Is Your Child A Bully?

Being bullied at school is one of the worst experiences for any child to have to go through.  If it’s just a few incidents or an entire school career, these memories can lead to a great deal of psychological damage later in life. Parents often worry about whether their kids are safe at school and whether they are going to be treated in the right way, but what we sometimes overlook is if our precious child could possibly be doing the bullying.  If you notice your child behaving aggressively towards others, don’t like the way she is treating her friends or have gotten a phone call from school, bullying behavior must be stopped and properly addressed. 

There are a number of different factors, which may cause your child to start bullying others.  As a parent, you should be aware of these factors and do your best to avoid contributing to this behavior.  First of all, a bully generally comes a home, which is lacking warmth and love.  Sometimes when parents are going through a stressful divorce, or are busy at work, they may not even realize that they have slowly withdrawn and become less involved in their kid’s lives.  Or, if children are in a high conflict household and are experiencing one parent yelling at and bullying another, they may learn that this is appropriate behavior.  If there is an older sibling who is pushing around a younger child, that child may in turn take his frustration out on someone on the playground.  Another contributing factor is if there is a lot of harsh discipline or corporal punishment in the home then it can also put the child at risk for turning into a bully. 

Peer pressure is a major factor amongst kids of all ages as their friends easily influence them.  If they see another child using aggression at school to develop a higher social status then this is something they may adopt as well.  And finally, the wide-range of media today has proven to contribute to bullying.  Children see it in the movies, in cartoons, video games, on TV shows, or experience it on the web and derive that the behavior is cool and acceptable. 

Bullies tend to have low self-esteem, which suggests that they intimidate others to make themselves feel stronger, prettier or smarter.  It is extremely important for parents to pay attention to their child’s actions and not to overlook potential bullying behavior.  If you are looking for an opportunity to put an immediate halt to this behavior in your child, then taking an online anger management class for adolescents can help with prevention.  Classes can be taken in the comfort of your own home and multiple siblings can sit together to learn the information.  Classes can be started and stopped at your convenience, so if you would like to stop and have further discussion with your child about a certain subject, then you can.  These classes are specifically geared towards children and adolescents and the programs are interesting and user friendly for there age group.  Programs are designed to teach stress and anger management skills, empathy and emotional intelligence.  These are valuable tools that they will be able to use throughout their entire lives.