My child is the bully [Archive] - Consciously Parenting Forums

Lori

02-12-2009, 05:16 AM

Hello,

My 6 year old son (adopted from an orphanage setting at age 9 months) is now in Kindergarten. I do believe that he has ARND and ADHD. Our current problem is his bullying of others. I notice that he frequently puts his sister down by "one-upping her" or doing things to make her mad. His teacher notes some social idiosyncrasies, but is most (understandably) concerned about our ds having threatened other students 2 or 3 times now (i.e. "I'm going to kill you.") I don't know the circumstances surrounding the threats--only that the other student reported it and ds admitted to it.

My husband and I are trying to follow the BCLC approach overall in our parenting. When ds picks on his sister, I have tried Post's suggestion of saying "You will not die", which seems to catch ds off guard and distract him, if nothing else.

Does anyone have any suggestions on what specifically dh and I can do to change this behavior? And any suggestions on what I can ask the teacher to do?

Thanks so much.

Rebecca

02-12-2009, 05:38 PM

Hi Lori,

Sounds like a difficult place to be. No one wants their child to be hurting others and it does have a helpless feeling that goes along with it in some ways- how do you help a child to stop hurting others?

The key is to recognize that a child who hurts others is a child who is hurting or overwhelmed. Particularly with his history, he may not do very well when he becomes overwhelmed and dysregulated. The best plan is to help keep him safe, to help him understand later that he was overwhelmed and then how to handle it in other ways. Let's break that apart:

1. Keep him safe. Have the teachers pay attention to times of the day and situations where he seems to be having a hard time. Actually have them keep a chart of times during the day. I'm sure that they will start to notice some patterns just by doing this. In the meantime, keep him close to teachers during any activity where kids are moving around quite a bit. That is overwhelming for many children and I'm sure, at this point, that your son is not able to handle it. Set up a center right near an adult and let him know that he can go and talk to that adult if he starts to get overwhelmed. He may not yet know when that is. If he should act out, he is already overwhelmed and needs a little more containment. It is too much for him and he needs to be removed from the activity, but not in a punitive way. It needs to come from a place of, "I'm going to keep you safe right now." and of course, everyone else safe, too.

2. When he has regulated, that's the time to talk about what happened. "You must have felt pretty overwhelmed to hit Johnny. Tell me about it." And then the teacher can talk to him about how to handle his frustrations or whatever the straw was for your son at that time.

The better the relationship, the more regulated and calm the teacher, the better. This will take time, but will result in a much more regulated child who is able to handle his own overwhelm regardless of where he is in the world- classroom, home, or anywhere else.

If anyone else has personal experience with this issue, I'd love for you to join in this discussion! If you've worked with a school or you work in a school and would like to chime in, please do!

Thank you for your question. Please let us know how you're all doing as you work through this particular issue with your son and the school.