Q: For the longest time, my husband and I refused to believe that our son caused problems for other children, either at school or on the playground. We were wrong. Our son is a bully.
We have had too many complaints from teachers and the parents of other children to ignore it. Our son needs to be stopped. He cannot be like this for the rest of his life and expect not to get into serious trouble.
The problem is that we are not sure what to do about it. We can discipline our son,but we don’t think that discipline alone can solve the problem. Do you have any suggestions for us?
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A: While I can agree that you need to have some sort of consequence for your son’s bullying, you need to be careful about which consequences you choose.
If you opt for corporal punishment or isolation, he will start to believe that at times, physical force is OK, and that is not the message you want to give him. The best consequences would be either the loss of privileges, such as taking away some of his computer games, or charging him fines on his allowance.
We have two kinds of bullies on the playgrounds.
First are the general bullies, who torment other children and pretend that they are more powerful.
Then there are bully-victims, who are children who were bullied themselves at some point. They have learned to resolve their histories of victimization by picking on younger children or those who are weaker than themselves.
If your son is a bully-victim, he should get help from a mental health counsellor as soon as possible. Chances are he has issues that good parenting alone will not resolve.
The primary intentions of your son’s misdemeanors are not to harm his victims. The intent is to impress the other kids watching from the sidelines. Your son may believe he will be more popular if he can demonstrate his power and strength. This of course is wrong and you need to challenge these thoughts.
Help your son by encouraging him to understand that popularity is not a matter of how well known he is or how many friends he has. What matters is that his tried and true friends are encouraging, supportive and respectful. He should not need to impress them.
If you help him raise his self-esteem, he may be more receptive to choosing friends who will enjoy him for who he is.
With increased self-esteem, he will likely be more sensitive to other children and more inclined to monitor and control his drive toward bullying others.
