To ask do a lot of bullied children then become bullies or is this a rumour

I think the idea is more bullies are like that because they have been bullied rather than all people who get bullied become bullies.

And I think when people say that they’re talking about home life, which is obviously a major factor in most of our behaviour.

Neither can I, she is a year older than me and it is as a result of being her victim and seeing her bully that I am the kind, caring person I am. I remember promising myself that I would never be like her and I told her that. It really is complex, I say again. A bit mad!

Personally I can’t stand people who take out their issues and bad temper on innocent people.

I hope your sister is able to stop.

I do have a hell of a lot of sympathy for what she went through as a kid though.

I think the idea of bullies bullying because they themselves have been bullied is true. But it is likely to be early childhood bullying at home. From a parent, most likely. Or grandparent or sibling. Someone close to them - and maybe everyone at home. Living in a dysfunctional household is a terrible but not that uncommon thing. So children who are experiencing manipulative or abusive behaviour in their home and family life mirror this behaviour in other settings. It is how they have been shown to manage situations and perhaps they are also in some kind of fight or flight response.

I don’t think it comes from a child with a happy homelife being picked on by a child at school and then they themselves becoming a bully. It’s deeper than that. Bullying shouldn’t be confused with children having falling outs and exploring socially acceptable behaviour. Not everyone is their kindest all the time. It’s deeper and bigger than that.

My DSis, would come to me in tears when she had lashed out at an innocent victim at work, in a shop or even on public transport. You would say she knew or knows exactly what she is doing. Maybe she does, but she does not set out and plan to do it. No excuse! She was bullied relentlessly at school. We went to different schools. I had a wonderful time at school. It has impacted all of her life. She is a very angry woman. She has had therapy. Bit in answer to the thread question, she is the bullied that went I onto bully. It is a very complex situation.

I mentored a teen girl for about a year who came from a home where her primary caregiver was absent intermittently the first 2 years of her life. While her family life improved from 2-16, she struggled with healthy attachments and complained of bullying at school and she didn’t have any real friends. Repeat when moved to a different school. When we looked into it, it was more her own behaviors turning off would-be friends rather than actual bullying. As an adult, she has been diagnosed with a personality disorder. She still struggles to maintain friendships or romantic relationships with peers and has intense dependent relationships with adult authority figures like teachers, therapists, bosses, trainers, etc. I had to put boundaries in place because she expected me to treat her like she was the most important person in my life. She lashed out at my other mentees when I’d give them any attention, yet didn’t lash out at me.

when talking with her peers at school and her foster family, she would act in rude, disrespectful, manipulative and “mean girl” ways with her peers and foster siblings, but not foster parents. These same encounters would be described to me as “kids bullying her.” Some kids who believed at first she was their friend, later described her as toxic and mean when they would do natural things like stop and chat to another student. One student claimed my mentee was the bully.

I was privy to some reports from her therapist who seemed to believe she was severely bullied, so not sure if therapy was terribly helpful.

I believe that reports of bullying and who commits it are complicated.

Very true

Completely disagree with this.

Bullies know exactly what try what they are doing and many do not come from difficult backgrounds.

This is absolute rubbish. Bullying is not a feeling. Bullies know exactly what they are doing.

I was bullied horribly at school and also had a miserable home life with a nasty drunk for a father.

I've never bullied anyone.

My son was the sweetest, kindest young boy but years of bullying in secondary school took that sweet edge away. He’s now a lot more defensive and much quicker to put people down. It makes me so sad but I can see how he has developed it as a defence mechanism. It can sound like a cop out when people use that phrase but I have seen it in action in my son’s case and I’m absolutely heartbroken about it, especially as lots of the bullies have now grown out of their behaviours but my son is left with lasting damage.

Agree with this...you do get the bullies who are isolated and lash out due to their own experience. But then you also get the mean manipulative bullies who just enjoy being that way.

I'm going to be really honest - I bullied a girl in my year and was unkind to her for a year - it was mindless and horrible. Used to call her Helmet head about her hair cut and would laugh as we walked down the corridor at her. There was nothing physical and I guess it was low level but totally undeserved and abhorrent behaviour.

I think it started when I tried to copy her homework and she wouldn't let me. I am deeply ashamed and still think of her now - 30 years on - I've looked for her on Facebook and been to reunion events in the hope of being able to apologise. I lived with an abusive and narcissistic mother who would throw herself down the stairs and threaten to kill berself. I had an extremely difficult and emotionally demanding childhood where my mother with held affection and love from me. I'm not saying this for sympathy or to mitigate behaviour but it's the answer to the question asked. If anything it's made me more of an empathic adult - I champion the under dog at work and always try to be kind and thoughtful to others.

No. I was bullied into feeling suicidal at secondary school. School did fuck all. Parents were amazing and supported me to sort it out myself and helped me find new friends.

I now can't STAND bullies or bullying and I will always call it out if I see or hear it.

Just because a bully is more likely to have been bullied themselves doesn’t mean anyone who has been bullied is likely to become a bully.

Just like statistics prove that sexual abusers are more likely to have been sex abuse victims themselves in the past, doesn’t mean that all child sex abuse victims go on to become abusers themselves.

I think this is crap.

Who is saying it?

I think if you experience bullying as part of your formative social experiences you can absorb it as sort of "normal" and assume it is part of how the world/social interaction works, and following that logic through - if the whole world did work on a basis of bullying, then the only way to get ahead would be to be the bully, rather than the victim. So I think it does sometimes happen as a sort of defense mechanism, if that makes sense, and particularly if a child doesn't have many skills in other social areas, so doesn't know how to make friends or interact with people or avoid being a victim in other ways, then they might default to bullying as something that they know "works" whether that means that people leave them alone because someone else has become the target, or are seen as someone not to be messed with, or whether they gain power/control/status over other children.

Not all bullied children become bullies, but IME when a child keeps using a dysfunctional or antisocial approach it's often because they lack realistic alternatives, or believe that they do because of their experiences to date.

There does seem to be a small number of people who seek power for the pure pleasure of it, and such people often seem to have been that way since they were very young, but most of the time children seeming to seek power and control are doing this as a sort of defensive thing because their experience has taught them that unless they assert their power in this way, they will have none at all. They don't have the positive experience of an environment where autonomy, equality and safety are ensured without that power struggle.

Yes, I agree. It’s perfectly possible to experience someone as a bully without that person being aware of it.

And yes to not being able to think of a bully that has an enviable life. The child who bullied my son and several other children in their class in primary had a father who lived in another country, and a threatening mother with significant MH issues, and was known to social services. I dealt with it, in conjunction with other parents, and the son had a one on one staff member with him throughout the school day, and his mother was barred from school premises. My responsibility was to my own child, obviously, but it’s easy to see how the other child’s life is likely to go. He will almost certainly be in juvenile detention before he turns sixteen.

The main bully in my class at school had, even by the standards of my rough, deprived school, a miserable home life. I know she did a few stints in prison after we left school, and she died in her forties.

Depends on the kind of bullying.

Hurt people hurt people, that is true. But that tends to be the more needlessly aggressive type people who pick random fights.

In my experience, the nastiest, most sophisticated bullies (the ones who leave lasting damage on their victims) are people who have never been bullied, BUT have parents who encourage their children to do the same

I would say probably not but then if you turn it on its head, most bullies were probably bullied or abused or neglected. Some are probably just cunts though depends on the kind of bullying.

My DSis was bullied and she is deeply unhappy and has bullied family members. It caused her lots of distress, she is NC with some family members and has had therapy. She bullies people she doesn’t know or have personal contact with with her body language and aggressive tendencies. I put it down to emotional immaturity which being bullied may have caused. Very sad!

I think bullies are people who enjoy bullying. They generally weren't bullied themselves as children.

I've come to the conclusion that one in ten people are scumbags. That's a small minority but enough to make a big difference in how society functions.

No. Bullies often come from bullies, not from people who were bullied.

My dd was bullied throughout primary and high school, she is the first one to step in if she see’s someone being mistreated. She’s the most caring person I know.

Agree. Jealous, mean people don’t change.

Nah, it’s nonsense. But adults who were bullies as children tend to be bullies as adults.