Why Children Bully
Children bully other children for a number of reasons. Some of the reasons are dysfunctional home life, lack of attention from parent figures, and other family related matters. Children who come from homes where there is a lot of physical violence also show a propensity to bully other children. The factor that is universally held responsible for such behavior is a low self-esteem or a sense of worthlessness, but one finds in real life, bullies to be very confident and popular. It may be that bullying is a stress reliever from a difficult home life for which the child does not have any other solution. Children without proper training to cope with life’s vicissitudes may become violent and bullies. Such behavior is a serious matter to be handled properly.
There are some other reasons that are responsible too. Bullying as a method to over compensate for a sense of inadequacy and to gain a sense of being powerful is one. Being psychologically unstable and mean can be another, as bullying can be perceived as actually being an enjoyable experience. Finding joy in others’ misery, learning problems, inadequate social graces, inability to fit in with the crowd, are all other reasons that can turn a child into a bully as a method to feel better about himself.
Another, fairly common reason is that the child is a victim of bullying in a different situation and turns to bullying as a compensatory behavior. This is how the vicious cycle of bullying starts and often gets completely out of control as children simply do not know any better and resort to bullying without understanding the full implications of such behavior.
The important issue is to understand that there is something urging the child to take to bullying and that something has to be resolved to get the child to behave normally. It is therefore important that the underlying motive for the behavior is uncovered, and action taken to solve that. If this is done, the child will revert to normal and acceptable behavior as the discomfort has been removed. Teach your child to handle life’s problems in a positive way without resorting to bullying and other compensatory behavior. Children who get out of such destructive behavior early on grow up without suffering the long-term effects of bullying.
It is however important to note that stopping the behavior of bullying has to be from both the bully’s and the victim’s side. Usually, attention is paid only to the victim, and this is how bullies when grown up, become criminals with aggressive behavior. Stopping such behavior when they are young is the only way to prevent such developments later on in the life of bullies. Irrespective of what motivates such behavior, the bullies must be made to understand that continuing with such behavior and attitude can have disastrous outcomes later on in life. Stopping such behavior becomes easier, if the root cause for the behavior is identified and resolved.