I Think My Child Is A Bully. What Do I Do?

This holiday season, millions of families will pack their bags, load up the car and head off for a family vacation. But not every trip is going to be somewhere fun. The American Red Cross responds to about 7,000 emergencies during the holiday season alone, from home fires to natural disasters, providing families a safe place to go when the unthinkable happens. But they can't do it without your support. Please donate@redcross.org hi folks, it's Mark Bittman.

From the podcast Food with Mark Bittman. Whole Foods Market is your holiday headquarters with everything you need, whether you're a guest or hosting the big dinner with show stopping centerpiece mains like bone in spiral cut ham or bone in rib roast or even king crab. And if you want to take a few shortcuts, no one is looking. After all, try the heat neat sides from the prepared foods department. Shop for everything you need at Whole Foods Market, your holiday headquarters.

I am a coach and an alum of Girls on the Run. Kids today carry a lot of stress. From school pressure to social isolation to overuse of devices. We create a space where girls can connect, build confidence and learn skills like managing emotions, setting goals and speaking up. Each child's experience is different and families need support. I'm proud to be part of a comprehensive solution to youth mental health. Get involved today@empowerment ourourourourfuturecoalition.com.

Hi, welcome to Talking Sense, a podcast with me, Dr. Marta. Every week I answer one of your real life questions offering you psychological understandings, ideas and suggestions to guide you. Before we begin, I like to offer you a mindful moment, just a time to pause and center yourself. Before we begin today, I just want you to think about something you are grateful for. Fill in the blank. I'm grateful for. Think of something or somebody that this week you would like to thank and repeat this a couple of times just to let it sink in and if you wish, share it with that person. And when you're ready, let's begin.

This week's question is on bullying. Let's have a listen. Hi Dr. Marta, I have a question for you. What do you do when you see your child and a friend bullying another child? How do you handle it? What do you say? Something that has an impact but doesn't shame them. I have a three year old who I saw with one of her friends bullying a mutual friend of theirs today and it was really difficult to know what to do. Thanks. Bye. Firstly, I just want to thank the parent who sent in this question. I think it's a courageous question to bring up. And often when we think about bullying, we think about the children who get bullied, but we don't tend to talk about the children who bully others. And I think this is a really important topic. It's actually one that is really dear to my heart. Bullying is something that comes up a lot in my therapy room, but it's also something that I have experienced personally, both as a child and as an adult. And I think it's something that will resonate with lots of parents, lots of adults as well. So I'm really pleased that I've got this opportunity to have a conversation about this. I think the first thing to kind of do and think about is the difference between bullying and children being mean and just unpicking that a little bit. So I'm going to do that first, then I'm going to have a think with you about why children might bully others, what will lead a child to take on these behaviors. And finally, let's have a think about what you can do as a parent. How can you support your child if you learn that they have been bullying another? Or like in this example, you are witness to bullying. So let's begin. Okay, so what is bullying? So bullying has four key elements. It is hurtful. It is often repetitive. Okay, a one off instance of a child saying something mean to another is not necessarily bullying. It can be unkindness and it can be mean, but it doesn't necessarily mean that it's bullying. There's often a power imbalance, so either in terms of numbers, so multiple children attacking one or age, and it's intentional. So bullying happens when a child is intending to hurt another on purpose. It doesn't come from a place of, well, you've taken my ball and I'm hurt, so now I don't want to play with you. Okay. That is not necessarily intentional. That's an expression of anger. Okay, so the power imbalance is important. Thinking about it being repetitive, the intent behind it, and of course it's got to hurt or it often will hurt another child's feelings. Another important thing to think about is that bullying is not a person. Bullying is a behavior that causes harm to others. And if we want to stop it, we need to educate ourselves on bullying and we need to educate our children. So this isn't just a parent's job. For me, it's really important that we consider bullying as part as education that is taken up at schools because I think teachers have such a big role in embedding this into a classroom ethos and it's really important that we, you know, differentiate what might be a moment of meanness, unkindness, maybe even teasing that stops being playful to something that is repetitive, chronic bullying. And there's so many reasons that children may choose to bully another. And it's really important that we unpick those, because one of the things I really want to bring out in this podcast is that children are not their behavior. Okay? Children who bully are not bad kids. They're not monsters. They're not horrible. But there are real reasons why they might be using bullying to meet kids, some of their needs. And when we're able to understand this as adults, then we can put in things in place that both prevent children needing to bully and hopefully support children not needing to bully any further. So we need to think about bullying as a behavior. And like I say all the time, behavior is a form of communication. So when you witness bullying from a child, you need to stop and think, what is this child getting from this behavior? What are they feeling good about when they do this? And I'm going to unpick some of the main reasons that children bully, and some of this conversation might be a little bit confronting. It can be a really difficult conversation to have and to think about. And towards the end of the podcast, I'll also give you some resources so that you can educate yourself on bullying and also help your child think about bullying, because I think it's something that we should be actively teaching our children about, not just waiting until it happens and then commenting on it. So we will think about this, and I'll try and make it as slow and as accessible as I can. So some of the reasons why children may use bullying behavior and the way to think about this is try and be curious about it, especially if you don't know the child or if you are a professional working with the child, such as a teacher. It's really important that we keep an open mind, a curious mind, and. And that we treat this behavior with empathy, because the one thing that stops bullying is to be understood and heard and kind of cared after. Okay? The one thing I always think about is children who bully cannot be fully happy because if they were, they wouldn't need to do this. I mean, this is a fact. When children feel good about themselves, they don't try and hurt others. They don't go out of their way to make somebody else feel bad. So you. You need to see this as a pain, a hurt. Something is lacking in this child's life or world that's leading them to follow through with this behavior. So sometimes, a lot of times, particularly with little ones, children want to fit in with a group of friends. And when children see that a child is being picked on or being bullied by a group. So sometimes the way to survive in this context within a classroom or a group of peers, is to become part of the Belize. So you need to have a think about this, okay? Is my child trying to fit in with a friend or a group of friends? Is this child being bullied at home? Now, you might think, what? Who does that? But sometimes what happens is, as adults, we don't intend to. But the way that we behave with our children around discipline, when we enforce harsh punishments or harsh consequences, what we do is take away children's sense of power. And when that happens, they might try and regain this in other contexts, in other relationships, because having control and power is a real need for children and adults. And as adults, we have so much power and agency. You know, we get to make choices every single day, but most children don't. And when we use punitive measures of discipline, some children end up finding that very difficult. And instead of being able to show that difficulty at home, they show it in their relationships with their peers. So what you might see through bullying behavior is this need to regain a sense of power and control, to feel like, I am more powerful than somebody else. Another reason might be that they're trying to get some attention. Okay? They might feel like if they bully another, what they do is they get a group of adults who are now surrounding them, who are paying attention to them, and perhaps they haven't been successful in getting this attention or their needs for connection in other ways. So bullying ends up being a way of saying, saying, I need some help. And now you're listening to me. For some children, they are more impulsive than others, and impulsivity can lead kids to do things possibly without the intent of bullying, in terms of being really hurtful intentionally. But also if they're getting positive feedback from peers who find it funny, or adults who also giggle or whatever it is, then some children with lower impulse control may act out through bullying. And finally, for some children, they haven't developed the levels of empathy to really understand how their behavior is making somebody else feel. And this is particularly true for toddlers. Okay, Any child between the ages of 2 and 6 is going to really struggle to put themselves in another's shoes. And therefore, the empathy is just about beginning, and they're building it. Some kids are better at this than others, and they will really struggle to see that their behavior is having an impact on somebody else. So what do we do about this? Well, the first step for me is that you talk to your child or talk to the child if you are, like I said, a teacher or another adult who's witnessing this and try and understand it from their point of view. Can you have a compassionate conversation about friendships? What is a friend? What is kind when you are with friends? What is unkind? What kind of unkindness have happened to them, either with friends or with you? If you're the parent or with another adult, can you open up this conversation? And yes, I use the word compassion because we need to know that children who bully don't tend to like themselves very much, okay? They tend to have a need, an unmet need, and often they feel like they are not good enough to have this need met through communication or through appropriate ways of behaving, because they may have tried that before and it didn't work. So we need to feel like we are on this child's side. And when I say this, this is often really difficult for. For parents whose child has been bullied to hear. So if you are one of these parents and your child has been bullied, what I want to say to you is this is not your job, okay? Your job is to look after your child. And this isn't a conversation I'm going to go into now on this podcast because it's slightly separate, even though it is about bullying. But if your child has been bullied, I am not asking you to meet another child, the one who bullies your child with loads of compassion. But I would consider that some of what I've spoken about today may be helpful just to give you a different perspective. Because children who get bullied also need to know that another is not necessarily a monster. And they may have needs and they may have issues, but it is not their job to meet them. And it is not your job as an adult to. To give this other child lots of compassion. It's okay for you to be on your child's side, the one who has been bullied, to teach them assertiveness, to be their advocate and their voice and protect them. So that's your job. But what I'm talking about here is to the adults and the parents of children who do bully, you need to meet these children with lots of compassion, okay? Because when we use punitive, harsh discipline on children who bully, we actually do create the opposite of what we're trying to do. It doesn't teach children empathy it doesn't teach children kindness because you're actually modeling the absolute opposite. You're modeling the thing you don't want to see in your child. And one of the strongest ways of preventing bullying is, is at home with you, modeling the behavior that you want to see in the interactions that you have with your child and with others. It's about showing your child empathy. It's about teaching them skills on kindness from a really early age. It's about modeling repair and apologizing when you say or do something wrong with your child. Child. It's about helping your child understand that there are boundaries and they're going to be firm. But these are not necessarily punishments. Okay? Boundaries are not harsh boundaries. Set the tone of how you discipline a child, and you can discipline them into good behavior without coercion or threats or intimidation, and giving them that sense of fear of, if I don't do as I'm told, something terrible will happen to me. Sometimes that something terrible is my parent won't like me anymore, or they will disconnect from me, or I won't be attached to them, which is really a child's worst fear. So your modeling the way that you speak, the way that you behave, and the way that you interact with your child is really key in preventing bullying. Children who haven't seen certain forms of talking or behaving are going to be less likely to show them because they've never experienced them. They don't understand this idea of having power in a relationship through words or through hurting somebody, which might include exclusion. So this is really confronting often for parents who say, I don't know how to discipline without threats of punishment, because that's how I was raised as a child. So I'm very aware of that. And I want you to listen to what is happening to your body. As I've said these things, you know, are you sparked with some kind of big emotion, whether it's frustration or anger, or you think I've just said something wrong and you think that's not real discipline. I'm not going to talk about this here, but I have multiple podcasts on discipline. I definitely would refer you to my podcast on Discipline Punishments to understand more about this. But all I will say is discipline is about teaching. And when we want to teach children to do something, we need to show them through experience. That is one of the strongest ways that they learn. So if your child has bullied another, also reflect on you. And this is confronting. This is hard. But really think, where has my child witnessed some of this Is it something we show at home? Is it something we show in our couple relationship? Or is it something we show in our interactions with our child? And if you're a professional, again, I'm going to say teachers, because it's often you, the teachers, who will see this behaviour in your schools. I want you to think about your behavioral policy in your school. Is your behaviour policy compassionate? Does it think about discipline as teaching or does it still have the old school values of discipline as punishment? Does your school offer rewards and time out? Does your school use power as a way of controlling children's behavior in class? If you're saying yes to this, I want you to reflect on what you are teaching the children in your classroom. Now, I'm not saying there's an easy solution to this, but I think it's important as adults that we reflect on our behavior, that we reflect on the things that we are teaching children as a group in a classroom setting. When somebody does something that is disruptive, do we shun them away? Do we put them in the corner? Do we tell them they can't have playtime? What are we doing that is teaching children that exclusion is a way of control, that if you don't do as I say, I will take power. This is really important because bullying stems from, like I said, a multiple range of reasons and it's giving children power, it's giving children a sense of control and they have learned that from somewhere. It is not something we just learn on our own, it's something we tend to experience and then think, well, this was done to me so I can do it to somebody else. So this is really important. I know it's confronting, but when we're talking about kids who bully, if we really want to both prevent it and find a solution towards it, we need to think about all these things and become accountable to our own behaviors as well with our children as well as with others.

This holiday season, millions of families will pack their bags, load up the car and head off for a family vacation. But not every trip is going to be somewhere fun. The American Red Cross responds to about 7,000 emergencies during the holiday season alone, from home fires to natural disasters, providing families a safe place to go when the unthinkable happens. But they can't do it without your support. Please donate@redcross.org I am a coach and.

An alum of Girls on the Run. Kids today carry a lot of stress, from school pressure to social isolation to overuse of devices. We create a space where girls can connect, build confidence and learn skills like managing emotions, setting goals and speaking up. Each child's experiences different and families need support. I'm proud to be part of a comprehensive solution to youth mental health. Get involved today@empowerourfuturecoalition.com.

I want to get to the point of the question about what do you do when you witness a child bullying? And it's your child. And for me, there's a couple of steps, okay? But the first one is communication. You really need to talk to your child about the situation may not be in the moment if it doesn't feel appropriate. You may wait until the play date or wherever you are is over and you need to be really direct about it, but making it really clear that you're not going to tell off your child that they are not necessarily in trouble from the point of view of you did something bad, so I'm going to do something worse to you so that you learn your lesson. Children don't learn their lesson when we make them feel bad. They learn their lesson when they're able to really think and reflect about their behavior and learn some new steps. So it might be that you begin by sharing what you saw or what you noticed. And it might sound something like, I saw you earlier with your friend saying some really unkind things to Johnny. That was really not very nice and I was really curious about what was going on in that moment between the three of you. Can you tell me more? Can you tell me what happened? When we talk through situations with children, when we say to them, hey, I saw something and I want to understand. And we do it in a tone of voice that is open and gentle, not harsh or punitive. It can open up the conversation. And what you're doing here is giving yourself a chance as an adult to understand your child's behavior, to suspend your beliefs of adult beliefs and adult thoughts about bullying and instead really lean into what is going on for your child. And it might be about asking your child lots of questions about what they did and why they did it so that you can understand it. And it might also mean beginning the conversation by simply saying you're not in trouble. But I really want to understand this. One of the things that you might find out might be that your child has low self esteem or they don't feel they fit in with their friends or they're worried a friend will reject them or bully them if they don't join in and bully another. And this is really important, but lots of little ones won't be able to articulate all these things because it's really difficult. So if you're having trouble getting to the bottom of why your child is bullying, then it's okay for you to both make a guesstimate. Okay? Try and play detective, which is one of the things that as parents we do a lot with little ones, particularly in the toddler stages. You know, play a little bit of detective. You may need to talk to other people, might include teachers, particularly these children are in the same class. You may ask teachers and other adults around your child, you know, have they ever witnessed your child do something like this before? Is this new behavior? Is this a one off? Do we need to class this as bullying or not? And I would also consider talking to the parent of the child and that has received the bullying. Now, again, this can be confronting and really difficult. And I'm going to say something here that again may land well with some of you and less well with others. And that's okay. But just hear me out. I think if you witness your child bullying another, it is incredibly compassionate and kind to speak to another parent and say, I saw my child do something to your child that was not okay. And I'm going to talk to my child because I don't understand it and my child is kind. But they did something today that wasn't. So I need to explore that and I will work on it. But I wanted to let you know that I'm really sorry this happened to your child. Like it hurt me to witness it or I totally understand if your child is really upset today or whatever it is. Why? Because I think as parents we need to align and we need to like, join in together. And of course this goes doubly on top of if it's a parent saying, your child did something mean to mine. And often if a parent is telling another of something like this, it will come from a place of pain. So the way that you may receive it might be with anger. Okay? The parent might not be able to do this in a way that's very gentle or calm. Some people are very well, emotionally regulated and they will manage this. But often parents are angry, understandably so, and they might be in pain or they might even cry. And if that happens, what I want you to do is to believe this parent, no matter what you think about your child, even if you think, nah, my child will never do that, my child's a good kid, because all kids are good kids. But it doesn't mean that they don't all have the potential to bully. They can and they might. So if you hear this from another parent who is either angry or really hurt, I want you to apologize. I want you to just say, I'm really sorry that's happened to your child. Thank you for letting me know. I will talk to my child. I will try and understand what's happened. That's not okay. And I understand why you're feeling hurt, and I will do my best to make sure this stops. This is how we are also modeling two children, if they hear us in these conversations, both being able to show empathy and compassion towards another and not necessarily labeling our own child as a bad kid. Okay? This is really important because what we're doing is seeing bullying for what it is, a behavior, not the identity of a child. And again, this feels really hard to say, because I know those adults who have children who have been bullied, or if you're an adult who was bullied like me in the past, it can feel really hard to say those things. And personally, I find it really hard. But again, I will say this. It's not about you making the child who is bullying yours do better. That isn't your job, so you can let that go. But it is about being able to show compassion and empathy to each other, because as parents, we need to be able to put ourselves in each other's shoes. If I put myself in the shoes of a parent who has witnessed their child bully another, I think, God, that's painful. That would really hurt me in terms of having to acknowledge that my child has done something really cruel or mean to another. That's hurtful. And if I put myself in the shoes of a parent whose child gets bullied, well, that's really painful too. And it's got layers of how I might have experienced bullying, but it also has layers about wanting to protect and, like, you know, become a bit of a tiger parent and defend my child at all costs. So I think as parents, we can do that. We can actually recognize both of those situations, put ourselves in each other's shoes, and. And try and be compassionate towards each other. Like, try and kind of say, I get it. This must be really hard for you. And we're gonna work on this together. Okay? Doesn't mean you're gonna end up being best friends. It just means that you're having a human conversation together. Not one where there is a good kid and a bad kid, just one where there are two kids who are having very different struggles. And as the adults in relationship with these children, your job is to guide and support them through the struggles. It is not to fight and kind of get into a power battle with each other. Now, communication is going to get you so far. It's going to hopefully get you to a place where you understand why your child feels the need to engage in these behaviors. But once you have got there, where I want you to go and is to try and focus on friendship. Okay? And better than bullying, let's think of friendship behaviors. Okay? Rather than telling children not to bully, let's really help them understand. What are friendships about? How are we kind to others? Okay. What are the behaviors that help you let another child know that you want to be with them or play with them? And how can you kindly say no to a child or let them down if they want to play? And you're really not keen on this. So it might be about asking your child questions such as, can you think of a time when you were left out or other children didn't want to play with you? How was that like for you? What did you want to do in that moment? Who did you play with? What would you have liked other children to do in that moment so you didn't feel so left out? Can we think about who you would like to be in this situation? Who is your preferred person? Are you the person who leaves other kids out? Are you the person who gets left out? Are you the kid who does what you would have wanted, which is to say, it's okay, you can come and play with me now. This scenario is really complicated for teeny weeny ones. Okay? Like, toddlers will find this very difficult. This is more a conversation for six years plus. So if you've got a child between two and six. And yes, bullying can start around the age of two. Although it's not quite the same, it hasn't got the same kind of intent. What I would say is it's much better to read books, to have images, to talk about friendships and to do role play with toys and to help children kind of see that when you don't want to play with another, you can use your words, but they can still be kind. It's okay for a child to say, I don't want to play with you right now. Sorry, maybe another time. And the other child might get hurt by this because it's really hurtful to be rejected in play. But that doesn't mean this is bullying. Okay? It's okay for your child to make choices about the friends that they want to spend time with. And I've got a podcast on this as well that goes into it with a little Bit deeper. But if your child is little, I would use play and I would use books and I will tag some into my caption so that you can see what I mean. And if your child is older, I would use little scenarios and I would talk them through it. But we're not going to try and place shame on our children, okay? We're not blaming them, we're just exploring. So whatever they say is okay. It's not about saying, how would it feel if somebody did that to you? Okay? That can feel really kind of intense for a child and make them feel really bad. And if you really want your child to learn about friendships and the positive qualities that they have, you need to let go of trying to make your child feel bad. Because when children reflect and really think about friendships, they will feel bad themselves often. And this is what will make them accountable. Not because you made them that way, but because they feel that way. And finally, I want you to reflect on yourself and your behaviours. And I know I've already touched on this a little bit, but I want you to really think about the way that you speak to your child, the way you speak to your partner, the way you speak to the waiter or the taxi driver. How do you handle your anger? Be really realistic about what you are modeling to your child. Are there places where you're modeling a sense of power, a sense of, you know, I am better than others, others are less than me. Now, this is really confronting and really difficult. But things like whether your family engages in yelling, name calling, putting each other down at moments of anger, children are likely to pick this up because they're watching your interactions and they're learning what is and isn't appropriate. So try and foster a positive environment. And of course this is really tricky if it's within like an extended family situation where these conversations are happening. And you can model to your child, by the way, that you have a conversation about what happened afterwards, what is okay and isn't okay in these kinds of dynamics? What is respectful? How should we treat each other with respect and kindness? How are you repairing with others or modeling repair with your child? Really think about this, okay? Your home doesn't have to be perfect, but you can have conversations where you help your children untangle things that seem like they're okay with, when in reality, maybe there are things that need to be worked on and reflected on. Finally, just to say that if you have heard or know that your child is bullying others and you've worked on this and it still doesn't seem to be helping and you are concerned, you can seek help. There are a number of charities who look into this and also you can seek professional support either for you and or your child. See this as a resource and a really positive step to help your child develop positive social skills and to help you as a parent learn what's best to support your child. If your child is between the ages of 18 months and 5 years old, I also want to refer you to the Confident Parent course which is a course that I created and it's online video course. This course is based on the foundations of discipline without threats or punishments and with firm loving boundaries because children need boundaries. So if this might be of interest to you to kind of think about how do you discipline a child without coercion while still being able to move them through the day and get the things you need to do get done, have a look at my course which is on my website. If your child is older than five, I would invite you to subscribe to my newsletter. Also my website www.dremarterpsychologist.com where I have a School Years course coming up with a long chapter on friendships and the skills that help children develop healthy, positive friends, friendships and what you can do to ensure that these skills are around and you're supporting your child through them. So have a look at those and we're coming to an end. Thank you for joining me on another Talking Sense podcast. You may have heard that Talking Sense podcast has been running for a year already and is going to go on a little holiday. So I'm going to be taking a break from the podcast podcast from the end of July until December. So we have one more podcast left until I go on my break and I so hope that you will join me for the last one. In the meantime, don't forget to pre order my book how to Be the Grown up, where I also talk about friendships and big, big feelings and outbursts from our children as well as us, the adults in their lives. I hope you'll come and join me for my final podcast episode of this series next week. Until then, see you soon.

This holiday season, millions of families will pack their bags, load up the car, and head off for a family vacation. But not every trip is going to be somewhere fun. The American Red Cross responds to about 7,000 emergencies during the holiday season alone, from home fires to natural disasters, providing families a safe place to go when the unthinkable happens. But they can't do it without your support. Please donate@redcross.org hi folks, it's Mark Bittman.

From the podcast Food with Mark Bittman. Whole Foods Market is your holiday headquarters with everything you need whether you're a guest or hosting the big dinner with show stopping centerpiece mains like bone in spiral cut ham or bone in rib roast or even king crab. And if you want to take a few shortcuts, no one is looking. After all, try the heat and eat sides from the prepared foods department. Shop for everything you need at Whole Foods Market, your holiday headquarters.

I am a coach and an alum of Girls on the Run. Kids today carry a lot of stress from school pressure to social isolation to overuse of devices. We create a space where girls can connect, build confidence and learn skills like managing emotions, setting goals and speaking up. Each child's experience is different and families need support. I'm proud to be part of a comprehensive solution to youth mental health. Get involved today at empowerourfuturecoalition. Com.