How To Stop Your Young Child from Becoming a Bully

I honestly can't tell you why my son suddenly started behaving with bully-like behavior. It seemed to come out of nowhere. I can tell you that his Great Grandmother had recently returned home after a holiday vacation. The summer before, my father had been diagnosed with Myeloma, so perhaps my son had heard us talking about that. My husband, an avid martial arts practitioner, had been playing with the kids, showing them how to use the practice pads.

But there was nothing overt. Nothing, certainly, that would have led directly to the behavior my child suddenly exhibited. I think that's a problem for many parents, especially with behavior in children this young. There was nothing that "activated" it. Nothing that we could tell, anyway.

Credit for photo to Kimberlee Kessler Design.

My son's bullying wasn't subtle, it was agressive. There was a lot of hitting and kicking involved, not only to other children, but to the teachers and even the director of the daycare he was attending.

Once, a little girl was playing underneath a table that my son was racing around with some other boys playing cars. When she tried to crawl out from under the table, my son kicked her. When asked why, he said it was because she wouldn't get out of his way.

On another occasion, my son was playing with something when another child was playing with the light switch in the room. My son knew the other child shouldn't be playing with the light switch, but the child wouldn't stop. First my son put a plate over his hand, then he bit him. When asked why, he maintained that the other child wasn't supposed to be playing with the light switch, and he was trying to get him to stop.

Those were specific situations with the children in his class. Many other occasions involved simply hitting because the kids wouldn't play with him, or wouldn't let him play with the toys they had, or because a younger child had "wrecked" what he had been building.

But it extended to instructors as well. Once, when asked repeatedly to do something, my son threw a chair at a teacher. The same day he kicked a teacher who was trying to hold him to control him and calm him down. I think that was also the day that he'd kicked a girl classmate, and the day they asked him to be picked up early, and not return for the rest of the week.

The emotions that accompanied these actions were as chaotic as the acts he was committing. He would scream and throw things to the ground if he was asked to help with something he previously had jumped (or even volunteered) to do. He would cry for no reason, and was difficult to calm down when he was having a "fit".

Credit for photo to Jyn Meyer.

Our response at first was bewilderment, confusion, irritation, and (for me at least) a sense of helplessness. We didn't know what to do, we didn't know where to go.

So we did what we could - which was just about everything.

We checked in with our son's teacher daily, and with the increase in Incidents, twice a day. We kept this up until we had been a month without problems.

We have always used Time Outs as the most serious consequence, but these actions required something more serious. The first day they asked my son to leave daycare early because of his actions, he lost all movie and dessert privileges through the weekend, and he was in a time out that would start from the moment we arrived at home, and would last until he went to bed. Since we live with my parents, we don't have a corner where he can be out of the action and yet still be observed, so his time out space was a love seat couch where he was to remain, sitting up, except for bathroom breaks. He ate his supper there, he could watch his sister play but not join in, and he could hear the television (when it was on), but not see it. On one occasion, we actually started with sending our son to bed without supper on a Friday, and all day Saturday and Sunday he was required to be on the couch at all times. No special trips out, he ate his supper there, took his naps there, and only got up to use the restroom.

He was only four at the time this behavior started (one and a half months from his fifth birthday), but we talked to him as if he was an adult. My husband would have the discussions with him in language that perhaps was more appropriate, but I have never gotten the knack of that. When I was upset, I explained why, even if the explanation was long or perhaps difficult to understand. We talked about why his behavior was inappropriate. We talked about how he would feel if someone acted the way he was acting to him. We talked about prison, we talked about police, we talked about sad.

We read to him, particularly books that are geared to teach children good manners. The Berenstain Bears and the Bully was actually one of the most effective. When we read the book, we escalated the consequences that both Sister and Tuffy faced in the book to match our situation. The Learning to Get Along books were also effective, as well as the talks we would have during and after the book was read about how the people in the book may have felt when others wouldn't share. Basically, we made it real for him.

Our son's doctor wasn't particularly helpful in this situation aside from making a recommendation. So my son and I went to a Child Psychologist, although I did most of the talking. He asked us to complete tests which surveyed my son's tendency towards scary words like depression, Aspergers Syndrome, and Sensory Processing Disorder. (Of course, my knee-jerk response to this is, did I drink too much soda during my pregnancy to cause this?)

The director of our daycare got involved as well, and contacted a Social Worker she knew in our county who came to observe my son for a couple of days. This eventually couldn't morph into anything more, because the town we live in is in another county, so...

...we contacted our County Intervention Unit. Basically, this was a place for him to be evaluated to determine whether he qualified for county-funded assistance to help my son "fit in". If my son had a problem that prevented him from learning, or that prevented others in his class from learning, then he would have someone assigned to him. We are still struggling with this portion of assistance, although we did eventually discover that he does qualify. There are only a few short weeks at this point until school starts, but they will be trying to do something, and then it will be up to the school district as to whether they will continue once Kindergarten starts.

And perhaps the simplest thing I did was to take advantage of the flexible nature of my work place to take a 1.25 hour lunch hour and join my son for lunch every day. It was proven after one day that his behavior was vastly improved on days that I went to visit. Some days I would just eat with him, some days I would eat and read, and some days we just read. It was a big deal, and even his grandparents took turns, as well as any visiting family members. Eventually, we were able to phase this out, and now I no longer visit at lunch. However, he's also no longer the class bully.

One thing that stands out in my mind is something that everyone we spoke to said after we explained everything that we'd tried: they were all amazed at how the entire family - me, his father, his grandparents, and other family members who visited us during this time - supported our son and did everything we could to fix this problem. We all pulled together and rearranged our lives to stop the bullying, and in the end, that's what worked the best.

To be honest, I think we're past the physical aggression with my son. With the combination of all the things we tried, the aggression and impulsive behavior faded, and now we are back down to what I consider "normal" levels. I think boys will always play rough, without malice. Accidents happen, especially now when they're still trying to figure out how their bodies work and what is socially acceptable and what isn't.

What we've done is switched to whining.