One of my worst fears going into my parenting journey was having to deal with bullying once we get to that stage in our kid’s life. I’ve spent countless hours thinking and reading about bullying and how I would handle a situation in which my daughter was bullied, or if she was the one doing the bullying. Having grown up as a bullied kid myself (short, overweight, bookish, awkward, especially after moving to the US from another country – all the classic stereotypes for a bullied kid, I had them), and having once taken a foray into being a bully while trying to misguidedly fit in with some more popular kids, this is a topic that’s always been pressing on me. I had no doubt that my daughter would face this issue, on either side of the bullying divide or possibly both. I didn’t think, however, that I would have to start dealing with this in preschool.
My kiddo (let’s call her C) recently turned four, and she’s been in a wonderful daycare/pre-K program for the past 2 years. She’s generally a pretty calm kid, and the picture of adaptability – she’ll be social when she wants, a loner at other times, friendly and chatty, and tends to take on whatever other kids are doing or want to do with her, rather than leading the way.
A few months ago, she became close friends with a new girl in her class (let’s call her D), and while I’m deeply reluctant to call the girl a bully at such a young age, some of the behavior we’ve witnessed in their interactions (some at school, as well as during a few play dates outside school) have given us pause and concern. The girl is physically forceful with C – trying to pull her away from whatever my daughter might be doing to another activity, covering her face or mouth when she’s talking, and a few times, our daughter was covered in dirt after playtime, which she attributed to being pushed by this girl. Usually, my daughter will describe these interactions, namely the pushing, as playful, ie, “D pushed me down because she wanted me to be part of the soup she was making in the dirt.” When I ask her if she liked being pushed like that, C tends to just shrug it off. At a play date recently, D closed a door to the room C was in, and held it closed, refusing to let C out (which scared C to the point of tears.) A few times, I’ve seen or heard D say something negative like, “What’s that smell? Oh, that’s just C.”
The girls are the same age, and because they’re both so young, there are developmental limits to what they are willing to share and are able to understand at this point. I’m hesitant to call my daughter’s friend a bully because she is just 4 and there is little if any malice in her behavior. We’ve also seen that D’s parents are very responsive to any acts that are aggressive, and take those opportunities to talk to her about C’s feelings, how D would feel if she were on the receiving end, etc. As much as it sometimes hurts my heart to see these interactions happen and see my kid slighted, I’ve been working on using them as learning opportunities for my child and for myself/our family in a few different ways:
1) Moderate the grown-up reaction. My husband has had a few papa bear moments when witnessing some of these interactions, and we’re trying to be proactive in remembering that these are still very young kids, the meanness is not malice most of the time, and we have responsibility as adults to let kids work things out themselves, and teach our daughter how to respond and understand her own feelings in these interactions.
2) Focus on everyone’s feelings and motivations. After each incident, we’ve been intentional about talking to our daughter about her feelings, and also her friend’s. We’ve asked her what she thinks D might be thinking when she’s behaving a certain way, to avoid demonizing what is sometimes truly playful, unintentionally aggressive behavior. We’ve also asked her how something made her feel, and what she thinks she should do in each situation based on those feelings.
3) Empower. Girls are often taught to be demure and more passive, even in the face of aggressive behavior toward them. Even I, despite being taught by my military officer grandfather to hit back when hit, tend to be a very passive person. But I want my daughter to know that while it’s better not to hit back physically, she should be empowered to “hit back” verbally. We talk to C about using her words to tell D how she feels when she’s being pushed or dragged away, or when her feelings are hurt. We tell her to say no, and that she doesn’t have to acquiesce to someone else’s plans. Since this tends to be C’s nature anyway, even when there is no aggression toward her, we hope it’ll give her some more comfort to push back when she’d rather do things her way.
4) Be an advocate. Not only are we trying to teach C to advocate for herself in situations that she doesn’t like, we’re making sure we advocate for her as well. Recently, we were picking C up from school and D made a joke about C in front of us. Her parents weren’t there yet, nor were the teachers in earshot, so I made sure to ask D whether she thinks that’s a nice thing to say to someone, and asked her how she would feel if someone said that to her. I wanted to make sure that my daughter heard me so that she could model me, and hear me stand up for her.
5) Stay vigilant. At this point, I don’t see a lot of reason to truly worry about D’s behavior toward C – I truly believe that it’s coming from a place of playfulness and that her parents are proactive enough to address negative interactions and their implications – but I am definitely paying close attention when the girls are together and am regularly checking in with their teachers for anything they might be seeing. Fingers crossed (though I’m a realist through and through) that this will be the worst of bullying we’ll have to deal with in C’s growing years.
cherry / 205 posts
This post really resonates with me. I have a 5.5 yr old daughter, who has been going through something similar with a friend. They get along at first and eventually her friend will snatch something from her, spit at her, push or tell people not to include her. My daughter is very emotionally and socially aware and will tell her friend that she can’t play with her if she is going to be mean and will often tell a teacher, knows to walk away. However, she is often told that her friend doesn’t mean it, which may be true, but ignores the emotional distress that my daughter endures over and over again. The few occasions she has pushed back, she got in trouble, not her friend. I think it makes her feel frustrated but even worse, helpless. I struggle with how to effectively advise her in these situations because she does the right things– tell her friend to stop, tells a teacher, walks away…..but it has often been ineffective. And, the reality of being 5 is that however mean her friend is to her, she still wants to play with her. I’m curious to see how other moms handle these situations and will be watching the comments closely!
pomelo / 5866 posts
You have a great perspective on child development and I like how you are teaching your child to be assertive. So important to understand how that is different than aggressiveness and more effective than passiveness.
blogger / nectarine / 2043 posts
@miranlee: This really resonates with me too, and I’ll be curious about others’ perspectives also. Is there anything you did to teach that kind of social awareness and responsiveness to your daughter?
cherry / 141 posts
I’m on the other end of this. My daughter has always been a fiery little person. She had colick as a baby and she’s just never been able to sit still. This wasn’t a problem until she hit four and she started to going through tantrums. She didn’t tantrum before (even 2 and 3) so it was a big hurdle. She’s now 5 but she’s learned how to lie and she exhibits some non-exciting behavior. We apologise and talk it through as much as we can but some things kids have to go through on their own (like you mentioned). I do think letting the parent know is important. Even if it’s hard to let them know. I don’t always see everything my daughter does and would rather know specifics than be oblivious.
I do think there is a difference between bullying (shutting the door on your daughter) and kids being kids (being a bit rash and mean-they are not eloquent in anything they do).
It is hard as a parent judging what should be left up to experience and when we should step in.
guest
We were shocked to have to deal with “mean girls” in preschool, too. In our case, I don’t think the parents do anything to curb these kids behavior; in fact, I think the apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree in our particular case!
I would actually be more assertive in your example #4. I would say something like, “That’s not a nice thing to say.” and then keep it moving out the door. Leaving with my kid, I’d ask her about how she was feeling and help sort out her emotions. I just don’t think you have to do all the perspective taking for another kid.
It really does make all the difference in the world when you see that the other parents are on top of this behavior! When they let it slide, it’s all different ballgame.
pomegranate / 3225 posts
I’m glad I am not the only parent dealing anxiously with this. My daughter is 4 and seems to be going through something with the other girls at school as well. I’m so scared for this as a parent! Ahhh!
cherry / 226 posts
I’ve seen it both as a teacher and parent. And it definitely hurts to see your child experience this. I would talk with my son at home, try to give him words, he was too shy to speak up, it’s hard when we can’t be there to help them figure it out. He was too shy to say anything to the teachers or the other boy and hated going to preschool, and so I talked with the teachers, they knew it was happening and they were mostly working with the boy who was being mean, and his parents, but after I shared my concern, when they saw the interactions, they would work with my son and guide him to speak up about his feelings, eventually he became more confident and able to solve conflicts with kids being mean. I know communication with all parties involved will work things out, this boy ended up being my son’s best friend, and he also just needed guidance with social skills. I hope it gets better for you!
grape / 78 posts
This sort of thing concerns me and our LO is on,y 3 months old. Thanks for the tips.