How to teach my kid not to be mean?

[Khlgfswh]

Ds is in yr1 primary and Ibhave heard from others that him and his friend can be quite mean to other kids. He is fine with other kids one to one but when he is with his best friend it seems it's not always kind to others. I get the impression that his best friends mum is not very welcoming of a chat about it. I have spoken to the school to see if they could be supervised better at playtime. I have repeatedly spoken to DS about it. Any tips on what strategies worked for you?

Show him you being kind.
Acknowledge when he is kind at home, if he does a little act of kindness "oh that was lovely, thank you, I am so proud when you are kind"

Ask him about his day - tell me a kind thing that happened.
Point out kind things others do -arr did you see that kind girl/boy,
something on TV ohh wasn't that kind

Positivity around kindness ✨️

I have spoken to the school to see if they could be supervised better at playtime.

You need to teach him to behave appropriately, not put the responsibility of another poorly brought up child on to schools and wider society.

Nip it in the bud. You don't want him to be THAT kid. No invites to parties? Awkward chats with the parents? Wouldn't be for me. Tell him to be nice, explain you've been told xyz and ask him what happened.
Also suggest the school keep them apart if they bring out the worst in each other.

@tiggergoesbounce has given excellent advice above. Also, if the friend is not a good influence, can you ask for them to be in different forms next year?

The Op is dealing with it, that's why she's asking for strategies to help.

@Shaldar all kids are mean sometimes OP clearly doesn't want her child to be THAT child. They are obviously trying to deal with things so you take your lovely comment elsewhere if you are not going to be constructive.

We did quite a bit of role play with ours as they have adhd/asd. Hey didnt have much empathy which we had to teach.

Iv had to deal with dc having a friend who wasn't very nice to others but OK with my dc. I basically said if I found they were being unkind or mean to other kids in their class the consequence would be xxx

This is good advice.

The fact you’ve noticed and want to do something is the thing that is going to make the biggest difference.

In my experience the children who are perpetually unkind are the ones who believe they are untouchable as their parents won’t hear anything said against their precious darling and deny the possibility their child could ever be unkind.

Will take these ideas on board. My point about the school is that for all that I can talk to him at home, am not there in the playground. I would actually appreciate them getting told off so that my message is reinforced at school as well as at home. Am also not always aware when he has been mean at school. Out of school he is fine on playdates with the other kids and is not mean then. We are trying to deal with it precisely because I don't want DS to be that kid.

Would anyone have any suggestions about how best to roll play different scenarios with their DCs or any books that have worked particularly well?

Has your DS said why he is being mean? Obviously he is only in yr 1 so you wouldn't expect a fully articulated reason behind it, but has he given any indication as to why when you've asked him?

If the issue is when he is with this particular boy, maybe you could use some teddies/action figures etc to act out scenarios. He needs some ideas of how to tell his friend that he is not going to join in with nasty behaviour and to tell his friend that he is being nasty.
Maybe you could act out some situations with toys, and get him to come up with some ideas and take on different roles - his friend, himself, or the victim.

I found role play really helpful - especially with understanding after the event how things could be different another time.
I'd set up a scenario where your DS is on the receiving end of the behaviour you are trying to discourage so he understands better how it feels when someone is unkind towards you. It's not a feeling that children know instinctively and often does have to be learned.

@Demonhunter With the girls, my impression is they take some of their games too far i.e. they keep chasing them even if they dont want to take part. I obviously told him that this has to stop. He says they are not mean to the boys. My impression is that his best mate has always liked to create in groups and out groups (other parents have told me that he's always done that even before DS joined the school) - and now that DS is in his in-group - they are basically doing the same to others. When I suggested that he shouldn't play with his best friend and play with the others - he says that he has no other friends and will then have to sit by himself at break time. I do tend to believe him a) because some of the other boys are pretty wild and DS wouldn't fit in with them b) his best mate's mum is at the centre of all friendship networks so if she hears what we have suggested to DS - I can totally see us being cut off from the network.

If we ask him to be moved to the other class next year then he really wont know anyone or have any friends at all. I obviously dont want DS to be a mean kid and really want to put together a strategy that works.

Unfortunately, I don't really know in what way they are being mean. I just heard it from other parents. I obviously dont have a list of things they do/dont do to hand.

Whilst I completely agree with praising kindness, that didn’t work with my son. The only thing that got results was consequences. So I asked the teacher to tell me at the end of the day whether my child had behaved well or whether he had done anything. My DS knew I would be asking the teacher. Every day. If the teacher told me about any negative behaviour there was a consequence. Usually loosing screen time because that bothers DS and things like naughty step don’t. Consistently addressing all negative behaviour was the only thing that worked for us because if we ever ‘ignored the bad’ he took that as a green light to misbehave and he would take a mile given an inch.
I would add school supported this approach and helped me with terminology so not “you’ve been bad” but “that isn’t good behaviour because” sort of language.
It took time but we are seeing results.

That sounds great. We definitely check in with the teacher every day - but in class DS is always fine. I think it's usually at break time that things arent great when there are hardly any teachers about. My impression is there are usually a couple of TAs standing at one end of the playground. But they dont get involved much. I have asked their head of year to keep and eye out and let me know if anything happens but they dont seem to know whats going on all that much.

I don't think modelling and praising kindness at home will help, because he is only being mean in one specific context. He knows there would be consequences for crossing the other kid, and that's the problem that needs to be dealt with.

How would you deal with the problem of crossing the other kid? I also dont think he is always scared of him. He likes being in the in-group and having a reliable buddy. It's just that they are not nice to the other kids.

I don't think that's something he can fix by himself, the school need to step in imo.

How are you finding out he isn't kind? Because anything at school should be spoken to you via school so that teachers are aware.

I reccomend verbalising how you feel if someone is unkind to you. Making it explicit what was unkind and why it upset you.

Consequences should also be in place for repeat offences. If he's doing the same thing over and over, step in.

I found out about it from his friends as in they told me that him and his friend can be mean sometimes. The school haven't said anything so it's not from them. However, I have asked them to keep an eye out.

I'd take anything his friends say with a pinch of salt too. My child thinks I'm being mean when I won't buy them a toy at that age.

Really if the school haven't said anything about it, it can't be that bad.

Can you arrange some play dates with the kid he is being mean with so that you can watch their behaviour and correct it as needed?

Can you arrange some play dates with the kid they are being mean to so that he builds a stronger bond with the kid and (hopefully) not want to break their bond by being mean?

Can you arrange some play dates with other kids so your child slowly moves away from the mean kid?

I think you can try to encourage empathy as a first step. However, what is very rarely acknowledged is that not all children actually care that much about the feelings of others. They're simply not made that way, and will prioritise their own wish to say what they think, have fun teasing another child etc over being nice. This is simply part of the variations of human nature, and why adults need laws and punishment to ensure we behave properly rather than merely being asked nicely to treat each other well. Children are no different and if the appeals to empathy fail, tougher measures are called for. So a clear instruction they must not do this or that, and if they do this (sanction) will be the consequence.