How not to make your child a bully

These everyday habits might be encouraging your child to become a bully

You may have heard everything about bullying, but did you know that you could be making your child a bully without even knowing it? Yup, it is surprising how well-intentioned parents like you could unknowingly sabotage your own efforts toward raising kind and happy children through your daily actions.

As bullying starts and ends with an imbalance of power, too much or too little of it makes one want to gain more power. But it’s never too late to mend your ways. Read and understand these simple ways in which you may be pushing your child towards bullying and how you can rectify it:

1. Gossiping: If you don’t want to raise a mean child then don’t act like one! Children hear everything. Therefore, if you don’t want to include your child in a conversation then don’t even have it within their earshot. Agree or not, gossiping is indirect bullying and children are quick to pick up how their parents talk.

2. Too busy to care: If you want your child to be caring and understanding, then you should express your love and affection towards them yourself. A simple ‘I love you’ or a hug and kiss can go a long way in encouraging positive displays of healthy intimacy. Show them you care so they can show others that they care.

3. ‘I hate my…’: You may want to whine about your job or the extra pounds you have been trying to lose, but your attitude reflects on how you view the world and whining only makes you seem helpless. When children, who think of parents as their ‘heroes’ watch them act helpless, they tend to feel powerless too. The loss of power is often channelled in gaining power through bullying. So let your children be children and save the negative talk by channelising it into a hobby you may love or simply, directing it elsewhere.

4. Not old enough: No matter how mature the children today may be, treating them as mini-adults is not always the best idea. Fully disclosing financial burdens, family illnesses or work issues just adds layers of stress to their young minds which many children exert via bullying.

5. Overscheduling your children’s activities: Despite the presence of a fast moving environment, piling your child’s routine with activities to do one after the other is not smart. It’s important for a child to be able to explore his passion by providing him/her with unstructured free time to catch some rest! You must understand that over-scheduling quickly leads to stress, anxiety, anger and aggression which pave the way for bullying.

6. Wincing, waiting and watching: To let your child know that bullying isn’t ok, it is important for you to practice what you preach. Every time you ignore something bad that you could have prevented with words or actions, you add to bullying. As your child is learning how to react to life through your actions, you have to be pretty careful yourself.

7. Teach sharing but don’t force it: We have grown up listening to the phrase ‘sharing is caring’ but don’t realise that sharing is a skill learnt over time. Ripping a toy out of your child’s hand and handing it to another child is a bad idea. Forced sharing only results in a feeling of powerlessness which makes children search for other means to gain power.

Published in The Express Tribune, Ms T, May 17^th, 2015.