when your kid is the bully

[Lisie]

My ds is 29 months old and we just had friends visiting for the weekend with their 14 month old dd. He was so mean to her! Wouldn't let her come near him, out of no where this morning ran up to her and pushed her down, pulled toys out of her hands (before I could get to him), and raised his hand to hit her more than once. I would usually grab him and pull him away from her and explain to him how she is little and he has to be gentle with her, etc. But it was a struggle for me this morning because I really got mad when he blatantly pushed her. I realize this is a tough age for him to share, etc., but we will are around younger (and older) children regularly, and I'm due in March. Any advice on how to handle a big, strong toddler who is not being nice??? (He loves playing with older kids and it goes very well, harder lately with kids his own age and younger for sure...)

[Maiasaura]

i wish i had answers for you. i didn't want to just read and not post. my ds is 5.5yo and he can be such a bully. today we were at his best friend's birthday party. the only kids were the birthday boy, my ds, birthday boy's 2yo sister, and 2 other boys, brothers 6yo and 3yo. we had to leave because my son (not for the first time) was beating up on the birthday boy.

it's always my kid, and i'm always That Mom. it's so embarrassing, and disheartening. i have no idea what to do. nothing's ever his fault, he passes blame all the time, he lies and makes up stories ("he hit me first!" when i KNOW it's not true). he's always the victim.

i'm starting to wonder, though, if the best friend, who is exceedingly passive, isn't pulling some passive-aggressive moves. i will have to watch them more closely. i have another friend with a 6yo and a 5yo. the 6yo is extremely passive, quiet, tattletale. the 5yo has spirited issues. the 5yo is always the one getting into trouble. just recently the mama and i have noticed the 6yo's passive-aggressive ploys, which is why i'm wondering about my ds's best friend. if it took the mama of her boy 6 years to notice, i bet it's possible for this other boy's mama not to have any idea.

i'm waiting to hear what others have to say.

pamela

[Maiasaura]

i just realized i co-opted your thread. i totally didn't mean to, mama! i'm sorry!

i hope you get some good answers. meanwhile, breathe....breathe in, breathe out!

pamela

[jessemoon]

My ds (who is 30 months) is going through a stage in which he loves loves loves older kids and his peers, but walking babies (12-19ish months) who don't talk much yet and are certainly more baby than kid, really frustrate him.

He is a physical guy and has always had a bit of a pushing problem, but lately it has gotten much better except with younger toddlers. He will even furrow his brow and say "My no like that kid!" about a younger child.

I'm not sure why they bring out his aggressive streak, whether they aren't playing with him like he wants them to or they aren't verbal enough to suit him...it is a mystery.

I do a lot of redirecting and a lot of trying to set him up for success by organizing activities that both children can play successfully (play-dough, coloring etc.), but I feel your pain.

It is often harder for me when my son is the aggressor than if he is the one getting hit, bitten, sat on etc. When he is hurt, the path is clear. Comfort, encourage and move on. When he is the one doing the hurting it is much harder to see what to do.

I was parented gently, I strive to parent gently myself and it is bewildering to see my child be unkind to someone smaller. I know it is natural and normal and developmentally on-target, but it doesn't make it acceptable or any easier to deal with.

Good luck.

[lilyka]

I think when starting new friendships it is best to be on neutral territory. it might not solve the problem but it reduce some of the triggers. I htink those ages are a really hard mix too.

for the mamma with the older kid - I wish I had some ideas for you. if it were my kid she just wouldn't be going on any playdates until she could play nice. But I also think you do have to be aware of the kids who appear to be passive agressive. My two older children have a strange dynamic. the oldest is easily led and the 2nd one is quite sharp. she figured out early on that getting smacked by her sister could win her a whole mess of benifits. she got attention, if they were fighting over the toy she got the toy, she generally got all the toys becuase her sister would be removed from the scene of the crime. andif nothing else it just got her sister in trouble and sometimes that is enough for her. So kids do figure this stuff out. wish I had some insight on how to stop it but I have nothing.

[WuWei]

Originally Posted by Lisie

My ds is 29 months old and we just had friends visiting for the weekend with their 14 month old dd. He was so mean to her! Wouldn't let her come near him, out of no where this morning ran up to her and pushed her down, pulled toys out of her hands (before I could get to him), and raised his hand to hit her more than once.

This is an age where children have mastered wanting something, being able to physically get it, but not effectively using words to get their needs met. Often, a person who has words will resort to using his body to get his needs met, just as you did to remove your child from the situation below. We can be at a loss for words in the heat of the emotion of wanting something to happen NOW! There are less physical ways to get our needs met, but we need to model them for our children to learn them. And they will over time. When we resort to using our body to get others to do what we want, we are modelling the use of physicality to get what we want. Thus, he who is bigger gets his way. I understand that you wanted him not to be using physicality, but using physicality doesn't replace the use of words, imo.

I would usually grab him and pull him away from her and explain to him how she is little and he has to be gentle with her, etc.

What I would do instead is to offer more exciting toy alternatives to the younger child. Most often, the younger child is more easily redirected to a toy that *fills* her need. Older children have more specific toy preferences. This models the action that you want your child to adopt! A child will need to see this modelled repeatedly, consistently and effectively for it to be learned as an alternative to grabbing. I would also model the words that I would want someone to use if they wanted a turn with a toy. 'I want a turn, would you trade for this toy?' I wouldn't focus on the actions as "mean", that creates a self-fullfilling self-image that he may feel that he is ONLY able to fill his needs by "being mean". By sharing your understanding of his underlying needs, he can relate the feeling of "I want" with the words "I want" instead.

Your son's acts of pushing and raising his hand are again probably his physical way of filling his *need* for space away from the younger child. By giving words to his feelings and needs, he is more able to see *how to* communicate his needs with words. 'You look like you need some space' and helping ds to meet that need. If he is expected to be in the space with other children, when he needs space, the same results would likely continue and escalate, until he has new tools to meet his needs. By meeting the need, the need can be resolved; by wishing for the need to disappear, it just remains unmet and grows stronger. Our son will now say "I need some space" and seek it out.

I understand that creating quiet space in playdates is a challenge. Our son is an introvert, we found that by arriving early, or late, or leaving before everyone else, or finding ways to have reconnecting time during the playdate, that ds could *fill* his needs for space and down time. Obviously, this entails actively being attuned and attentive to the child's cues of becoming overwhelmed. There are probably body language cues that are observable before the pushing starts. Our son would become less able to negotiate and take turns, start getting louder, start moving his elbows out to create a space barrier around him, begin to wander off to quieter areas, etc. Watch for these signals as his emotional barometer and help him to read these cues for himself. I will state my observations and seek clarification about what our son is feeling. 'You seem to be needing some space, do you want to go outside (another room, the car, the porch, the driveway, the kitchen table, etc.) and play with this?' This offers him the template against which to guage his own emotions before they become explosive. And it models tools of resolving our needs proactively. This is active parenting. And it is work up front but gets easier.

I didn't get much socializing time (and I am extrovert) at crowded playdates or events. Now our son (at 5) is able to be attuned to his own feelings and verbalize them in constructive ways with words. Not perfectly, but I also avoid other things like activities late in the day when he is more tired. And I am conscious of offering food and inquiring about hunger messages that his body is communicating to him. By suggesting possible reasons and actions for our body's sensations we become empowered toward self-awareness and self-control.

Addressing the other child's needs for him to be gentle can feel like his needs are not being heard or addressed. His actions are speaking loudly that he needs something. Helping him to meet his needs facilitates him learning *what to do to meet my needs*. Certainly, I would empathize with an upset child, but I wouldn't stop there. I want to share tools with our son of how to meet his needs while being aware of the impact of his actions. Not just focusing on his actions and their impact.

But it was a struggle for me this morning because I really got mad when he blatantly pushed her. I realize this is a tough age for him to share, etc., but we will are around younger (and older) children regularly, and I'm due in March.

IMO, it is critically important that he have modelling of the skills of self-awareness. He won't learn them all by March though. I am still learning self-awareness and self-control at 43. When there is a new baby 24/7 in his space, finding new ways for him to have space AND new ways for him to have time with mama is a whole 'nuther post, beyond self-awareness.

Any advice on how to handle a big, strong toddler who is not being nice??? (He loves playing with older kids and it goes very well, harder lately with kids his own age and younger for sure...)

Are there other challenges to him having down time? More time with you that he is seeking? More appointments, a busier schedule, changes in environment, sleeping, eating, visitors, etc? All of these add to our "bucket" moving us toward emotional overload. When we are aware of what drains us and what fills us, we can become more selective about knowing we need some space to just be, without the challenges of sharing.

Your child isn't "being mean", he is using his body to feel heard, imo.

HTH, Pat

[mamaduck]

You've gotten great suggestions. I just wanted to add that your child is not a bully by any stretch of the imagination. He's not mean either. He's acting his age, and he's playing out emotions this way because he is too young to have learned to do otherwise. One of my 2 children is very protective of his own space, his own things, and his own home. For him -- having playdates on neutral territory always goes much more smoothly. At 6 yo. he doesn't hit or grab, but its still hard for him to share what his perceives as his own space. I'm learning to accept that aspect of his personality and we work on ways to honor his needs and be flexible at the same time.

I bet if you spent some time with the same child at her house, you would see some of these behaviors from her too. And if it would make you feel better to see your son behaving with more civility, then do try a more neutral setting. I bet you see some improvement.

[WuWei]

Originally Posted by mercyn

my ds is 5.5yo and he can be such a bully.

Pamela,

Here is an article from The Natural Child Project about older children identified as bullies: http://www.naturalchild.org/robin_gr...n_bullies.html

"When we ask a child who is hurting to bear all of the responsibility for their aggressive behavior, we have in a way retaliated by bullying the bully. This in fact adds up to ignoring that a bully is in pain, they have been hurt in some way and are acting out their hurt on others. The truth is that violence does not sprout from within individuals, it is a symptom of families that are hurting, perhaps with members that are hurting each other."



Pat

[chfriend]

A 29 month old is too little to be a bully....and you got great advice on that! For actual bully stuff, I found B. Coloroso's book The Bully, the Bullied and the Bystander to be gold.

[Fuamami]

When my dd was 26-27 months old, an old friend came to see our new baby and brought her 13 month old. My dd normally loved other little kids, and would lead them around and play with them for hours. But as soon as that little girl got down and started toddling around, my dd burst into tears. She was feeling stressed anyway by the new sibling, and the other child in her territory was more than she could take. She literally couldn't stop crying, and eventually my friend, who was very kind and understanding, had to leave, even though we hadn't visited in about a year.

I'm just sharing this story because I don't think your son's a bully. My dd's introverted and not very physical, and therefore she cried. Your son is strong and physical, he hit. Like the pps said, it's a response to stress, but not a sign of a deep underlyng personality issue. At least at this age.

[Lisie]

I really appreciate the responses. I do want to clarify that I do not believe my child to be a mean child or to be an actual bully. The title was kind of for emphasis. When we were watching how he behaved towards her in front of her parents, it felt like bullying! I absolutely believe that my child is good and that the way he reacts is age appropriate, just hard to take when he can easily hurt other children and will do so when he has the chance.

The question I have is that I feel like I have to physically interfere with him for him to not actually make contact with the younger children. Sometimes it is not fully preventable because something will happen very quickly and his first response is to push the other child, etc. So if I don't want that to happen, I need to be physically close, and able to intervene so that that does not happen. Isn't that right?

I will definitely actively work on using words to help him with self-awareness and empathize with him in situations like that. I understand now how important that is. Neutral territory is always preferable too, this was kind of an exception because they were friends from out of town visiting at our house for the weekend.

Anyway, thank you all for your encouragement and support.

[Jaydens_mom]

I have a step son who regularly hits my ds and steals toys and doesn't want to share.. at first i used to take the toy that was causing the argument away.. but that wasn't fair to the one who was originally playing with it.
Now, I am not allowed to discipline my step son.. ( there is a post about why, in blended families forum ) but what i WOULD do if i could is pull the child aside and tell him that his actions are unexcusable and not acceptable. I would give him two options.. either play nicely or go into time out. Time out could be sitting on a chair in the corner for 2 mins (raising the time as he gets older) and having to watch the other child play alone.. or being placed in a different room (thier bedroom) and told not to come out until they are willing to appologize and play nicely.
As we know young children don't like to be left out so this might just work.

[chfriend]

Originally Posted by Lisie

The question I have is that I feel like I have to physically interfere with him for him to not actually make contact with the younger children. Sometimes it is not fully preventable because something will happen very quickly and his first response is to push the other child, etc. So if I don't want that to happen, I need to be physically close, and able to intervene so that that does not happen. Isn't that right?

This is the approach I'd take...to keep everyone as safe as possible until he gets big enough to understand and want to actually play *with* the other kid. My dd2 first started showing her affection to other babies by slapping them b/f she was a year old. Now one of her little friends hit, pinches and pulls hair for no obvious reason. We all just run interference and roll with it because we know they'll grow out of it.

Hang in there. Knowing it's normal can sometimes help, but it's still, I don't know, embarrassing?