✓ Is your child a bully? Here are 10 things you can do

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How to recognize the signals of a bully? What to do to recover the boy and get him on the right path?

"We always talk about victims of bullying, but if they called you from your child's school to tell you that he is the bully, how do you think you would react?", Asks Nan Coosemans, a family coach who has been working in the world of personal development for about twenty years. in contact with children and adolescents, helping them in their personal growth path and author of the book 'What boys don't say' (Sperling & Kupfer).

Read also: my son is a bully, what to do?

Recognizing a bully

First you need to be able to recognize if your child is a bully. How? “Some signals are more indicative than others - explains Coosemans - For example if he often talks badly about others or does it aggressively, if he has more clothes, games, money or other things that shouldn't belong to him. 'How did you get them?' is the first question to ask ".

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Once confirmed?

And if confirmed, what is best to do? How can you recover and get the boy back on track? Coosemans has no doubts: starting from dialogue. He then drew up a sort of decalogue to concretely help parents defuse the mechanism.

So what can you do with your son or daughter to get him out of the bully logic?

1. LISTEN TO IT

First of all it is necessary to put yourself in a listening position: listen carefully to his words, it is necessary find out why he believes what he does is right. Often the boys have a completely different perspective than us to the rest of society.

2. TRY TO UNDERSTAND WHY IT DOES IT

Try to understand that what's behind his behavior, and explain that there are other ways to get what he wants or to feel better.

3. I TALK TO OTHER PARENTS

Talk to other parents to see if his friends are bullying too if he is the leader.

4. ARE YOU TRYING TO DEFEND YOURSELF?

Take a step back: it was in the first person bullied in the past and now is he trying to defend himself?

5. EXPLAIN THE EVIL HE IS DOING

Tell him which ones consequences he can come up with what he is doing, maybe show him some videos on Youtube in order to better understand how the victim feels. That way you don't go too far as a 'teacher' and he will be more accepting of the comparison.

6. TRY TO BE AN EXAMPLE

Always try to be inspirational and example at home, if there is a behavior that denotes disrespect or violent, the children will take it as a pass for certain attitudes.

7. WORK ON A NEW GOAL

Sit down with him or her to work on a new goal. You can also create a role play, to help him understand how to react in certain contexts, since often children do not yet have the tools to deal with certain situations in an independent and reasoned way.

8. MORE ATTENTION TO POSITIVE BEHAVIOR

Reward him for positive behavior - the more attention is paid to the positive, the more he is will feel motivated and encouraged to improve.

9. MAKE SORRY

If your child is aware of what he has done or is doing, do so let him apologize to the other. Even if it is a difficult step, you will feel better afterwards.

10. KEEP COMMUNICATION OPEN

Stay connected with your child, keep talking to him and have one open communication as free of judgment as possible: he must feel safe in order to be able to speak to you and find a stable point of reference in you.

Finally Coosemans concludes by saying that even if the parents do not have to blame themselves it is necessary that they come to identify the cause of that attitude in order to be able to defeat it. It is therefore necessary to ask why your child has come to be a bully. “Low self-esteem, the desire to assert one's control or power, or even a way to express anger and frustration, 'requests' for confirmation from friends of how 'cool' they are are often the levers of certain behaviors. Let's not forget, however, that in 5 out of 10 cases the bully was himself a victim in the past and has a negative example at home, which makes him assume that being in a prevaricating mode is right, as well as possible ".

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