Child is a bully

[andannabegins]

Has anyone found out their child is a bully. What did they do?

Just bumping this for you OP, Hopefully someone will be passing who has dealt with this.

So sorry you're having to deal with this Bullying can come from different things so it's hard to make suggestions or to share experiences without knowing a bit more. How old is your child, and what's been happening? Are they lashing out in a temper, or picking on a specific child, or getting other children to gang up, saying nasty things about another child, or excluding them?

Sometimes it's just thoughtlessness and you can fix it by coming down on the behaviour like a ton of bricks. But if it's more than a one-off then maybe it's a sign of a deeper problem - maybe you have a child who doesn't really understand how to make friends or join in a game, or who is very easily wound up, or is angry and miserable over something - and you need to help them find a way round the problems as well. Talk to the school about how your child is coping generally, how their friendships and general social life are going.

One book I've found useful for all kinds of social problems is The Unwritten Rules of Friendship It has sections to help children who lash out, intimidate or try to control others. (It also has sections on children who are vulnerable to being bullied - sometimes children can be both!)

I think there is often a very black and white view of bullying OP when in fact it's grey. Probably at some point to some extent most children bully and are bullied.

You need to be calm, talk through why it is totally wrong and a reflection on them not the victim. And work on the child's social skills because bullies generally have poor social skills and it is this that causes it. Persistent bullies are also most likely to be bullied it turns round on them generally and sometimes they end up being school refusers.