...to think that if your child is a bully then you’re a shit parent?

[Calladia]

AIBU?

why don't you just polish your halo a bit more, I don't think we can all see it shining?

My kids have been through a quite lot of shit (including being abandoned by their father), yet they all display massive amounts of empathy towards everyone including bullied kids,animals etc. So yes I will polish my halo thankyou.

Mostly YANBU from what I have seen op

The bully in my sons year has had behavioural issues since his Dad died aged 34. Does this make his Mum a shit parent as her husband died of cancer ? I think not.

No my 5 yr old up til present bit and fought with everyone from been 18 months she was a little sod. Every day I was told something anyways she seems to be getting better now and takes herself away when shes angry but I kept trying and persisting and she seems to be better so how am I a bad parent

@Calladia
Are you researching the topic for an article or essay?
It’s a great way to gain access to a wide range of opinions/ experiences.

I know you said your parents aren't to blame because they didn't know, maybe they should have known you better and you should have had a relationship where you were able to tell them? I shared everything else with them so appeared very open and honest. They couldn't have done any more. I still talk to them about everything except those few things.

So if your child has ASD for example then what, you should lock them up? Otherwise you’re a shit parent?

Sorry but yabu It's a very 50/50 subject. Some is shit parenting some isn't. 2 children in my dds class yr4 so 8&9yrs old, could be labelled bullies.
First one is out and out shite parenting. 4 sisters and each one is as vile as the last. They lie and minipulate they exclude others because they have the wrong colour hair bobble for example, will trip others up, spit/push/scratch/steal because the other child "looked at them and deserved it". They have no fear of authority, I have witnessed the younger sister (5yrs old) purposefully squirt her drink over another child's packed lunch because she didn't like what the other child was eating! Same child told me to fuck off then denied it to teachers. (I used to volunteer in the school) Mum doesn't believe anything she is told about her darling daughters, they are just "fiesty/ spirited/must have been provoked".

Second one, used to be a lovely child mum and dad are very hands on, quite strict when needed, not spoiled but definitely not neglected. Son has started lashing out abit in school in the last 18 months, being very nasty verbally, excluding others, really rough when playing and taking things too far. Mainly with his closest friends. Turns out he lost 3 family members within 6 months, his way of coping is to Push away the people he is closest too. Parents have him In councelling and he is improving slowly and no one ever expected this lovely once mild mannered little boy to get so nasty but it happened. Certainly not the parents fault.

Not everything is black and white.

@Samtsirch no nefarious motives. I genuinely wanted to know what people think.

This thread has been useful for giving me some perspective and my title was possibly more inflammatory than it should have been. I do stand by my belief though that it is a parent's responsibility - no-one else's - to make it their business to find out and ensure that their child is not bullying others and that if this isn't happening then you are not parenting effectively, for whatever reason.

As I think I've mentioned before, my sympathy ultimately lies with the bullied child, who just wants to get on with their life and be left alone.

I don't think it is helpful to label a child as a bully as not sure who that helps

What a load of shit. What do you suggest children are who relentlessly and mercilessly make other children's lives a misery by psychological and/or physical torture? And who's parents don't deal with their behaviour? I'm sick of people on here minimising bullying. Children can be bullies. Your post and views are disgusting and compmruely disrespectful to all the poor kids who get bullied, some of which end up taking their own lives sadly. That's not just children being "mean" to each other.

I absolutely detest this whole " oh the bullies are victims too" utter bullshit!!! Bullies destroy lives. Set children up for lifetimes of MH issues- and they are the lucky ones, the others simply decide the pain is too much and end their lives. I was bullied mercilessly at school, my son with ASD was bullied mercilessly at school. Each time we were told to ignore it, grow a pair, be kind to others!!!! The bullies are never ever punished and their lives are NEVER impacted as badly as the victims. Stop protecting them. Stop aiding the abuse. Perhaps if bullying victims were treated the same way as bullies by schools etc the suicide rate would no be so fucking high. Oh and btw yes, stop making excuses if your child is a bully you are a fucking failure of a parent and should be utterly ashamed.

The bully in my sons year has had behavioural issues since his Dad died aged 34. Does this make his Mum a shit parent as her husband died of cancer ? I think not.

No it doesn't make his mum a shit parent because her husband died of cancer ffs. It does however make her a shit parent for making excuses for her child's bullying instead of giving/getting said child the support he needs.

my title was possibly more inflammatory than it should have been

No shit!!!

YABU
I’m a good parent yet in year 6 my now year 8 son was a bully ....
Hadnt been before and hasn’t since he had a stupid friend who told him via text to bully another child and he did it. We told ds we didn’t care that he was told to do it he should have known better and after speaking to the child’s parents we all decided that ds had to go there and formally apologise and was told off by us and the other parents and he deserved it we also confiscated his phone and games for 6 weeks after making him put an apology on the group chat he had used to bully

@CandyLeBonBon but only slightly.

From another thread, relevant I think:

somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn,The Gulag

Oops missed the top of that quote:

If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn,The Gulag

My daughter was bullied by a boy with the loveliest parents ever. They also had another son who was very nice. So it's not always down to the parents
However this year she's been bullied again by a horrible girl who s mother is of the opinion her daughter can do no wrong. Despite the fact my daughter's mental health has been massively impacted.
If the bullying is outside the home I would suspect sometime the parents don't know.
So sometimes it's down to the parents but not always.

If you were as good a parent as you think you are @Helpwithaversion you would have raised a son not stupid enough to having been talked into bullying an innocent child by his 'stupid' friend

It does however make her a shit parent for making excuses for her child's bullying instead of giving/getting said child the support he needs.

Just as some of you are saying "I'm sick of people excusing bullies" I would like to say I'm sick of people who cannot see that sometimes a CHILD and let's remember they are all children, a CHILD going through a hard time needs help. In the highlighted example above, no-one said that the bullying should be excused, or that the bully shouldn't be punished, or that the school shouldn't protect the victim first etc etc.
And no-one said that the parent was making excuses for their child. Quite the opposite, the child's behaviour changed, The family realised why and put in help for the child.

This isn't black and white as the quote from The Gulag nicely expresses.
When a child starts to behave in this way, as any child can, even the wonderfully empathetic children of super mothers. When a child begins to behave in this way, the issue is that they need intervention.

In a good school, this intervention happens quickly with the protection of the victim at the forefront, and their safety paramount. Then the bully is given the support and help they need to get past whatever has happened to them eg bereavement.

The issue in 99% of the stories above is the school, and how they intervened, or failed to. I have worked in amazing schools where it happended properly, and victim and bully had help and the bullying stopped.

There are some kids and parents who will never change and who are genuinely nasty, but there are many who are not, they are kids in crisis.

Some people on this thread seem unable to distinguish between excuses and explanations.

Explaining a bully's behaviour is not (necessarily) excusing it.

Exactly @steppemum

Yup. The long term effects of bullying are far reaching. My daughter who was bullied by the child of the 'lovely' family (see downthread) refers to her yers of victimhood as being a cause of her ED and other issues. She's soldiered on and 'done well' but the cost to her mental health. Well. I can't even begin. As for her bullies? I see them around sometimes and for all I know they are blissfully unaware and unaffected. And as for their motivations? Honestly? From what I know (and yes yes there may be things I don't know) they had perfectly stable, ok childhoods. They were simply nasty and wanted to put someone else down.
Sorry if that hurts a few feelings. But when your child has been bullied it's often hard to keep your own feelings in check.
And the school did nothing

It doesn’t make me a bad parent that my child made the wrong choice the mark of a bad parent would be one who didn’t deal with it.
My ds needed to learn a harsh lesson from his own stupidity. We had always taught him to be kind. He didn’t. He was suitably ‘punished’ and learnt a lesson

and again - NO-ONE IS SAYING BULLYING IS OK.

really, no-one is saying that.
Or that it doesn't have serious and long reaching consequences, it obviously does.
No-one is saying that the victim shouldn't come first, or that the bullying is acceptable.

Instead what we are saying is that sometimes there is a reason, and rather than saying the child is a write -off and the parents are crap, maybe, just maybe, it is time someone intervened, and found out why.

And again, in your story TheoneandObi, the first port of call was the school, and the school failed. That is not OK.

I find it totally extraordinary that people are unable to see that there may be reason for behaviour and that those reasons should be investigated.

It is not an either or situation. It is not that either the victim or the perpetrator gets help. The victim must be protected and then the perpetrator must have help to change.
Or shall we just write off a 9 year old and say they are evil and there is no hope?