How should your child deal with bullies without lashing out

[DamselinDistress24]

I know this is more of a child development question but those boards tend to be very slow so please forgive me for posting here for advice

If your child can't avoid a bully (easily or at all) how would you advise them to deal with a bully to prevent them lasing out?

My child lashed out at a known bully today.

I had anticipated a possible problem and told her if the other child was annoying them or they were getting stressed to come to me and we'd use an excuse to leave.

I checked on them twice and they said things were going well.

10 mins later I found out they'd pushed the other child ...after the other child did what they often do by repeatedly correcting them (totally unnecessarily, based on a silly rule in her own household), insisting my child was wrong and should do what she's told by her etc. resulting in a two way scuffle.

(I think my child pushed first, it's not 100% clear).

I have told my kid she just can't get physical, even if someone is hassling or annoying her.
She got very upset (genuinely) afterwards and when I was trying to talk to her about it

I've told her to walk away. But I suppose it's not easy in some circumstances.... They were in a small upstairs wendy house. She clearly lost her temper before she had the wherewithal to leave it.

(She is just turned 7).

Does anyone have any advice on how to deal with this?

I think you need to be careful about using the word bully - none of this sounds like bullying to me unless there's a lot more to it. By this age my kids were long having dropoff play dates so I didn't need to get along with the parents and my kids could work out their own friendships. Does your daughter even want to play with this girl? From these stories it just sounds like normal kid jostling for alpha position in a friendship but perhaps they just aren't best suited. Really appreciate that friendships can be situational but this sounds oddly intense for a group of 6/7 year olds.

I'd just cool it all down for a while and explore other options - does your daughter go to any clubs? Any other kids she likes? She doesn't need to have play dates with these specific kids regularly if it's not easy and enjoyable.

My daughter was properly bullied in p6/7 and I encouraged her to fight back. She never did and it escalated for ages. I have always told my kids that if someone is bullying you over and over again and the adults aren't helping that you of course can push back - physically or verbally. And if anyone touches them they have my full permission to push back. But my daughter can't do any of that anyway.

OP, you need to teach your daughter how to communicate in that situation. That girl will neither change or stop in the way she communicates. She is simply copying the learned behaviour from home & expecting all the other girls to fall in line and do as she says. This is where you need to teach your daughter how she should react.

What do I advise?

"Boring!" as per above suggestion.
"Whatever"
"You're not my boss"
"That's your opinion, it's not mine".
"Play with someone else".

Is there a book anywhere on this lol

none of this sounds like bullying to me unless there's a lot more to it

Pushing a child roughly off the top of a slide so they get grazed,

Whatever she did to the little boy who accused her of bullying him,

Whatever she's done to the kids whose parents said she was bullying them (which her Mum claims is the parents not investigating and understanding, "all her DD did was not want to play with them"), seems unlikely,

She called my child "lazy" the last time we saw them - because she wouldn't do what she wanted her to do, hence me being on alert this time.

Now repeatedly telling my child off for daring to say she hated a certain food.

.... This child also said "You are a silly girl" a while back ..... I thought she was talking to my DD and was going to say "that's not very nice" but when I asked "who are you taking to?", she looked me straight in the eye and said "You". When I relayed this to her Mum, there was much BS ing about how that often call each other silly girls ..... But no explanation as to why her DD has saw fit to call me that, with no apparent context. I presumed the Mum had been calling me it (in hearing of her DD) because I had at some point disagreed with one of her many strong opinions and (unusually) stated that. I let it go at the time.

I also noticed some time back that her dd was encouraging another (easily led) child to run away from my DD and not wait or let her catch up when she was asking them to "wait up, please".

Another child in the group came in from the garden and said she (and a other child) were throwing her stuff or not letting her have it or something like that, ok a previous playdate.

Her Mum was almost proud of the fact that she used to hang out with the "bad boys" in her class. Both known to be bullies. Though one now has a one on one teaching assistant.

So .... Yeah, I think she's got a bullying side.

This child usually doubles up with the other dominant one and they somewhat leave the others alone, which is why I thought the playdate might be ok.

Does your daughter even want to play with this girl?.

She has increasingly said that she is annoying.

Today I asked her if she wanted to go, if she thought it would be ok.
She said she and this girl were on ok terms and she wanted to go.

I told her if she was annoying her, to come to me, but clearly it escalated very quickly and she lost her temper before she did.

My daughter was properly bullied in p6/7 and I encouraged her to fight back. She never did and it escalated for ages

Sorry that happened to her.

I've always said that you never start a fight but if someone else picks one, you finish it. In this situation I'd let her deck the other kid. Natural consequence of bullying.

Verbal bullying is a lot more insidious than physical and gets inside your head, destroying your self esteem and any confidence you ever had. So I'd rather she put the bully on their arse than let them carry on being vile to her and take that on herself.

Plus the bully should learn sooner rather than later that they aren't the biggest fish in the pond.

I'd tell her what I told mine, if they're bullying you, flatten the little bastards and do a good enough job of it that they won't be looking for a repeat any time soon. Only way to deal with bullies is to speak their language and be willing to hurt them more than they're willing to hurt you.

I was badly bullied at school right from primary school, one girl in particular was the ringleader, when I was 15 I snapped after she started getting right in my face, I pinned her up against the wall by her throat, probably kept hold of her slightly longer than I should have, but she never bothered me again.

Fair play to you.

I only wish I'd been big enough to do that at school, I was one of the littlest lol

The problem is we are wondering how to get our children to deal with these situations when the real question is why are they being put in these situations and where is the teacher supervision. You can’t throw your kid into a dog eat dog environment and then expect her to navigate them with some phrases. Imagine workplace bullying if HR told people to just deal with it. Imagine if women in domestic violence situations were given some mediation techniques over the phone and then hung up on?
It up to adults to police these situations and stop bullying behavior and protect victims, it’s not for kids to upskill

Having a very active social life is not the be all and end all. Why do you think it's so important?

Plus, that makes no sense , as your daughter's social life seems very limited (mainly this group) and it either upsets her or makes her lash out.

After the extra information, this girl and her mother don't sound like a good fit for you. Soon it will move to dropoff and would you feel comfortable leaving your daughter at their house without you? If not it's time to calm this down - maybe once a month somewhere neutral if you want to carry on but it really doesn't sound great for your kid to spent hours a month with this girl.

It's never too early to teach your kids to respect their own time and walk away from the things that bring them harm. While she's still young you have overall control over their time so you can stop this sort of stuff. Once she's a bit older she will have her own ideas about friendship and you don't want her normalising this sort of relationship.

It's obvious to me, it's time to wind down the group and just organise play dates with nice individuals. It all sounds like a very strange set up to me and it sounds like there's only a few people involved anyway, one of which your dd doesn't like - why are you so afraid to let go of it?

@DamselinDistress24

I'd think that this type of behaviour, the way one child attempts to control behaviour of those around, in this case her, is very common.

If you look at a typical group situation in this age group, where kids are free to find their own friendships, then those who are easier going, and feel safer in a group will attach themselves to the type who likes to lead. This dynamic, although it has its disadvantages also tends to last a while, unless the "leader" goes too far and becomes too bossy for the followers to accept.

If however the " leader" type personality comes across a child who doesn't wish to be organised or told what to do but still wants a friendship group, they often clash. A breakup of the friendship group entails with various combinations of siding with one or the other. Things are up and down for a couple of days until generally the group reunites and are friends again for a short while till the next episode.
In my opinion this happens more frequently in groups such as your own, where the children haven't got full control over who is invited, because it's the mums doing the organising.

Another dynamic, which in my opinion is far less common, is the child who is completely fine with their own company and therefore at an advantage over "leader/bossy" child.
They don't care if they aren't included in a group activity and don't get in the least upset at not being invited to something, because they don't want to be in the presence of bossy child anyway.
This type of child would not have argued with "bossy" child because their opinion is irrelevant to them.

How this type of child is then treated in return usually depends on whether they treat others with respect and kindness or look down on them for their "neediness".

In your shoes I would consider whether your daughter actually wishes to be friends with these children. If you believe she really does, then accept that the group will probably clash on and off till end of primary and then they'll find their own ways in secondary.

Given your update, I would stop hosting group play dates completely. Your daughter will find her tribe and be relaxed with them. My daughter works full time and can't host play dates. My grandson has lots of friends at school and the very occasional play date. He's nearly six. This other child does sound like a bully and I would not want her in my home nor want to leave my child in her home unsupervised. Yes, give your daughter advice about stepping away etc, but ultimately you are feeding her to the lion. This sounds like a very unpleasant child

The child sounds a bit painful, but this latest incident is not bullying in any sense of the world - she reiterated a house rule, to a slightly annoying degree, which your daughter had challenged. That's really really normal behaviour for a 6yo; they find it hard to grasp the nuance of "different families have different rules" at that age, and can be quite rigid in their thinking.

While she doesn't sound like a particularly pleasant kid, the fact you're jumping to accusations of bullying is troubling - she's very young to be written off in that way. It's likely that a bit more time at school will improve her social skills and stop her just parroting her mother all the time.

OP, the more you write, the worse you come across.
The girl may be bossy, but all your posts have just made me empathise with her rather than you.

the fact you're jumping to accusations of bullying is troubling

I'm not.

A little boy at a party at the same house said she was bullying him.

Other kids have clearly claimed she bullied them.
(Her Mum told me about it and told me her take on that ... Which was not convincing).

I see dominant (at the very least) behaviour from her and excluding/ganging up on others.

On one occasion she was reported for throwing another child's stuff where she couldn't get it.

I've said all this in the posts above.

I'm not sure how to help my child do that - in the moment.

I told her twice before the playdate to come to me if this girl's behaviour was annoying her .. and checked on her twice. 10 mins after the second check, this happened and she clearly did not "think".

she's very young to be written off in that way

I agree they are all very young and have a lot of developing to do.

I'm not "writing her off", I'm only saying that her behaviour is currently bullying or at the very least verging on it.

And asking for advice on how to deal with it.

Her Mum has many good sides and the playdate group is otherwise a nice little group, never socialising with them again is a bit scorched earth.

(I do try to organise other playdates but these are clearly the most open and available Mums, the other ones happen but are far between and take a lot of organising. This one happens most weeks).

And I have a very expensive Christmas experience booked with them for that matter.

That's really really normal behaviour for a 6yo; they find it hard to grasp the nuance of "different families have different rules" at that age, and can be quite rigid in their thinking.

Good point.

And her Mum has a very authoritarian, absolute style with her.

So she probably just can't see that it may not be the norm.

This is very insightful, thank you.

(And I have to say it often seems to continue through to adulthood).

It's a slightly side issue, but it won't move to drop off because the playdate is as much a Mums meetiup as a playdate.

We have started to socialise on our own outside of playdates too.

"In our house we're not allowed to say 'hate'"

Ah well that's good, because we're not in your house. Haters gonna hate.

Get your kid to deliver that line with some sass and it's problem solved 😅

@DamselinDistress24 at least be honest, this is about you and YOUR social group isn't it? That's what you don't want to lose either by distancing OR your DD kicking off.

A couple of my closest friends I originally met through my daughter - her friendships didn't continue but mine did. If your daughter isn't enjoying it anymore that doesn't mean you have to stop seeing these women.