Bullying

[Pollyanna58]

If you grew up in a house where one parent was a bully, does it follow that at least one of the offspring would also be a bully ? Do we grow up learning behaviours that we consider normal until we meet the outside world ? How do I know that I didn’t/haven’t bullied my children ? One of them can be very unkind and bullying at times. Would I recognise this trait in myself ? I’ve had a bit of a ‘penny drop’ moment, whilst I’ve been mulling the latest bullying incident between my parents and realised that my sibling isn’t a bully - so is it me ? Do I ask my kids ? I’d really appreciate some opinions regarding this matter.

What do you mean by 'the latest bullying incident between my parents"? Do you mean one of them is a bully? What's your sibling got to do with that?

Yes. One of my parents bullies the other. My sibling is a kind person from what I can see/feel.
My reasoning is - if we are a product of our learned behaviours and my sibling isn’t the bully - am I ?

Absolutely not.

It may be that you both become people pleasers. Codependent or have traits of codependency that you have learned from the parent who tolerated the bully.

It in doubt, think on it like this - nasty people dont tend to have the ability to remotely consider that they might be the nasty ones. That level of introspection and self awareness is just not there with bullies.

My DF has always bullied my DM. If anything that has made me and my siblings default setting one of heightened defence and we are always on the attack when we 'perceive' anyone talking to us in a certain way which in turn means we are probably bullish in our response.

Umbrella thank you. I can see that I am a people pleaser. Which makes sense in relation to my child’s behaviour.

However, my thoughts were if l had learnt how to bully from my parent, perhaps my child had learnt it from me.

Its not a zero sum game. You could both be bullies, both be really nice people and both could be somewhere in between.

I think cluster b personality disorders like npd run in families to an extent. Partly genetic and sometimes, partly environment. But I dont believe they are 'learned'. More that trauma...breeds trauma. And sometimes people have the right combo of susceptible genetics and environment that allows these personality types to take route.

*take root.

@Pollyanna58

Umbrella thank you. I can see that I am a people pleaser. Which makes sense in relation to my child’s behaviour.

However, my thoughts were if l had learnt how to bully from my parent, perhaps my child had learnt it from me.

Where is the dad in this picture. Growing up in that kind of environment chances are you will pick a partner with bullying traits , as they will be completely normal to you. Could your child be learning them from the dad.

DH is a non confrontational personality. Favours silence over angry displays. That’s not to say he sulks. He just won’t address a problem if a quiet response gets a result. So when the children were young if they’d done something ‘naughty’ or silly or answered back DH would just stay quiet and not engage. In a way it’s own form of punishment for a youngster. Whereas I had a tendency to shout. Which now looking back seems a terrible thing to do to a little person. But equally I don’t remember it being something I did regularly because we used the 1,2,3 method of ‘control’ and I rarely got to 3.
My parent who is the bully did have a very unhappy childhood and I’m understanding more, especially after Umbrella’s post.