Is your child a bully?
By Joanna Moorhead
If your child has been bullying others it can come as a devastating blow. Fortunately, nine times out of ten, a child's bullying behaviour is not long-lasting and there are ways to nip those terrorising tactics in the bud.
'My child's a bully'
Jenny Moss, 36, couldn't believe her ears when her daughter's class teacher asked her to pop in for a chat after school one day.
"She started talking about the fact that Amy, my daughter, wasn't getting on with Katie, another child in her class, says Jenny. "I knew Amy didn't like Katie, because they often fought over the friendship of a third girl in the class. But then the teacher said that Amy was bullying Katie and had been hitting her in the playground and taking her pens away from her. I was horrified and didn't know what to say - I felt terrible about it."
According to Michele Elliott of the anti-bullying organisation Kidscape,
Jenny's response was typical. "Most parents are appalled and devastated to
hear their child has been bullying another," she says. "A few just won't
accept it - they think they've got a little angel and refuse to believe
she'd ever do anything unpleasant."
There are those parents as well who might try to dismiss bullying behaviour as 'boyish' or 'high-spirited. But this isn't helpful: you can't go on excusing your son
or daughter when another child is being hurt.
But take heart. If your child has been accused of bullying, you might like to know that her behaviour is not that unusual nor will it last forever. Here are some useful facts about bullying you should know.
Why is she doing this?
It's important to try to work out your child's motives, because
understanding her problem will help you deal with it properly rather than
just trying to alleviate the symptoms.
- A child who bullies is almost always insecure in some way: she might be jealous of another child, or she may feel inferior in some way, or she may feel unable to make friends and fit in. She's probably having difficulties with her self-esteem, and almost always needs help to feel better about herself.
- Before you sit down with your child, go through what might be at the root of her problem. Maybe your home life has been disrupted in some way recently: have you just moved house, or had a new baby, or some other big change in your household?
If so, your child might need some space to adjust and come to terms with what's going on in her life. She may feel lonely and afraid, and it might be this is which is causing her to vent her feelings at her classmate.
What you can do
Bullying is always unpleasant, dangerous, and never acceptable:
and those are the first things you have to get over to your child.
- Don't rant and rave or threaten her and above all, don't hit her. Far from showing her that you won't tolerate bullying, you'll be giving her a taste of it in action. And it won't work.
- Don't hold off for long: you need to confront your child, about
what her teacher has said. Tell her firmly that this behaviour isn't something you or anyone else in her life will tolerate and ask her how she'd feel if she were at the receiving end: do this not to frighten her, but to encourage her to empathise with the child she's hurt.
- Unless the situation between your child and the child she's been bullying is
a long-term feud, suggest you invite the other child over for tea later in the week. What you want to do is build bridges and bolster friendships. Sometimes the problem evaporates away from the more pressured environment of school: the children may discover they have more in common than in dispute, and forge a bond even against the odds.
- Look too at the messages you and your partner are giving your child. Don't
emphasise the fact that she should succeed at any cost: you may be putting
too many burdens on her and overloading her too much. Also, she needs to
know how to take failure as well as success: maybe being unable to accept
failure is at the root of her bullying.
- If your child is continually accused of bullying, or if you're worried that
there's a deep-seated problem you can't deal with alone, ask your GP for a
referral to a child psychologist who will be able to help you unravel what's
wrong and help you deal with it.
What the school can do
Since 1994 every school in the UK has been required to have an anti-bullying
policy, so your child's school will have a tried-and-tested method of
dealing with it.
- This may involve some role-playing so that children can talk about what they'd do in situations where bullying could arise, how they'd deal with it and how they'd resist the temptation to bully. If this role-playing isn't happening at your child's school, you could suggest they try it. Kidscape can give more advice.
- Your child's teacher, and other supervisors who come into contact with her
class during the school day, will probably be asked to keep a special eye on
her and the other child or children involved in the bullying incidents, to deflect or nip-in-the-bud any flare-ups.
But they can't always be watching and listening, and the most important thing is that your child really learns and understands that she can't go on behaving in this way.
Joanna Moorhead specialises in writing on parenting issues. She has three daughters aged eight, six and two and lives in London.
Also see
When a child is bullied - find out what it's like from the other perspective
'My son was bullied' - read a mother's story
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