My Child Is A Bully

Steps to Take If You Suspect Your Child Is Bullying Others

First, determine if your child is actually a bully. Ask the person accusing your child to describe his exact bad behavior.

In order for the behavior to be bullying, your child must be abusing another child physically, verbally or socially not just once, but repeatedly. There must be an imbalance of power: your child must be bigger, stronger or more powerful than the other child. However, the power can be “social power.” In that case, your child uses his power to exclude the other one from cliques and activities. The other child must have asked your child to stop bullying him or her. The victim has to feel threatened and has to believe your child will keep harming him.

If your child is a bully, don’t go into denial.

No parent wants to hear that his child has a mean streak and is hurting other children. As one father put it, “It was the lowest point for me as a parent. They told me my boy was beating up kids for their lunch money. Nothing could have prepared me for that.”

A bully will first either blame the victim or act like the victim himself. Many cry and say the other child provoked the situation. But if a teacher, bus driver or other person in authority has told you that your child is repeatedly terrorizing another, accept responsibility that your child may have a problem and that you are willing to fix it.

A bully’s behavior needs to be changed before he grows up.

A University of Chicago research group led by Dr. Leonard Eron has followed the lives of children identified as bullies since the 1970s. They found that by age thirty, one in four had a criminal record (compared to 5% of the non-bullies). Male bullies grow into men who abuse their wives and children. They tend to drop out of school and work at jobs below their intelligence levels.

Keep in mind that a bully is also more likely to be a target of aggression at school. Eric Harris, one of the two Columbine High School shooters, wrote in his suicide note: “It’s payback time.”

Your child needs to learn empathy and compassion for others, and how to be a friend.

Your child may be considered very popular at school. She may be on the phone all evening long with her friends. He’s in demand for all the parties and activities. Bullies tend to be popular until they reach the last two years of high school.

But the truth is a bully’s popularity is based on the other children’s fear of his power and not his social skills. Bullies tend to have poor social skills. They lack the ability to put themselves in another person’s feelings. They need to learn to be kind, caring, and compassionate.

As Dr. Martin Hoffman explains in his book, Empathy and Moral Development, the most advanced stage of empathy involves the ability to catch nonverbal and verbal messages from others, their cues in social interactions, and to use these to understand lives outside your own. Bullies can’t do this. They see things only from their point of view and they care only about their own feelings. They are not good at sharing, empathy, caring about others, or making friends. These are behaviors that can be taught and learned.

Try these tips to turn the problem around.

First, agree to work on the problem. If the school does not have an anti-bullying program, offer to help install one. If the victim’s family wants your child kept away from theirs, agree to that and keep in contact with them once a week on the phone for a few months.

Create a less violent, angry atmosphere at home. Don’t let your child play violent video games or watch television shows in which people act mean to one another or use violence. Use a rational approach to discipline and try not to lose your temper in front of your child. If the house rules vary from day to day, make them consistent and follow up if your child breaks them. Don’t use physical punishment or humiliation to discipline your child.

If your child is very young, read aloud books about bullies. Let him or her take care of a pet. Invite other children over to your house and monitor them. Let them play in a non-competitive way.

Enroll an older child into groups that encourage cooperation and friendship, such as religious social groups or Scouts. Have him or her volunteer to learn the joy of helping others.

You are not alone. Other parents have had this problem and fixed it. One parent said the best thing that ever happened in their son’s life was when he changed from being a bully into a compassionate human being.

Other Articles on Bullying

• The Social and Psychological Consequences of Being the Victim of a Bully: The victims of bullying are more likely to commit suicide than their non-bullied peers
• Teachers and Bullies: Tactics for dealing with bullying in schools
• What Causes Bullies? How the stage is set at home to create a bully, from By Parents - For Parents