There has been so much in the news lately about bullying and for good reason. It seems to have reached the pinnacle of horrifying, with children feeling the need to take drastic action in self-harm and -destruction, children not wanting to go to school, wanting to change who they are, becoming bullies themselves, even wanting to take a pink water bottle because people were making fun of her Star Wars water bottle (here).

And the general response for everyone writing these articles is to say, “Parents, talk with your kids about how to deal with bullying”.

But this advice is strangely limiting. If every parent is talking to their kids assuming their kids are being bullied, which parents are talking to the kids who are bullies?

The general assumption in the advice given is that, Oh no, my child simply couldn’t be a bully. I know him/her and he/she is a darling. He/she would never do that.

But there are a couple of flaws in that logic.

First, there is always at least one bully in any elementary school social group.

Second, there is a non-zero chance that bully could be your child.

Third, all children are bullies some of the time.

Yes, even your darling angel. Now, I wouldn’t go so far as to say they are real bullies (physically abusive, patently cruel). I would simply suggest that every child has the capacity to be mean to any other child, and every child has probably done something mean, even if they regretted it or didn’t mean it. So even if your child is a darling angel, the likelihood that they have, at some point in their life, done something mean to another child is fairly high.

So what is the cause? I was bullied as a child. In fact, I was the target of a grade-wide shunning when I was in grade six. And the reason? I was different. I was very mature for my age, I read and wrote at a level above many of my peers, I thought about the world around me, I was unswervingly Christian, I had an unshakeable idea of what was fair and unfair, and I was very independent. Individually, none of these things would have been an issue, and even together they wouldn’t have been until I was the most different person in our grade. There were other children more different than me, but as they were teased, they eventually either moved away or changed themselves. I didn’t change. I became the most different, making me the most teased.

And that, difference, is the crux of why bullying happens. After being in our families and establishing, based on them, what “normal” is, we are suddenly thrust into a group of diverse individuals. Part of our social nature is the desire to have friends. As a child, you quickly learn that people are friends with you over the things that you have in common. If the differences between you are too great, you aren’t friends. Part of our social nature is also the desire to be generally liked. Children very quickly learn that they have to be the same as everyone else in order to be generally liked. And the more children become the same as each other, the more noticeable a difference is. Children don’t naturally know what to do with someone who is different. They don’t know how to understand it. They can’t come to terms with it. It is unsettling to know that there is someone who is able to function in a way completely different from oneself. And because children don’t naturally have the skills to deal with this, rather than living with being unsettled, they do what they can to further separate themselves from one who is different. Thus why children bully each other. And the children who are being bullied do try to change, because being purposefully excluded from a social group is a very painful thing. But if they can’t, or even if they can but find they are still excluded, despair can set in.

But kids don’t have to be stuck in this pattern of excluding those who are different and being in despair if they themselves are that different person. Children are rapacious learners. They gobble up whatever they are given and their brains quickly and easily disseminate teaching.

Children do need to know how to deal with bullies, but it isn’t enough. They also desperately need to be taught how to deal with those who are different and how to not be bullies themselves.

The kids who made fun of the girl in the Star Wars water bottle case weren’t bullies. They were a group of little boys who decided that this girl was different from other girls and made fun of her for it. They played nicely with this girl at other times, so they weren’t hardened villains. They weren’t bullies, but they were acting like bullies in those moments where they teased her. These little boys are probably very sweet and friendly and play nicely with other kids, but they don’t know how to deal with someone who is different. So that is an important part of teaching your children about bullies. What do you do when you are bullied, but also:

What should you do when another child is different from you?

What should you do if your friends make fun of someone?

What should you say if you think that what someone does is silly or stupid?

What should you do if you don’t want to play with someone?

Do coach children on what to do when they’re being bullied (ignore the bullies, leave, talk to a teacher, etc), and do make sure that your children know that they are valued and loved for exactly who they are. But even if every child is taught this, bullying will continue. The only way to end bullying is to teach every child how to treat every other child the way they want to be treated.

Advertisement