OPINION: On Not Raising a Bully

There is not, as far as I can ascertain, much bullying in toddler daycare. Sure, there’s the occasional toy snatching, perhaps some snack stealing, even a push or two. The systemic and repeated abuse that characterize bullying, however, remains in that far-off land of elementary school.

Bullying has been in the lately. It has had the most dire of consequences here in Howard County, driving a 15-year-old girl to suicide. The stories are sobering.

The question for the parent of a toddler, then, is how to best prepare both the boy and ourselves for the coming storm.

I don’t believe that bullying can be eradicated, that by some amalgamation of education and exposure calculated meanness will disappear from our schools and playgrounds. The urge to exclude is a primal element of the human condition. That is not, of course, an excuse for the behavior, any more than saying that because death is coming for all of us, we should concede. We still need to fight.

Since bullying can’t really be avoided, it is something to be managed, prepared for. But how? After all, the ability to be assertive, to be confident in oneself, is an invaluable attribute. The military is fond of quoting Proverbs 27:17, “As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.”

Childhood is a time of preparation for the strains and stresses of adulthood, and the relationships forged in prepubescent bullying (yes, bully and his target share a relationship, no matter how sad it is) prepare you for the cruel boss, the difficult coworker. It’s a big world, and a dangerous one, and as such I have difficulty imagining releasing my child onto the big yellow schoolbus to face the pressures of the Mean Kids. If I don’t, though, I will have failed him, failed to prepare him for what awaits.

All of which is to say I have no idea (as is remarkably common in most parental situations). I guess, like most things in parenting, it’s about balance. Strike too hard or too soft in any one direction, and you risk a permanently off-canter child. Hide a child from the world, and he’ll never grow; push him out as self-centered egoist, and he'll become the problem.

Perhaps important to remember is that worst of all would be a child who was, themselves, a bully. Prevention begins by teaching a child early on the value of empathy, to recognize the feelings and worth of another. A bully is born by refusing to recognize the inner humanity of peers. Empathy is also the solution to the problem of the bystander, the silent (and thereby complicit) onlooker. Recognize the value of the victim, and the danger of obmutescence fades.

This is something that can be modeled, even for our toddler. We remind him that his actions can cause us emotional pain, that his tantrums make us “sad” or asking him how he would feel if we refused to share. As his social circle expands, it’s incumbent upon us, his parents, to make him understand that he is but one piece of the whole, not the center. And by doing so, perhaps, when the time comes, he’ll know that the bully is a person, too.

How do you prevent a bully in your house? Tell us in the comments.