Advice for when your child is the bully

Joel Haber, PhD Psychologist, Bullying & Parenting Expert, shares advice for parents whose child is a bully on what they can do to stop their bullying behavior
When Your Child Is The Bully - Bully Prevention Tips
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Advice for when your child is the bully

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So my child's a bully, that's a really hard thing for a parent to hear. Lots of times parents cannot believe that their child can be doing bullying behavior. But I think it's important, even if you get that information, to sit down and be calm and not get angry about it, because that will turn your child off from talking to you about it and they may not want to tell you the truth. But if you say calmly, "I got this report, I heard about this, let's talk about what happened" from their point of view, and you let them know that you will listen actively and carefully without getting angry, they'll probably tell you what the story is. Now maybe that kids are trying to move up the social ladder, they may tell you what happened or they may blame it on someone else. But as a parent, it's really important that you let them know that that behavior is unacceptable. That any time they're mean or hurtful to someone else, we don't do that in our family; it's kind of setting a family value. And the thing you want to do as a parent is show them that whenever they do something outside of that aggressive behavior, like being inclusive, or sharing, or being positive or nice to someone in the family or their friends, you monitor closely and when you see them doing something nice, say, "Thumbs up." You show them that that's the behavior that you want to see from them. So you're letting them know that the aggressive behavior is unacceptable but you're rewarding the positive behavior that moves more towards social inclusion and let's your kid know that that's what you value.

Joel Haber, PhD Psychologist, Bullying & Parenting Expert, shares advice for parents whose child is a bully on what they can do to stop their bullying behavior

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Joel Haber, PhD

Psychologist, Bullying & Parenting Expert, Author

Dr. Joel Haber is a Clinical Psychologist and internationally recognized bully prevention and parenting expert. He was selected as a webinar leader and a speaker for the Obama Administration Federal Partners in Bullying Prevention initiative.  He was also an invited participant to the Second Federal Partners in Bullying Prevention Summit in 2011. His recent book, Bullyproof Your Child for Life: Protect Your Child from Teasing, Taunting and Bullying for Good set the bullying standard for schools, camps, sports, organizations and families dealing with bully prevention and intervention. He recently published The Resilience Formula: A Guide to Proactive, Not Reactive Parenting.  He is a consultant and expert to the American Camp Association, and to LG Electronics as a member of (LGTextEd.com), providing cyberbullying and mobile harassment expertise to parents and families. He is an advisor to Cartoon Network’s anti-bully campaign: Stop Bullying: Speak Up.  He is an expert for No Snap Judgments: The Addams Family Broadway Show- National Campaign to promote acceptance and tolerance amongst our youth. He is also co-founder of Tool Kits for Kids (toolkitsforkids.com), recipient of five national parenting awards for helping parents and kids develop the tools and emotional life skills to overcome worry, build confidence and develop resilience. He has written and published extensively, speaking each year to thousands of parents and educators to help make children’s lives, safer and better. 

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