[Serious] What can you realistically do if a child tells you they are being bullied?

Make friends and hang out with people, it's the only thing that truly helps. Friends will protect you, generally bullies don't mess with people who have friends, they pick on the loners cause they can't defend themselves.

As a loner I used to get bullied all the time as kid and I mean psychically beaten by the same group of guys. I was a loser who played video games all the time, so I was an easy target. I joined a soccer club and made some friends there who were normal guys, we were not best friends or anything we just started to know each other. I even sometimes invited some of them back to my house and we played Fifa on my computer.

Anyway after these soccer guys started to say "hi" to me at school, we were shaking hands, we were conversing all the bullying stopped cause they knew if they pick on my now there there will be boys defending me so they move on to the next target.

/r/AskReddit Thread