What do you do if you find out that your child is a bully?
Perhaps you received a phone call from your child’s school. Or maybe from another parent. Either way, if you think your child is bullying others, it’s very important to start working with him or her now. This behavior is already hurting their life—and will continue to do so if it’s left to fester.
Here’s what you need to know about why your child bullies other kids and what you can do stop it.
Why do some kids turn to bullying? The answer is simple: it solves their social problems. After all, it’s easier to bully somebody than to work things out, manage your emotions, and learn to solve problems. Bullying is the easy way out and, sadly, some kids take it.
Look at men who beat or intimidate their wives and scream at their kids. They’ve never learned to be effective spouses or parents. Instead, they’re just bullies. And the other people in those families live in fear—fear that they’re going to be yelled at, called names, or hit.
When these kids start calling other students rude names and questioning their sexuality, it is all done to dominate and bully them. If a teen or pre-teen doesn’t want to be a victim, they have to join a group. The kids who don’t socialize very well—the shy or passive types—often become the targets. And the threat of violence is always behind it.
The gang mentality is common and very destructive. In my opinion, parents and school administrators who ignore the way kids abuse each other in high school are kidding themselves. This behavior is hurtful and harmful, and there needs to be a lot more accountability.
We often think of the child bully as being male, but the percentage of girls who intimidate their classmates and siblings is increasing dramatically. And as with boys, the abuse can be both physical or emotional.
Bullying is traumatizing for kids who are the targets. I believe children should be taught about bullying throughout grade school and into high school. They need to learn what it means, how to resolve it, and how to deal with a bully.
If this is not taught, kids who are the targets will think there’s something wrong with them. Kids should also be learning how to handle their impulses and control themselves when they want to hit, hurt, or intimidate others. Unless there’s a concerted effort to deal with bullying and bullies in school, nothing will change. It’s a challenge, but I firmly believe it can be done.
Thankfully, many schools have adopted bullying programs. But, I believe that bullying will never completely go away—we will always have bullies. The important thing is that we do not ignore it and that we hold bullies accountable for their behavior.
I think from a very early age, you have to teach your child what bullying is. You can tell them the following (or even post these words in your house somewhere).
You are bullying when you:
Then you have to set a standard that says:
“We don’t do that in our house.”
Start that culture of accountability early. Teach them what the word means, and say directly to them:
“You’re accountable for that kind of behavior in our house.”
I think it’s also important that you talk about how to treat others. Ask your child:
“How should you treat others?”
And the answer is:
“You treat others with respect. If they don’t respect you back, walk away. Treating someone with respect means not calling them names, threatening them, or hitting them.”
You can also say to your child:
“Listen to others. Accept others. If they don’t want to play with your toys or they don’t want to share their things, you have to learn how to accept that.”
This is not easy for kids, but they will learn. Children need to have the concept of bullying explained to them numerous times. That way, when any kind of bullying is going on, they can identify it and stop the behavior, both in themselves and others.
I think the most important thing for every family is to have a Culture of Accountability in your home. This means your child is accountable to you—accountable in how he talks to you, how he talks to his siblings, and how he treats his family members.
When he’s bullying his siblings, don’t get sucked into his excuses. Just because he had a bad day at school does not give him the right to mistreat anyone in your family, for example.
Don’t forget, bullies often have cognitive distortions, which means that they may see the world in a certain way that justifies their bullying. So you’ll frequently hear them blaming others and making excuses for their behavior. Most of the time, they believe that stuff. They believe what they think, and that’s what you’ve got to challenge. You can say to them:
“It sounds like you’re blaming Jesse for the fact that you punched him. It is not Jesse’s fault that you hit him.”
Schools should also have a culture of accountability, and I think that many try. That’s what detentions, suspensions, and expulsions are all about. If your child breaks the rules, he should be held accountable. Support the school and don’t try to shield your child from the consequences of his behaviors.
A child who bullies needs to learn how to solve social problems and how to deal with their emotions without acting out. Have conversations with your child about problem-solving. Ask your child:
“What happens when other kids don’t want to play your games? When other kids have things you want and they won’t give them to you? How do you handle that? How do you handle it when you think you’re right and they’re wrong and there’s nothing you can do about it?”
Your child has to learn how to resolve conflicts and manage his emotions. He needs to learn the skills of compromise, how to sacrifice, how to share and how to deal with injustice. He should also learn how to check things out, and to ask himself, “Is what I’m seeing really happening? Does Jonathan truly hate me, or is he just in a bad mood today?”
Kids have got to learn how to manage their impulses. If their impulse is to hit or to hurt or call someone names, they have to learn to deal with that appropriately. Many children and adolescents have the impulse to hurt others. They have impulses to do all kinds of things. But they need to learn to handle them, and kids who bully are no exception.
Kids who are bullying others should be held accountable at home. They should be given consequences at home for their bullying behavior at school. And the consequences should look something like this: your child should be deprived of doing something he or she likes. So, no TV or computer games or cell phone, for example. And they also should have to do a task. For example, they should write an essay or letter on what they’re going to do next time they’re in the same situation or feel the same way—instead of bullying.
They must start thinking of other ways they can solve this problem. Understand that they may not have any ideas, and that’s where you have to interact with them and coach them as a parent.
In the Total Transformation Program®, there’s an interview process I outline where parents learn to talk with their children to solve problems instead of exploring emotions and listening to excuses.
If your child is hurting or bullying others, he needs to have conversations that solve problems. He does not need or benefit from conversations that explore emotions. Bullies tend to see themselves as victims, so the conversation has to focus on them taking responsibility for their behavior.
I think your child’s teachers should handle the process of having your child make amends for his behavior at school. But remember that bullies don’t stop bullying when they get home—they often target younger or weaker siblings.
Don’t forget, your child is bullying because solving problems by talking things out is difficult for him. So, he takes the easy way out and uses bullying. We all go through the growing pains of learning how to negotiate in social situations—in fact, we may work on this skill our whole lives. There should be no exceptions for anyone in your family when it comes to these skills. For a child who is using bullying as a shortcut instead of developing these skills, you have to work even harder as a parent to coach them on what to do.
Make no mistake, if a child bullies, that tendency can stay with them their whole lives. Fortunately, some bullies do mature after they leave school. You’ll see them get into their early twenties and seem to be okay. They get married, they go to college, they start a career, and they stop their bullying behavior.
But sadly, you will also see young child bullies who become teenage bullies and then adult bullies. How do this behavior and lack of social skills affect them? These are the people who abuse their wives and kids emotionally and sometimes physically. These are the people who call their spouses and kids names if they don’t do things the way they want them to. Bullies may also become criminals.
Look at it this way: a bully is somebody willing to use aggression, verbal abuse, property destruction, or even violence to get his way. An anti-social personality disorder (which is how criminals are classified) refers to somebody willing to use aggression and violence to get his way. The criminal population is full of bullies who, among other things, never learned how to resolve conflicts and behave appropriately in social situations.
Therefore, don’t expect your child to outgrow bullying once he reaches adulthood. Address it now and you will give your child a much brighter future.
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James Lehman, who dedicated his life to behaviorally troubled youth, created The Total Transformation®, The Complete Guide to Consequences™, Getting Through To Your Child™, and Two Parents One Plan™, from a place of professional and personal experience. Having had severe behavioral problems himself as a child, he was inspired to focus on behavioral management professionally. Together with his wife, Janet Lehman, he developed an approach to managing children and teens that challenges them to solve their own problems without hiding behind disrespectful, obnoxious or abusive behavior. Empowering Parents now brings this insightful and impactful program directly to homes around the globe.
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