Bully? Not My Child
When you first hold your child in your arms, you think to yourself, “This is the most beautiful child I have ever seen. How am I going to keep you alive?” Shortly after, you may begin to think of all of the things you want your child to have such as athleticism, intelligence, good looks, blue eyes like you, a singing voice like your significant other, etc.
I can say with a large amount of confidence that
bullying does NOT make any parent’s list of what they want their child to grow up and become! You have poured your heart and soul into this beautiful person who has turned into someone you are having a hard time even recognizing. What now!?! What is a parent to do?
First things first, we must recognize that this little angel is not acting as much like an angel as he or she is acting like a bully. This is so difficult to do. If I am being honest, it was even hard to type those words. Nonetheless, I took a big gulp and pressed on. So can you. To come to this realization, you may have to face some tough statements:
- Children do not want to play with my child anymore.
- 9 out of 10 times when my child plays with others there is an altercation.
- When other parents see me or my child, they look and turn away.
My child is getting notes from school, aftercare programs, daycare, etc regarding bad behavior.If you were honest with yourself and found yourself identifying to any of the statements above your child may be a bully. The good news is that you are not alone and there is hope.
Take Action to Help Your Child
My child is a bully…so now what?
One of the first steps is to try to identify when the behavior began. Was it triggered by something in particular? Is my child reacting to something going on in another area of life? There may not be a direct cause and that is ok. If there is a direct cause, you may need to seek some outside support from a counselor. In fact, a counselor will be able to help you look at the following steps and develop a plan to eliminate the problem behaviors and increase the appropriate behaviors. The next step is to consider who and what are the influences in your child’s life. Who are their friends/influences at school? What tv shows are they watching? What music are they listening to? If any of the people, shows, music etc, are not good influences it may be time to remove some things until your child is developmentally able to handle it.
I know. “But Michelle I don’t want to be THAT parent or have my child not fit in any less than they already do.” I get it, I really do, but I want to ask you a question. Would you as an adult rather be around someone who is kind that doesn’t know what happened on the latest tv show or someone who knows everything about what’s on tv, but is a jerk? That’s what I thought.
After removing some of the negative influences, the following step you can take is to seek to get your child involved in some positive influence activities such as sports, after-school clubs, church, community groups, etc. Every decision has a consequence. Let’s help our children make good choices when it comes to peers, tv, music, activities etc. Helping them make good decisions today will help them make good decisions for the rest of their lives.
