What can I do if my child is bullying other kids?

Children are not born bullies, writes Richard Hogan

What do I do if my child is a bully?

Last week, I wrote about how you can support your child if they are being bullied. It is one of the most disturbing experiences, as a parent, listening to your child describe how they are being tormented at the hands of their peers. 

In today’s tech savvy adolescent world the experience of bullying is even more devastating and subtle. Devices mean children are never free from their tormentors. They are literally in their pockets and bedrooms. 

The sheer isolation and sense of powerlessness can have devastating consequences for a child’s mental health. 

Last week, I spoke about your need to be by your child’s side and not on it when they come to you with an issue. I also suggested that you need to roleplay the experience of bullying long before they move into the complicated and fraught world of adolescent friendships. 

It is vitally important to develop their ability to critically analyse what they are hearing and experiencing, so that when they meet someone who says something hurtful to them (which they inevitably will) they have the cognitive ability to say, ‘I don’t believe you’. 

Just yesterday, my eldest daughter Hannah told me that she noticed a friend crying in the yard. When she enquired as to why she was upset, she explained that a boy said something mean to her. 

I have roleplayed these scenarios with Hannah many times over her young life. Immediately Hannah asked her friend, ‘why do you believe him?’ Her friend enquired what Hannah meant, and she explained that, ‘it can only hurt if you believe the person. If you don’t believe them, well then they are only the words from someone you don’t believe'. 

Hannah told me that her friend immediately became lighter and smiled again. Her friend told her, ‘you’d make a great therapist Hannah’. 

We need to give all of our children that skill. 

They will all hear terrible things as they play with other children, but they have to be able to understand that people say awful things and that you have a choice to believe it, and get upset or choose not to believe it and be powerful.

I have worked with many parents who are trying to help their child out of bullying behaviour. 

Remember, all behaviour is communication, and if your child is the one targeting and tormenting another child, how you parent them out of that behaviour is vitally important for your child’s healthy development. 

Last year I worked with a family struggling to manage their daughter's obsessive and controlling behaviour towards her friends. They had been informed by the school that her behaviour was causing distress for other children in her class. 

Children are not born bullies, they learn that behaviour. It’s not an excuse for bad behaviour, but it’s an important insight. 

In my work with that girl, we looked at why she felt she had to control her friends. She described feeling powerless and weak and that by controlling some of her friendships she felt powerful. 

Bullies generally do not feel strong, that is why they so often collapse when someone stands up to them. I have heard so many children who have bullied others explain that they wanted to make someone else feel how they feel.

If the school does contact you and asks you to come in for a meeting about your child’s behaviour, do not arrive in a defensive mindset. Listen to the school, and ask yourself, ‘where would my child have seen this behaviour?’ ‘Why would my child bully someone?’ ‘Why do they have low levels of empathy?’ and finally, ‘what can I do to help them out of this behaviour?’ 

Listening to the school with an open mind is so important for a positive outcome. When you are defensive you are not listening to important information and you are not helping your child. In fact, I have noticed that it further compounds the issue. 

There is nothing more powerful than the joint system of family and school coming together to teach a child a lesson about taking responsibility for the consequences of their behaviour. 

When parents get into a conflict with the school, it sends negative mixed messages to a child.

Children bully for all sorts of reasons. Remember, they are not a monster, they are doing it for a reason, figure that out and never become conflicted with the school. 

When children see that parents and the school are aligned, it drives home a very important message, there are consequences for the behaviours we choose. We all want our children to be happy and healthy, helping them out of this negative behaviour in a positive way will ensure a good outcome for all.