When Your Child’s Aggression is Worrisome: Was He Bullied First? How do we handle these conversations?

In today's episode, I invite you into my real-time coaching session with a stepmom of a 5-year-old who hit his cousin hard enough to leave a mark just weeks after he was bullied at a birthday party. If you've ever watched your child do something so unlike them that it scared you and you weren't sure whether to come down hard or dig deeper, this conversation is for you. Welcome to the Parent Coaching Chair podcast. I'm your host, Julie Fragnito, and your partner in parenting here. Where we'll talk with real parents about their real moments. Come along as we grow from each other's experiences and receive practical, high-structure, high-nurture tools that you can use to lead confidently at home. Before we dive in, if you're struggling with something at home right now and wish you could just ask me what to do in the moment, you can. Ask Julie is my 24/7 instant parent coaching service. Send me your situation and get a personalized response rooted in my high structure, high nurture approach. It's unlimited messages every month, and if you sign up for the year, you get 2 months free. Learn more at transformingparenthood.com.

So I have a 5-year-old stepson and there was a situation where he slapped his older— she's maybe 7 or 8 years old. His cousin, and we weren't sure if it was related to another situation that he had experienced of bullying. So I just wanted to get a little bit of advice on kind of how to navigate that situation. The instance of bullying had happened first. They were at a birthday party and a child that was supposed to be his best friend had been observed to engage in hitting or kicking my stepson, and he ended up running behind his dad. And he was smiling, but it seemed like he was uncomfortable. And it didn't escalate further than that at that birthday party, but then not too long after, his mom had let us know that there was an instance of slapping his cousin, and we were concerned that those two instances were related.

Can you tell me maybe what was going on, as much to your knowledge, like before the hit, during the hit, after the hit, and what was done about it? You know, like, was it discussed with him?

I know that when it happened, it happened in a car and that his grandmother was driving. So she unfortunately wasn't able to like see the whole situation with her eyes. Mm-hmm. But she said that the hit was hard enough where a mark was left on his cousin's face. I mean, that's very atypical of my stepson, so we just wanna make sure that those two instances aren't related. And if they are, kind of just how to navigate a conversation about Number 1, how he might be feeling about the bullying situation, but 2, how that might translate into other situations that he's experiencing, like with his cousin, for example.

Are these literally the only 2 instances that you could point to where he's reacted with anger or aggression?

He does play video games at his dad's house, but I don't know if that has an impact necessarily. He has a younger sister, and I haven't seen any aggression toward her outside of typical sibling, like, You know, pulling her hair, messing with her clothes kind of thing.

Sure.

And I think these are really the only two instances, but we're just trying to be really on top of it, especially with the situation that we're in with his parents being divorced and then having a stepmom.

Was any of this moment or situation discussed with him?

Yes. I unfortunately wasn't there for the situation, but I think the discussion of violence isn't the answer was the conversation that was had. And I wish I had been there for the conversation to be able to know how to navigate it or to see how he might have reacted. But because I wasn't there, unfortunately, I don't have as much information as I wish I did. Okay. That's helpful.

I know it's tough when you're not 100% sure of all the detail, but I think it's clear that you are taking this seriously and you just want to make sure that there's nothing too alarming here going on. In that you wanna just kind of get maybe like a little reference or guide of how do I handle this if it happens again? How do I handle this if it comes up in a conversation when I am present? And what's normal, what's not normal, and what is the proper response? Those are some things that come to mind that it sounds like you're here for. Tell me if I didn't mention something or if there's anything you wanna add to your intention for being here.

No, that all sounds perfect.

Okay. So the first thing that I want to say is this feels really scary because it feels like you're seeing your child become someone that they are not, right? You said this is really atypical of him. We're not really sure. We want to take this seriously. And oftentimes we worry immediately and our brain jumps to, is, is this who's he, who he's becoming? Who is he becoming? Where did he see something like this? But I just wanna mention first and foremost that one isolated act of aggression doesn't tell us who he is, and it doesn't necessarily point to this being the, the result of something else. This is what it does tell us. It tells us that he was struggling with something in that very moment. Mm-hmm. And I'm gonna ask if you have more details about that specific moment in the car, but I just wanna kind of set that stage first and foremost that our job is not to ever excuse this kind of behavior. I'm not trying to say, Oh, it's all right. It just happened once. Or, you know, this is not a big deal. It's normal for a 5-year-old to do that when they, when they don't know what else to do. But instead, I want to tell you that we're here because I'm going to help you understand what skill is actually missing while still holding true to our leadership and making sure that our boundary is really clear, that we never hit, we never say anything harmful towards somebody. And that's the bottom line. Is there anything that comes to mind in the, or that you know about for the specific car situation? Were they playing with something and she had it and he hit her? Did she say something and he hit her? Did Grandma say something and he hit? Do you have any details about the moment of the actual hitting?

I don't. I really wish that I did. We asked for more information earlier this week. But unfortunately, because Grandma was driving, she wasn't really attending too much until after the fact. Okay.

And with the parents of his cousin, was there any discussion with her or any conversation about that moment with the daughter and that actually got hit?

I don't think so.

Okay.

Okay.

Let's talk about nervous system stuff. First. I like to kind of do a quick understanding and then I'll jump into 3 tools that you can kind of take with you moving forward about these moments. And I will address that bullying question that you have. The first thing that I wanna say is that bullying definitely dysregulates a child's nervous system. There's no question about that, right? Like if somebody just went up to him somewhere and kicked him or did something to him or hurt him, it could stick with him. It maybe didn't, but in that very moment, it definitely isn't right. And our bodies know when something isn't right. Our bodies know when something doesn't feel safe. And so in that very moment that you mentioned that happened a while back, when children feel powerless or embarrassed or, you know, unsafe socially, the feelings don't simply just disappear. It could kind of manifest itself into something inside of him. Many 5-year-olds don't quite have the language to process what is actually happening in these moments. So he could have felt confused. He could have felt embarrassed. He could be uncertain about why he got hurt. And so I think in these moments, we wanna pay close attention and be sure to follow up with him and engage with him about these moments so that we can kind of help him resolve them before it manifests into him going and hitting somebody else. Now, do I think that these things are directly related? It is unlikely because typically when I work with parents on behavior challenges, they are reoccurring behavioral issues. It's not just this happened once. It's more of this keeps happening and I have tried this and I've tried this and I've tried this and nothing is seemingly working. Were you present when he actually got hit by another kid?

His father was, so I have more information there.

Can you tell me more about that? Did he speak with him about it?

Yeah, it was at a, a birthday party and it was actually the child whose birthday it was, him and one other child that his father doesn't know very well. And he noticed that they were both hitting him from behind. So our son was kind of turned around. And they were hitting his back. And earlier somebody else had said that they had seen those same kids kicking him and he was on the ground. And our son had ended up getting up and running behind his dad and he was laughing, but it seemed like an uncomfortable, like, I'm not sure what to do in this situation kind of laugh. And the kids had stopped following him and, and were just kind of looking at his dad. We're not sure what to do now that there's an adult present. It's such a sensitive topic, bullying, because you want to be able to teach your child what to do in that situation.

Mm-hmm.

Because you can't necessarily prevent bullying from happening, but you can at least teach them how to respond. And we weren't quite sure how to do that. Sure.

Sure. I think that this is all really helpful stuff. The bottom line is that inevitably things are going to be hard in our lives. People are going to say mean things. People are going to do mean things. We have no control. Over others, but the only thing we do have control over is ourselves and the conversations that we're having with our children. And so we need to kind of keep that open dialogue so that we can actually know more for when moments like this happen and what he's going through and make sure that everything is okay and that we could help him build that confidence to handle these moments again, right? Because we're not actually sure how to properly handle him. So how are we properly supposed to teach him what to do when these things happen?

Great.

So the first thing that I wanna start with is naming the feeling underneath, not in like an overindulging therapy session kind of way, but hey, maybe when we get back in the car after that party, it's just a, hey, what was going on with those, with those kids? Why were they kicking you? You looked— insert feeling there, right? You looked uncomfortable, or you looked a little scared. You didn't look happy. It doesn't even have to be anything that deep. Just start the conversation by bringing it up, getting curious. And instead of being directive or corrective in any way, you know, if that happens, don't, don't say with kids like that, they're hurting you. You're giving him the feeling that he was wrong. We wanna get on his level and be curious. Hey, tell me, tell me what was going on. I. I didn't even see it happening until you came close to me. I'm sorry that I didn't see what was going on. I'm just curious. Gather the information, figure out what's going on. Same thing with the hitting of the cousin moment. Instead of approaching your stepson with like, why did you hit your cousin? You could just start a simple conversation as soon as grandma tells you, hey, we need to sit and have this conversation and say, hey, I wonder. What's going on? Grandma let me know that you got really frustrated in the car and it came out as a hit. Did she say something to you? Kind of like how I asked you, did she say something to you? Did she take something from you? Did Grandma say something to you? And with boys, sometimes it's a little hard to get conversation out of them or feelings out of them, so we make it a little bit more fun. Did she pop your bubble gum and make him giggle and he'll be like, No, she didn't do that. This is what happened. And then you'll get more of the feeling, but not with judgment, not with throwing rules at him. And this is what you need to do next time. It's just getting information. And the bottom line, what I like to call this skill is teaching our kids to notice. That is one of the most important skills in the world of social-emotional learning. We need to help our kids connect their behaviors to their emotions. Because emotions are what drives the behavior. So until they can actually identify, oh shoot, I'm feeling frustrated right now, then they're not going to be able to say, oh, that's why it came out as a hit. And when we do this, we actually don't judge them for being bad or for being aggressive or hurtful, and we're not scolding them. We're just understanding, hey, this is so unlike you. Tell me what was going on. And that will help him to really open up and have it become a learning moment for him and for you guys.

That's really helpful. It's, it sounds so simple, but I, I, I think it's really gonna be impactful.

And I like that you said it sounds simple, right? That's what I'm here for. I wanna bring the practical stuff that's gonna provide relief with such a little bit of work. It's not that hard to do that. And we can just step forward and be like, hey, I'm gonna get curious. And it's gonna go a long way with opening the dialogue and making him feel safer to share these things with you in the future. The second tool that I wanna give you is to teach the difference between hurt and hurting. Because in both of these cases, in one of them he was getting hurt and in one of them he was hurting. And so in these moments where you are getting curious, we want to make these words clear for him. I wonder if they hurt your feelings. Or that wasn't okay. We wanna let him know that after we get curious, how he was treated was not okay. How he treated somebody else was not okay. We wanna make that distinction. We don't know the story, and I'm not sure this is the case at all, but let's just be open-minded for a second. If we didn't see the situation at the birthday party when he started getting kicked by boys, now that's never the answer to anything. Maybe he said something that triggered them. I don't know. And am I saying that that is typical of your stepson? I have no idea. I don't know him at all. And maybe he would never say anything to her to fly, but my point is we just don't know. And so we need to come in to figure that out. Did you say something that made them want to chase you and do that? Did you imply that you wanted to play a game and maybe they thought you were playing, but really you did not enjoy that? I need to know more. And we need to then draw the line. And so what that means is we need to get firm and we need to get kind. And whether it's somebody else doing to him or somebody doing to, or him doing to somebody else, we need to make it very clear that this is never the answer. When we hurt someone else, now there are two people that are actually hurt instead of one. Let me explain how, and bringing it to his attention that you likely did that because you were so frustrated that, you know, she got to choose the song on the radio and you did not, and you let it out as a big hit, but now everybody's hurt. We need to apologize, and that's never okay. And hey, I just want you to know that when the boys were kicking you, that is never okay for somebody to do that to you. So these are making his value system really, really clear. Sometimes we need to spoon-feed it to our kids. Obviously hitting is not okay, but have we ever actually said it to them? Have we ever said it in a firm and serious voice? That is never okay. We never want to hurt somebody, or we never let anybody hurt us. Because when they see us taking it seriously, that's when they register it as, oh, that's something I need to remember. This is important information and a really important life lesson.

We've used language like hands aren't for hitting, but I, I like the language that you were using in regard to like being stern and having the perspective for both situations. I think that's really helpful.

Yeah, I think it's drawing the attention to that it goes both ways. And I think because your question is like, hey, was this caused by something else? It really might help him connect the dots. Um, like, oh yeah, that is what they did to me and I did not like that. And oh my gosh, I just did that to her. And not that he would be able to make that whole connection without you bringing it to his attention, but you can, you could do that there too. Hey, remember when you were getting kicked and hurt by somebody and you did not like that? That's how your cousin felt. So let's, let's make that really clear that these two things are the same and not okay. And I'll just acknowledge your hands are not for hitting comment. That's a similar way of drawing the line. That's totally fine. Firm, to the point. Hands are not for hitting. We do not do that. Maybe we go a step further and say, what are hands for? Hands are for doing things productive or waving hello to somebody or giving a hug. Hands are never for hitting. And I say that because sometimes when we tell them what not to do, we forget to tell them what to do, like what are they actually for? Because kids are gonna be like, wait, what does that mean? Hands are not for hitting. And so that leads me into the third tool that I wanna offer you. This tool is what I like to call the replacement. So kids need to know where to put the aggressive energy. And so we need to literally spoon-feed them something that will replace the hit or replace the yell or replace any sign of aggression that comes about. And so what does that mean? It means that we need to first figure out what the root cause was, and then we can actually lead them forward to say, hey, that's why you hit? Oh, that's not gonna help. You need to do this instead. So I'll give you some examples of what I mean by that. When our kids are hitting or being aggressive, oftentimes you'll see some parenting advice that will be like, oh, if you wanna hit, hit a pillow. Or if you wanna hit, push against the wall really hard. Or let's yell it out really, really loud and scream at the top of our lungs. Have you ever heard parenting advice like this where it's like tying the aggression to some sort of nervous system regulation tools? Yeah.

Okay.

Have you ever done this with your stepson?

No, not yet.

Okay. So this is not something that I find to be the most effective. It could be okay depending on your kid, like right in the moment when they're dysregulated about something, like, whoa, before you hit, punch the air, right? If you were to maybe intercept him going to hurt his sister and you just got in the way, you'd be like, don't hit her. We don't hit, uh, you know, if you feel like you have to hit, punch the air or go punch that pillow.

Mm-hmm.

That's, that's fine, right? When kids are dysregulated and you're trying to get them to cool down, but that is not the answer when we wanna teach them the skill that they're lacking so it doesn't happen again. Because when he gets angry again, and then he goes and punches a pillow again, it's still not going to solve the problem. And I'll explain what I mean by that. If he is sitting there in the back of the car and his cousin looked at him and stuck out her tongue and said, you're stupid, right? And we had no clue that that happened. And he punched her or hit her. Well, now the whole story changes, right? Go back through the tools. Hey, what, what happened in the car? Oh, she called you stupid. Ugh, that sounds rough. Why do you, why do you think she would say something like that? Then tool 2, it is never okay to hit somebody, though I can only imagine how frustrated you felt. Now tool 3, give him a replacement. Hey, when somebody else calls you stupid, I want you to put on your strong voice. I look right in their eyes and say, don't call me that, please. Can you practice that with me? And now what you've done is you've told him, hey, the next time that happens, here's what you need to do instead. You need to use your voice. You need to say something. Similar situation, let's say, with his sibling. His sister rips a toy out of his hand while they're playing, and he hits her. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Timeout. Everybody timeout. Let's start with tool 1. What just happened? Get curious. Were you playing with it first? Was she playing with it first? One at a time. I need you to tell me what's going on. Oh, okay. So you were holding it and she ripped it from you. Ugh, that is so frustrating. Okay, so listen, it is never okay to hurt somebody. I don't want you to ever use your hands in a harmful way towards somebody. Because now we're in a bigger situation. But here's what you could do instead. If she takes something from your hands, I want you to use your strong voice. And here's tool 3, give him a replacement and say, stand firm and look at her and say, can I have that back please? And put your hand out. Can we try it? And if she doesn't listen to you the first time, if she doesn't respect your voice the first time you say it. You come and get me right away because your voice matters. And if she doesn't respect that, I will come in and make sure you get your toy back. That's leadership. We're teaching our kids to notice. We're teaching our kids right from wrong, and then we're teaching our kids what to do instead.

It sounds really empowering for him. I really like that you, you emphasize like Use your strong voice, look them in the eyes. Every piece of language that you had the child use in the example seemed like polite as well. Like, it wasn't saying or standing up for himself in a way that was disrespectful toward the other person. And I like that you emphasized the, and if it doesn't work, you come get me for support, because I always want him to know that if a situation that he tried to handle didn't work out how he thought, he could come to somebody else for support. I want that to be the alternative. Mm-hmm. So I think all 3 steps are gonna be really helpful. I wanna write them down.

Yeah. And, and I'm really glad that you noticed that our presence is essential in all of these tools. This is not like a you're on your own kit. This is what leadership is about, right? When a kid is born, they don't know how to use the bathroom on a toilet, so we have to slowly teach them and get them there. It's the same thing with all of these social situations as well. It's like a, hey, here's the deal. I'm by your side. I will never interject unless I see you tried first on your own. But once I see that, and if it's not working, I will jump in to help you. And I think that's how we really get our kids to understand that their voices have meaning. And we build their confidence because we're letting them actually get practice in a kind way. And I just want to give you a couple notes on bullying. So I know you mentioned at the beginning, you weren't sure what to say or You're not exactly sure how to handle the bullying situation. I would make sure that you don't teach him when we leave that party, you don't say stuff like, oh, just ignore them. Just ignore them next time. Or, oh, they didn't mean it. These are like dismissive things and not really helpful tools. So instead, we wanna bring to his attention more specifically what is happening in terms of friendship. Hey, I just wanna let you know, a friend is someone who makes your body feel safe. Or, hey, I just wanna let you know, friends can definitely make mistakes, but good friends will try to always fix those mistakes. So if that happens again and we're with them again, I wanna make sure that doesn't happen. And if they will stop when you respectfully ask them to stop, then we'll know that they're really good friends. Or if someone keeps hurting you after you've asked them to stop, That's not really how good friends treat each other, so I'm not really sure that these are good friends. Hey, is there anybody else that was at the party that is a good friend, or is there anybody else in school that wouldn't do that to you? If we can make a list of good friends and not so good friend characteristics so that we could learn together what good friendship looks like. So we're kind of helping him define friendship, which is a really important skill for all kids. Sometimes our kids will be a little blind to it, they might say something like, but they're still my friends, even if they're being really mean to them. And that's okay. We don't wanna argue in that moment. We wanna just say, maybe you really hope they're your friends. Let's see how things go. Let's see if things get better over, over the next few weeks and see if maybe it was just a mistake or a one-off situation. And just be open-minded with him so that he could continue to come to you. And you can keep that dialogue open for him to say, hey, that really yucky thing happened again and they were kicking me again or whatever. And then we know, and I know this didn't happen at school, I know it was a party, but if something like this were to happen at school, then we have more information to bring it to a teacher's attention or whatever's going on because he's actually being transparent with you. And I think that's the bottom line of all bullying situations is that we need to know about them. And so how do we do that? We have to come on very neutral and curious and nonjudgmental so that our kids feel open enough to share things with us because what today's problem is, is not going to be what tomorrow's problem is. And it's not going to be what quote unquote bullying looks like when 6th grade comes along. And it's not going to be what bullying looks like when 10th grade comes along. They're just going to get to be bigger things. And so the only constant that we can really hold on to is our trust, our relationship with our kids, and to make sure that they feel comfortable enough to open up. And like I said at the beginning, these don't have to be big therapy sessions. We don't want our kids to feel uncomfortable or like, ugh, I don't wanna talk about this again. You're always making me talk about my feelings. We just want them to be in passing, super casual. When you get in the car, when you're grabbing water from the kitchen, hey, what happened over there? Hey, anything going on? You know, just checking in to keep that line of communication always open.

I think that I really like that the priority is keeping open lines of communication because I think that's always a worry is like your child isn't going to tell you when something is wrong and you want to be that trusted space for them. So I like that the approach is kind of like you said, casual, and you approach it with curiosity rather than, you know, trying to place blame or let them know that they did something wrong, even though you think you might be like helping. Um, so I really like the approach that you're taking. I think it's going to be really helpful.

Awesome. Yeah, I, I'm glad that that resonated because all of us, when we hear these things, it speaks to the young child in us and you're like, wow, yeah, that is what I would want in a leader, right? If I were going through this all over again, or maybe that's what we had. That is what I had. And I want to make sure I can. Provide that because it is so important. So I think that goes a long way.

I think this was really helpful and I'm going to take a lot away from it. So I appreciate your time and I'm looking forward to listening to more of your podcasts. Thank you so much.

Moments like this one are exactly why I created my Mastering Your Child's Anger Guide. Inside 20 pages, you'll get a step-by-step process for helping your child move through big anger, Without escalating the storm so that you can validate what they're feeling, hold a clear limit, and teach them the skills that'll actually stick. It's the calm, confident plan to reach for the next time you see hitting, yelling, or the meltdown that catches you off guard. Grab it at transformingparenthood.com. If this episode helped you, make sure you're following the podcast so you don't miss next week's episode. And if you have just 30 seconds, leaving a quick review is one of the biggest ways you can help me reach more parents who need this message. Thank you so much for listening. I'll see you back here next week.