulder and encouraging others to do so as well. It is “the attention, the feeling of power and the false sense of importance among peers” that fuels the bully’s behavior.

Children are picked on for any number of reasons, whether it is an aspect of their physical appearance, their name, or even their voice. Sometimes bullying is not easy to spot immediately and other times it is very obvious to onlookers. It is usually overt when it takes place among children in a daycare setting. Children who are being picked on will show certain signs. If your child averts her eyes when you ask her how her day went at daycare, then that is not a good sign. She is definitely hiding something. If she starts having stomachaches when she comes home or she says she does not feel well in the morning when it is time to leave for daycare then there is a need to investigate further. The more this happens the more you need to address the situation as soon as possible.

Children being picked on often become withdrawn and may feel isolated or rejected by the other kids at the daycare. She will most likely not have a lot of friends and will often be found playing alone. If she takes a doll or another toy to daycare with her in the morning and at the end of the day it has vanished or is damaged, then that is a sign that she is being treated badly by someone at the daycare. Some children begin to experience bed wetting because of the anxiety and stress while others can have problems falling asleep at night, or staying asleep and can become frustrated very easily. Keep in mind that just as adults experience stress, so do young children, too.

If you suspect that your child is being picked on while at daycare, it is important to schedule an appointment to speak with the daycare owner or manager and in some cases, the individual staff members who work closely with the child. When it comes to school age children, teachers are not always aware of bullying but because children are very young ages at daycare centers, the staff work in very close proximity with them and there is rarely a moment when children are left unsupervised in a room.

If daycare staff is made aware of the problem they can then be on the look out for it and can institute such things as timeouts and redirection for the culprit of the bullying. This can help to solve the problem some of the time.

It is important for a parent to keep the lines of communication open with a child who is being picked on at the daycare she attends. Encourage her to talk about the situation and express her thoughts and emotions about the frightening situation. Give your child the opportunity to solve her own problem with your positive and supportive input. As a parent do not encourage your child to fight fire with fire but instead brainstorm with her to find ways that she can avoid being picked on in the first place. Role playing with your child with you playing the bully and the child practicing what she can say next time can go a long way in helping to resolve the uncomfortable daycare situation.