My child is a bully

[Iknowjustthething]

It’s really hard, and I worry all the time I caused it. He was a very aggressive toddler but I kept reading it was normal. Now he’s 3 and a half. He often just takes a dislike to a random child and targets them. Of course I take him away but it never has a lasting effect. Sometimes we go a while without any incidents then it starts again. I worry he’s going to cause serious harm to his baby sister.

I am not necessarily posting for advice as have tried pretty much everything after months / years of worrying about this and I think I’m just at the point now where I think it’s just his personality.

It’s definitely worth thinking about other examples and see if you can see any common themes, for example attention seeking or just simply wanting to be involved and not knowing how to communicate that. Without knowing more about how developed he is in terms of his speech, emotionally etc it could well be that he doesn’t know how to properly communicate what it is he wants and his frustration at that comes out in what looks like anger.

My nephew was sort of similar in that his speech was a bit behind other kids and a bit socially awkward, so he often would get in trouble for pushing kids over, snatching things from them, knocking over their toys/sand castles/lego towers, he would shout and scream, but none of that was actually anger (although it looked like it), it was just him getting frustrated because he didn’t know how to express what he actually wanted. He wanted to play WITH them, or he wanted to play with that toy, or he wanted some attention, but he just wasn’t able to express that properly. It was a lot of back to basics, learning how to communicate properly, lots of patience but he is a completely different child now

Yes I agree with this too. It sounds like it's attention, and he will take it in whatever form it comes.

Why do you think that? My GP didn't laugh me out of the surgery when my son was referred. I would personally ask to see a HV who is SEN trained (not all of them are, the one I saw specialised in this hence referral).

But two years on you’d expect a difference. He has improved though so maybe I’m being harsh.

MrsC - I know you’re trying to help but nursery are clear they don’t think there are additional needs, he’s passed (for want of a better word) his checks from the HV, and I go to the GP for shoving some kids at a park, it won’t go down well. Time will tell.

So what does he say when you ask him why he is doing it, OP?

I think you should talk to the GP or your HV. There might be some neurodivergence. You might also benefit from some kind of help with your parenting.

You can't just label him as a bully at three and a half, shrug your shoulders and say "well that's just his personality". That's complete bollocks and an abdication of your responsibility as a parent. He is tiny. Nothing is set in stone as yet.

Google fixed mindsets/growth mindsets. You seem to be approaching this issue from a very "fixed mindset" perspective. You seem almost resigned to your ds being on some kind of negative trajectory in which he will always be an aggressive bully. I mean this kindly, but that's ridiculous. He is a toddler!!!

I think you need to get help, OP, otherwise the labels that you are putting on your ds now will become a self-fulfilling prophesy. He will eventually start to believe that what you say about him is true, and he will act accordingly.

Trying to butt in between other children and jumping on your sister are not aggressive or bullying behaviour. He HASN’T been like this since before you were pg because he can only have been a baby himself. Your pitch seems to be way above the level most three year olds could be expected to understand and your interpretation of his behaviour seems very wrong and concerning.

Hi @Iknowjustthething please ignore the unhelpful comments here.
Couple of things. There is help out there - try this first of all

www.youngminds.org.uk/parent/parents-a-z-mental-health-guide/counselling-and-therapy/

I can't see how unless you've been abusing your child how this can be your fault. Some toddlers are just difficult. But with the right help you CAN nip this in the bud.
You've taken a first brave step!

Lots have posters have asked, and it’s quite a key question. Are his speech, language and communication skills good or is he delayed?

@Mrsttcno1 its so random is the thing. Sometimes weeks will go by where he’s great and then he’ll suddenly seem to randomly take a dislike to a child and push them or something? I guess they could remind him of someone he doesn’t like at nursery or the TV or something, children are peculiar.

Sorry, I am multi tasking. His speech follows a normal trajectory although not as sophisticated as some children. Conversations are very rambling and as such sometimes hard to know what’s gone in.

She was in a Bumbo and he jumped on her.

That sounds so normal.

I had a preschooler, toddler & baby. I had to constantly make sure that I was positioning the baby to be safe from active toddlers / preschoolers

Honestly, I can't believe you've over-dramatised this to 'he nearly broke her neck' & conflated it with him being a 'bully'.

Parental concerns don't just get laughed off, though you might still get a wait-and-see. You involve the GP because they can the referrals started. And that's what the diary of incidents is for, so you get taken more seriously.

I do know a parent who was blown off by her health visitor and heaved a sigh of relief after her child started school and within a week the school called her in talking about a referral. But you flagging it up now can't hurt.

I never see a pleasant or supportive post from to, you know. Bullying takes many forms. If he’s landed on her he would easily have broken her neck. But obviously you know better

So you get him to a) stop b) apologise c) leave the park (if he's already behaved badly, or one more chance if not).

He's under 4. He's still learning.

It is hard, I'm not saying it isn't. But you seem to think it's something exceptional - it isn't. It's normal.

(Clearly if he never learns to regulate his behaviour, that's an issue).

Please leave the thread Earrings. I don’t like the way you speak to posters on here and I don’t want to engage with you.

You've listed many.

I don't see 'many' signs of autism here. That doesn't mean it's not a possibility, and OP should seek a referral if she wishes, but regardless, he'll have to manage his behaviour.

Perhaps stop blaming yourself. Reward all the good behavior like lots of attention make a huge fuss of him zif hes nsughty, remove him ftom the situation and put him in the corner. Explaining until he apologises you will not speak to him. Keep putting him back in the corner without speaking to him til he says sorry. Hugs and a big fuss when he does. But stop thinking he's bad and you're to blame. He's just a little boy.

I'd recommend reading 'How to Talk so Kids will Listen and Listen so Kids will Talk', as I think its recommendations are good for this. I think you need to be careful you don't mentally label your child as a bully, even kind of subconsciously, and one recommendation the book makes when you feel your kid is like this or that is to pick up and praise the behaviour that isn't like that. Ie, find ways to praise him being gentle, playing nicely.

Nothing's going to work quickly, and also bear in mind he might just outgrow this, I don't think negative behaviour at his age indicates a definite set personality - kids his age are not empathetic but as he develops he will understand the feelings of others more and see that the sort of behaviour he's been engaged in won't be popular with them.

Thanks @Mog65 . I did have a fright this morning and I’m dealing with a few horrible things in RL. So I am feeling very low just at the moment and beating myself up for all my (many!) parenting fails!

Well, don't then. But you don't control a thread or who posts.

I was reassuring you that your DS
sounded entirely normal in his behaviour (and I recognised it was hard, but apparently you've ignored me saying that twice 🤷🏻‍♀️) and it's unfair to call your poor son a bully.

I also suggested what you might do.

But that's fine, you're not interested & don't want the advice, no problem

Hope your day gets better, maybe taking it on posters that are trying to help isn't the best approach?

@Iknowjustthething i think your expectations are not age appropriate and your interpretation of what is driving his behaviour is not accurate but is also quite fixed and unkind in a way that would make me concerned that you might not be reacting or thinking as you normally would. With that in mid I think visiting the GP would be a very good idea and explaining to them what you’ve seen and the conclusions you’ve drawn. I really hope that doesn’t sound horrid because I do think you need some help.

Sorry to hear that.

Remember many people are also dealing with difficult things, came here to try & help & don't really deserve to be castigated for that & told to leave the thread.

You’d probably find if you really look at each thing that happened that day/leading up, that it’s not as random as you think it is, it’s very unlikely to be something like reminding him of someone at nursery or tv.

It takes a lot of time, interest & patience but you’d probably be able to find a pattern if you look carefully at every part of the day that leads up to the outburst. For example it may be that it’s the morning after a bad nights sleep, maybe then he didn’t want to eat his breakfast and so he’s a bit peckish, maybe then he wanted attention and you were feeding baby/preparing a meal/cleaning house (all totally normal things), maybe he was REALLY excited for the park that day and so that on top of being a bit tired and a bit hungry then leads to being a bit overwhelmed when he gets to the park and so he then instead of asking to play or asking for a turn on the swings goes to pushing or shouting etc? There will almost definitely be triggers along the way that are so small and probably seem so irrelevant to you as an adult but to him feel huge.

You have to remember as well, even as adults we have bad days, days where we are a bit snappier than normal, where we are a bit huffy, we don’t communicate the best, we get a bit frustrated. As adults we don’t push and shove obviously BUT we do act differently when we are feeling upset, angry, tired, frustrated. Kids are feeling those big feelings too and haven’t learned yet how to deal with them or express them properly, our job as parents is to teach them how to identify their feelings and how to cope with them. It’s about teaching him to be aware enough to know that he is feeling X and the best way to deal with that is Y, rather than currently where he feels those feelings but doesn’t understand what they are, what they mean or how to express them leading to this frustration/anger outburst x

I really don’t want to engage with you. You’ve been absolutely vile to me on many occasions.