Would you want to know if your child is a bully

[RosieSpring]

As it says in the title, Would you want to know if your child is a bully and what would you do about it.

I would be mortified but I’d absolutely want to know so I could speak to them about their behaviour
I have a zero tolerance for bullying.

Any particular reason you’re asking? Who wouldn’t want to know? What’s the vote?

Of course I would want to know if my child was a bully as first there not being brought up that way and second it needs dealt with ASAP

Yes I'd genuinely want to know. I've met a few who have said that though and then get a bit waspy and defensive when confronted with things. Even though in seperate conversation they've acknowledged and highlighted other poor behaviour from their child. I know a family who have genuine fears their child with seriously hurt their siblings in a very serious way, but when informed about them mistreating others have flat out said "this seems out of character for our child". If it's an issue impacting you or your child, I'd not give a care if the parents want to know. You need to tell them.

Yes, absolutely. I would hope neither of my kids would-we have talked about that since they were tiny.
If they are bullying, there's something wrong in their life, and my job to sort that out. I would want to know if someone was pressuring them to go along with bullying, or what else caused them to do this. And morally, I am not ok with my child hurting someone else and I would want to work with the teachers to stop that.

In my experience it isn't as simple as that. A child who is a bully generally either has parents who are bullies themselves, or has parents who can literally see no wrong in their entitled little sweet angel.

So you tell the parents and they either flatly refuse to believe it, in fact they turn it around and believe that their child is the one being bullied. Or, they are horrified but their way of dealing with it is to bully their child further, thus giving the child no skills to stop bullying because it's all they know.

I’d also add that sometimes kids don’t get on and parents can’t accept that so label the other child a bully.

I don’t think a conversation going to another parent saying their child is a bully (which is a horrible and emotive word) will ever end well.

Either as you say the child is a bully but has learned it from the parents- so they are unlikely to take the comments well- or the children just don’t get on.

Much better to approach as our children don’t seem to be getting on, how can we address that- rather than using such loaded language

I'd agree with @Credittocress comment.

I think yes if it's from teachers, no from parents.

I've seen too often where a parent labels a child as a bully, when actually it's either the children not getting on or a brief fall out and parent over reacting. And children do know that bully is an emotive word and will use it to try and force another child to doing what they want aka as bullying themselves. "If you won't play the game I want then you're a bully".

When we all tell a story, we see it from our side, and children are the same.
So them saying "Emma wouldn't play with me, and told me to go away" won't necessarily connect the fact that they pinched Emma's pencil earlier and stabbed it in her hand and Emma is reacting to that.
They are telling the truth as they see it, but not the whole picture.

If as a parent you do go to a parent it should be with a "how can we sort this out between us" attitude and be prepared to hear that your child has 50% of the blame.

Yes I’d want to know and I’d be stopping him from attending a club if it was there for a short time and then monitor it and take action again if it started again.

If it was at school I’d support them with whatever consequences they put in place.

My ds was bullied in the past and it wasn’t dealt with correctly or successfully so I know how those parents if a bullied child would feel.

Too add - I would expect the info to come from a non involved adult who’s witnessed it too.

I’ve seen the word bully banded about because X won’t play with them all too often when X has reason to say that.

I think you need to be careful about labelling behaviour as bullying, particularly if you want a favourable response.

Yes, some kids are bullies. Others try out behaviours and just need to he corrected.

Telling a childs parents that their child is a bully will go down like a shit sandwich. Expressing concerns about an observed behaviour is 100% something most parents will want to address.

This is so funny, the people i know in real life who post the most on social media about being kind have kids who are outright bullies and when confronted say things like, if I ever find out you did this thing you’ll be for it. But they already did find out, they were told. No one’s going to come to them with cctv or whatever. They just never want to admit that there kid did this thing.

the people i know in real life who post the most on social media about being kind have kids who are outright bullies

Yes, I've seen the same thing.