A study reported recently in the journal Pediatrics found that there can possibly be more to sibling rivalry than a little friendly competition. It can be linked to mental health problems.

Nearly 3600 children ages birth to 17 were asked to describe incidents of aggression perpetrated on them by a sibling over the past year (parents responded in place of their children ages 9 and younger).

Researchers found that children who experienced aggression at the hands of a sibling, including physical harm, intimidation, taunting, excessive teasing, and intentional destruction of toys or other property, suffered mental distress severe enough to leave lasting emotional scars.

For these children, sibling rivalry had escalated to the level of bullying. They felt unsafe in their homes.

Lead author of the study, Corinna Jenkins Tucker, concedes that “siblings are going to fight.” What was different for some of the siblings in her study was the level of animosity and seriousness of the conflict. Jenkins Tucker notes that sibling victims were much more likely than other children to be anxious, depressed, or angry, even if the hostility appeared to be “not that bad” or “only being mean, not actually hurting anyone.”

Parents come to expect sibling rivalry as a normal part of family life. But parents should be aware of what is going on between their children. They should take seriously a child’s complaints about his brother or sister and note if the rivalry has escalated into something more. Parents should definitely intervene to protect a child from being bullied at home.

What can you do if your children seriously don’t get along? What can you do if you believe one child’s treatment her brother or sister is harmful? According to Jenkins Tucker, kids can be taught to fight fair:

1. Take time to teach children how to see another person’s point of view.

2. Teach children how to negotiate a solution, instead of needing to win.

3. Model good behavior yourself: avoid shaming, sarcasm, name-calling, and hitting. Avoid using threats and extortion to control children’s behavior.

4. Model good conflict resolution skills. Remember that a child who bullies others often was bullied himself.

Being the target of a bully doesn’t make a child stronger or tougher. It only makes him sad, scared and angry.

All your children deserve to feel safe at home.

© 2013, Patricia Nan Anderson. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Ask for Dr. Anderson’s new book, Developmentally Appropriate Parenting, at your favorite bookstore.

Imagine that your child is no longer a toddler. He’s outgrown the impulse to hit other kids for no apparent reason. He understands that hitting hurts. He’s not a bad kid but every once in a while someone hits him. Do you tell him to hit back?

This is not an easy question. No one wants her child to be picked on. We all want our children to stand up for themselves and get some respect.  Certainly we don’t want to raise a bully but we don’t want our kid to be a victim either. Is it ever okay for a child to return violence with more of the same?

Let’s think this through.

If your child hits back occasionally, he will occasionally get into trouble. It will not help your child if he says you told him to hit back. It will not help your child if you tell the authorities you want him to hit back. Hitting back escalates a situation so that instead of one hitter in an encounter, there now are two. Your child is likely to earn the same punishment as the one who started it all.

If your child hits back often, so that hitting becomes his way of dealing with problem people, he will get a reputation for violence. Other kids may goad him, trying to make him hit and getting him into trouble. No matter what the provocation, your child will be looked on as a bully and as someone who goes looking for trouble.

If you still think hitting back is a good idea, see if you can say “yes” to each of these statements:

• Hitting back has never got me into any trouble.
• People like me more because I hit back.
• Hitting back  always calms the situation.
• I can use my impulse to hit back at work, at home, and in the neighborhood with no problem.
• Hitting back  has enhanced my reputation as a respectable person.

There’s a difference between hitting back and defending oneself in a mugging.  Fighting off an attacker in a life-and-death situation is quite different from the sort of playground justice we’re talking about. If you feel your family is in constant danger from violent persons, then there are bigger changes needed in your life than just matching the level of violence around you.

What should your child do instead?

1. Speak up loudly.  He could first tell the hitter, “Hey! Don’t hit me!”  or “Stop it!” Never underestimate the power of speaking up.
2. Leave the scene. No child should stand for violence against himself. Leaving the area or even going home can stop an altercation.
3. Go to a safe area. On the playground or at the rec center, a child can move to a more populated area, especially one where adults are. Hitters don’t want witnesses.
4. Tell an adult. This is not tattling, it’s getting help in a situation that has got out of hand. Unfortunately, when children tell an adult (you) they are sometimes told to hit back. Don’t do that. Safeguard your child but don’t advise him to do things that will increase his troubles.

Gandhi said, “I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent.”  Hitting back doesn’t resolve a situation; it only pulls your child down to the same level as the person who hit first.

Help your child find solutions to social problems instead of creating more.

© 2013, Patricia Nan Anderson. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Ask for Dr. Anderson’s new book, Developmentally Appropriate Parenting, at your favorite bookstore.

Well, of course you’re worried. If your kid is being picked on, that’s a serious thing. You don’t want your child to be made unhappy or feel rejected by his so-called friends. Being bullied is a big deal.

But a new study conducted in Great Britain and published recently by the American Journal of Psychiatry suggests that being bullied is a bigger deal than most people thought. Some adults believe that a certain amount of bullying is part of normal kid-interactions. Many people think that the effects of bullying go away as kids get older and find different friends to hang out with. But this isn’t so. According to this new research, being bullied as a child leads to poor outcomes when those kids become adults.

Here’s how this study worked.  In 1958, over 7700 parents in England, Scotland and Wales were asked to comment of the level of bullying experienced by their children ages 7 to 11. The children were then followed until age 50. Researchers found that 28% of children were bullied occasionally and 15% were bullied frequently – rates of bullying similar in the United Kingdom today.

They then found that those children who were bullied were more likely to be in poor health, to have mental health issues, and to have lower intelligence at age 50 than people who were not bullied as children. Adults who were victimized by bullies in childhood were more likely to be depressed, have anxiety disorders, be unemployed, have less education and earn less money than adults who were not bullied as children. These harmful effects were evident even when the study held constant other factors like childhood IQ, parents’ socioeconomic status, parenting style, and children’s pre-existing emotional or behavioral problems. Overall, being bullied as a child derails a person’s future in multiple ways, even in the absence of other factors than might also get in the way.

This is not to say, of course, that every child who is bullied ends up as an unhappy, unsuccessful grownup. Keep in mind that research tells what’s generally true, not what’s always true in individual cases. If your child has been bullied, she is not destined to despair. But at the same time, this study points up the importance of intervention as bullying is going on and intervention later to get a teen who was bullied in elementary school back on track.

If bullying is going on for your child or other children you know, here are some things to do.

1. Pay attention, don’t ignore things. Even if bullying goes away, the effects can linger. Stop bullying as soon as you realize it’s happening.
2. Take action by insisting the school take charge. Even if bullying is happening in the neighborhood, there’s a good chance that it’s also evident at your child’s school.
3. Avoid blaming your child for being a victim. Being bullied isn’t the fault of the child on the receiving end. There is little he did to make this happen to him and little he can do to make the bullying stop. Supporting your child means not expecting him to solve this on his own.
4. Don’t be a bully yourself. The adult effects of childhood bullying mirror the adult effects of harsh parenting at home. Your child needs to feel safe. That can’t happen if things are falling apart in your family or if you are verbally or physically abusive with your kids.
5. If your child seems to need professional help to overcome the effects of being picked on, then find a way to provide that. Helping your teen get things back on track after an experience of being bullied as a child is essential to her future happiness.

Lead researcher Ryu Takizawa says this study shows that “the effects of bullying are still visible nearly four decades later. The impact of bullying is persistent and pervasive, with health, social and economic consequences lasting well into adulthood.”

If your child is being bullied, get busy.

© 2014, Patricia Nan Anderson. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Ask for Dr. Anderson’s new book, Parenting: A Field Guide, at your favorite bookstore.

One day, you discover that something is missing from your desk or purse. You suspect your child.

One day, your child suddenly has things you can’t figure out how she acquired. She says a friend gave them to her or that she found them. But you doubt her story. You think she may have stolen them.

Why do otherwise good children take things that don’t belong to them? And what should you do when you find out?

Small children take things for a lot of reasons. Very young children and children without a lot of social experience take things because they don’t know it’s wrong to do that. They see something. They want it. They put it in their pocket.  They act on impulse because they don’t have much control over their impulses and they “want what they want when they want it.” The concept of ownership is also poorly developed. As any two-year-old who has ever shouted “mine!” will tell you, if you can get it into your hand, it’s yours.

Slightly older kids might take things simply to confirm the rules. A child might pocket a trinket off your desk, even let you know he’s taken it, just to see what reaction this gets. He’s really asking you to tell him that stealing is wrong. A child at this stage is at war with himself. He knows what’s right and wrong, but his desire for whatever it is he took is greater than his cognitive ability to control his actions. He also finds it easy to delude himself into thinking this item really is his or that taking it really is fair (to himself).

Young children who are a little bit older than that are now fully aware of right and wrong and fully aware of social conventions about possessions. They understand that a toy can belong to someone else exclusively and that it’s wrong to take it. The child at this stage is no longer testing the rules; she knows them very well. So when the impulse to steal that toy overwhelms her, she will take it sneakily, maybe even implicating someone else. She will hide the toy so no one knows she took it, instead of playing with it openly. When the toy is discovered in her possession, she may pretend to not know how it got there.

Children who are older yet – in elementary school or even middle school – take things for a variety of reasons. They may steal to get back at the person they’re stealing from. They may steal because it seems dangerous and exciting. They may steal to fit in with a group of other kids who have made stealing their recreation. They may steal because they believe they “deserve” what they’re stealing and the person who has it now doesn’t need it or needs it less.

How you react to stealing depends on the age and understanding of the child.

• For very young children – kids under the age of three – simply recovering the item and reuniting it with its rightful owner may be enough, no need to say much of anything.
• For older children still learning the rules – those three- and four-year-olds – a gentle explanation of the rules, along with a request that the child return it to its owner – and help to do that, if necessary – will teach the rule without making a federal case of things.
• For the oldest preschoolers – older fours and five-year-olds, probably – who steal intentionally and with full understanding of their actions, a guided reflection on fairness and the feelings of others is in order. What’s needed here is a reminder of the child’s responsibility to observe and preserve the rights of each member of the classroom community, without putting her own rights above others’. This is a huge moral leap, that requires careful guidance on the part of adults.
• For school-age children – some kindergarteners and most older children – stealing is a bigger deal and should be evaluated thoughtfully. Is the child immature and acting “like a four-year-old”? Or is stealing part of a larger pattern of bullying, intimidation, and cheating? How you answer these questions determines if this is something you can resolve through careful monitoring and re-teaching or if you should seek professional help. The child at age 9 or 10 who steals for thrills, retribution, or to feel powerful needs serious guidance to find a more socially acceptable path.

The bottom line is this: discovering that a child has taken something that doesn’t belong to him probably is not so much a crime as a teachable moment. Be grateful for the opportunity the child’s action provides to discuss with him and with the entire class what it means to be fair and respectful of one another. Be grateful for this insight into your child’s thinking and social interactions, so you can set things straight. This is just a stumble on the way to becoming a responsible adult. Support your child in regaining her footing.

Most of all, pay attention. Children need your guidance to become the sort of people others trust.

© 2014, Patricia Nan Anderson. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Look for free downloads on Dr. Anderson’s website at www.patricianananderson.com.

Children as young as two-and-a-half engage in what’s known as “relational aggression.” They say things like, “You’re not my friend anymore,” and “If you do that, I won’t play with you.” Basically, as soon as kids are able to talk they are using words as weapons.

For a long time, relational aggression was thought to be something older children engage in. It was thought that children  – especially girls – form cliques and separate themselves into two groups, the “in” crowd and the outsiders, only in late elementary school and middle school. But this is not right at all. Research demonstrates that even in preschool, children use threats to withhold friendship as a way to influence other kids. By the time children become preteens they’re already very skilled at being mean.

The old saying, “Sticks and stones my break my bones but words will never hurt me,” is another aspect of this issue that is just plain wrong. As Oregon elementary school counselor Laura Barbour notes, “Kids forget about scuffles on the playground but they don’t forget about unkind words or being left out.”

Physical wounds heal. Emotional wounds do not.

We adults are more likely to see physical fights and we’re more worried about children going home with scrapes and bruises than we are about verbal nastiness and emotional hurts.  Unless we overhear what children say to each other, we may not know. Even if we do find out that children are rejecting other kids and getting others to reject them also, we tend to do very little. We tend to be annoyed and impatient but not really worried.

Maybe we should be worried. Studies by Jamie Ostrov, a leading researcher in this area, have demonstrated that relational aggression increases as children get older, so that verbal bullies become more unpleasant when their aggressive actions aren’t restrained. The effects of relational aggression on victims persists too. A child who is rejected by classmates in preschool and kindergarten tends to continue to be an outsider all through school. About 50% of children in grades 5 through high school say they’ve frequently been victimized by relational aggression. This is in contrast to the percentage of these students who say they’ve been physically bullied daily or weekly – only about 7%.

What should parents and teachers do? Here are some ideas to help curb the occurrence of relational aggression.

1. Pay attention to it and make your disapproval clear. Do not ignore mean comments you hear children making to each other, or mean assessments they make when talking with you about their friends. Do not tolerate mean talk.
2. Be inclusive and avoid supporting the class pecking order. If you are a parent, invite every child in your child’s class to her birthday party. If you cannot invite them all, invite only one or two. If you are a teacher, mix things up when selecting work groups and playground teams. Never let children do the choosing if you know they are likely to always pick the same children first.
3. Notice media messages. Research has shown that educational media intended to teach character development frequently backfires. Children pay more attention to the problem – to the depiction of bullying and verbal aggression – than to the solution that comes at the end. And, in fact, the time devoted to depicting problem behavior in children’s media is much longer than the time allotted to the happy ending. Find programs and media that simply demonstrate positive ways of getting along, instead of media that set up a before-after contrast.
4. If your child repeatedly is a victim of relational aggression, don’t ignore it. Your child needs more support and more help to overcome this than you might think. Bring this to the attention of your child’s teacher (or, if you’re the teacher, to the child’s parent) and make certain a plan is made to teach better ways of getting along. Most of all, don’t blame the victim by suggesting that her social status is her fault and that it is she who must change.
5. Be a good role model. Avoid talking about the relative worthy or popularity of different children, especially, but even of your own friends.

Relational aggression may become apparent at much earlier ages than we once thought. But this doesn’t mean it’s “natural.” Children have to be taught to be mean. Make certain instead they are taught to be nice.

© 2014, Patricia Nan Anderson. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Ask for Dr. Anderson’s new book, Parenting: A Field Guide, at your favorite bookstore.

Being able to share toys and snacks is a key social skill for toddlers and preschoolers. Of course, your child should learn to be polite and friendly. Knowing how to share is important.

But there are times when sharing isn’t appropriate, even though children might be asked to do so.

• A child who brings her own toys to the beach or playlot shouldn’t have to share with other children who want what she has.
• A child who is playing with one toy among many similar toys shouldn’t have to give up that toy to another child, since that child could pick one of the toys that are free.
• A child who is eating a snack should never share that snack with another child. If the snacking child’s parent wants to encouraging sharing, the other child’s parent must be asked first.

These seem to be sensible rules. Yet many parents on the playground seem to have other ideas. I have seen – probably you have seen this too – mothers demand that a child give up a toy to make her own child happy, without regard for the fact that child has the toy brought it from home or that there are many other equally nice toys available. Parents say things like, “It’s our turn now” or “You’ve had that long enough,” as if there were a time limit to play.

6 REASONS TATTLING IS POSITIVE

But there’s not. So long as there are other play options for other children to enjoy, there’s no reason at all for a child to give up what he’s playing with, on demand. Other children do not have a right to insist on it. Certainly their parents don’t have that right.

It makes a difference if the plaything is the only one of its kind.  If there’s only one baby swing at the playground, don’t hog it the entire morning, but give other parents and babies a chance. If there’s only one plastic shovel in the sandbox, help your child to give it up after a reasonable interval. But if there are many shovels and your child is digging with the only blue one but there are other shovels around, then she should be able to keep on digging without interruption. And without being made to share.

Naturally, if your child brings a toy to the playground and it is so wonderful that everyone wants to play with it so that it’s causing difficulties, the solution is to put that toy away. Remove the source of the problem, as a courtesy to other parents and in recognition that little children have an imperfect understanding of ownership. But even then your child is under no requirement to share.

If your child does decide to share her brought-from-home toy, then she must share it equally. She shouldn’t use the toy as a way to exert power over other children or to discriminate among them. Better to put the toy away and play with it at home than to cause outrage and sadness among other kids.

But usually the problem is with parents. It is they who express outrage and sadness when your child won’t give up a toy and their own child is unhappy. Some parents will give their children anything, even giving their children your own child’s stuff. You do not have to go along with this. Helping your child refuse doesn’t teach your child to be selfish. It teaches your child boundaries and how to stand up for what’s right.

Practice these words and step in if another child or another parent insists your child share what is his: “We brought that from home. It’s ours.” Say this with a smile and don’t back down.

When another child or parent tries to limit your child’s play with a toy when there are other toys available, say, “When we’re done with that, we’ll let you know.” Smile again. Do not give in.

And if you are the “other parent” remember that expecting something to be given up on demand isn’t sharing. It’s bullying. It’s not what you want your child to learn how to do.

© 2014, Patricia Nan Anderson. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Ask for Dr. Anderson’s new book, Parenting: A Field Guide, at your favorite bookstore.

Is your child fitting in to her school class? Does she have friends to play with at recess? Does she have friends who want to eat lunch with her? Most children do but some children don’t.

Friends are not just nice-to-have. They are essential to children’s success in school and in later life. Research has shown that children who are rejected or ignored in preschool continue to be rejected or ignored in first grade, third grade, and middle school. The pattern of no-friends doesn’t go away on its own. In addition, those children who have no friends at school are less happy at school, do less well in school, and develop patterns of aggression or withdrawal that become lifelong.

Every parent wants their child to have friends to play with. What can you do if your child has trouble making friends? Here are some ideas.

1. Make sure your child has friendship opportunities. To have friends, kids have to be around kids who are good candidates for friendship. So get your preschooler enrolled in a child-centered child care center or preschool and make certain that your school-age child has chances to play with kids outside of school. Remember that “play” is not the same as organized sports or lessons. Play is interacting with another child without any adult plan for what will happen. So set up play dates. Take time to get your child out into kid society.
2. Show your child how to play. Small children may not know how to sit down next to someone in the sandbox and engage that child in mutual play. Even older kids may feel too shy or uncertain and need to know how to strike up a conversation with another child on the playground or in the neighborhood. So show her how. Get into the sandbox yourself and help your child play with another kid. Introduce yourself and your child to a kid on the playground and help the two of them get involved in a shared activity.
3. Help your child be a responsive playmate. Some kids are better at this than others: they can pick up play cues and adapt to another child’s thinking almost effortlessly. Other children, especially those with ADHD or autism, may have difficulty understanding another child’s point-of-view. Studies show that children who are out of control, self-absorbed or overly-aggressive are rejected as playmates. If your child has trouble in social situations, he needs more opportunities to play, not fewer, and more guidance in how to do it. You may need to teach your child how to be a friend. Make this a priority.
4. Help your child say goodbye. When play is over, demonstrate how to end the play but saying, “Thanks for playing with us. We hope to play with you again sometime.” Easy to do and polite and it cements for your child the idea that, yes, she did play with somebody and it was fun. The shy and uncertain child may have felt uncomfortable during at least some of the play, so reminding her that this was fun leaves the good final impression.
5. Avoid over-managing friendship. Kids don’t become friends because adults say they should. They become friends because they have fun together. So trying to insist that another child be friends with your child or leaning too hard on a particular child to be your kid’s go-to companion is not likely to help your child in the long run. No one, your child included, should feel forced into friendship or forced to have play dates with someone she doesn’t like.

Finally, if you live in a remote area or there are no conducive children living nearby, you may be comforted by the fact that solitary children are not necessarily lonely. Many isolated kids use their imaginations to create a rich inner life or find affinity with pets. Some children with no friends are quite comfortable playing by themselves. The key thing is to notice if your child is really content or if he has simply resigned himself to a friendless fate. If your child is not unhappy, then don’t you be unhappy either.

Friends are good but popularity is not so important. It isn’t the number of friends that matters but the connection to even one person the same age or with the same interests. What’s important is your child’s happiness. Help your child be happy with her friends.

© 2014, Patricia Nan Anderson. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Look for free downloads on Dr. Anderson’s website at www.patricianananderson.com.

A mother told me recently that her second-grade daughter had been passed over when invitations were issued for several friends’ birthday parties.  She wondered what was going on and what she should do.

This is naturally concerning. One wonders if other kids or their parents are trying to send some sort of message. One wonders if other kids are engaging in passive-aggressive bullying.  One wonders if one’s child doesn’t really fit in with her peers. A parent quite rightly wonders who is at fault for this situation, other parents, other children, or her own child.

Any of these scenarios is possible, of course. It could be that other parents or other children are treating your family badly. It could be that your child rubs other people the wrong way. But it’s also possible that nothing at all is happening or at least nothing much.

The guest list for a party of seven-year-old children is understandably short. There is a limit to the number of second-graders a parent wants to have responsibility for, especially second-graders under the influence of sugary party foods and birthday excitement. The old rule-of-thumb to invite as many children as the birthday girl is old clearly works only in the preschool years. Once a child’s age exceeds five, the number of guests should depend only on her parents’ estimate of their ability to keep things under control.

So it may be that a child who is passed over for a birthday invitation just may not have made the short list. This might not be what her parents’ wanted or expected but it’s not an indication of something awful. It’s important to not make more of this than it truly is.

In addition, it’s important to notice whose feelings are hurt the most, your child’s or your own. Usually it’s parents who feel this slight most keenly. Parents of course want their children to be happy. But if not being invited doesn’t seem to bother the child, then there’s no need to fret to the point the child is bothered. Keep your indignation to yourself.

If your child is not invited to friend’s parties, take a careful look at things while remaining fair. There may be a problem if…

1. Invitations were issued in class, when uninvited children could see they were not included. Most schools have rules against this sort of thing. If this is happening at your child’s school, complain to the teacher and the principal.
2. Friends use party invitations as a way of controlling others, saying things like “If you don’t do as I say, I won’t invite you to my birthday,” or otherwise use the party as a way to establish an in-group. This is bullying and should not be tolerated. Again, if this is going on at school or on the school bus, tell the teachers and principal.
3. Your child is continually left out, not just of invitations, but in many aspects of kid social interactions. If no one will sit with your child at lunch, or play with your child at recess, or work with her on a project, there’s something amiss. Take a long, hard look at your child’s social skills and help her to find a compatible peer group. 

It’s possible that when your child is left off an invitation list, there’s something serious going on. It’s possible that nothing serious is going on at all. It’s often difficult to tell.

But it’s very hard to sort things out if we’re blinded by our own hurt feelings and anger.  As you figure out what’s going on be careful to stay objective.  That’s the best way to help your child.

© 2014, Patricia Nan Anderson. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Ask for Dr. Anderson’s new book, Parenting: A Field Guide, at your favorite bookstore.

Being bullied is no fun and being a bully isn’t a great way to build a social circle. In recent years, parents’ and teachers’ concern about bullying has led many school districts to implement anti-bullying programs. In fact, parents often demand that such programs be instituted.

Now, a new study calls into question the effectiveness of anti-bullying programs in schools. It seems that there is more bullying in schools with anti-bullying programs than in schools without.

The study by researchers at University of Texas Arlington and published in the Journal of Criminology, surveyed over 7,000 12-to-18 year-olds in nearly 200 U.S. school districts. They found that older students were less likely to be victims of bullying than younger students but that the most pervasive bullying occurred at the high school level. Race and ethnicity were not a factor linked to more or less bullying. Boys were more likely to party to physical bullying and girls more likely party to emotional bullying.

Most disconcertingly, the study found that the presence of bullying prevention programs was associated with more bullying, not less. The study notes, “Surprisingly, bullying prevention had a negative effect on peer victimization. Contrary to our hypothesis, students attending schools with bullying prevention programs were more likely to have experienced peer victimization, compared to those attending schools without bullying prevention programs.”

The authors speculate that bullies may learn better bullying techniques when schools focus so heavily on what bullies do and their effects. It may also be that schools that implement anti-bullying programs have more severe problems with bullying than schools that do not. The study reports that about 68% of American schools have anti-bullying programs.

If bullying is a problem at your child’s school, what should you do?

1. Remember that anti-bullying programs are not enough to make a change. One cannot simply expect that having a program solves the problem. Bullying is not so simple as that.
2. Do what you can to change the culture of the school and the neighborhood. Bullying thrives in a coercive environment, where people in power wield power over others. Highly controlling teaching methods, zero-tolerance administrative policies, and blatant favoritism of some groups over others are methods frequently employed by the adults in schools where bullying is a problem. It makes sense that bullies learn by adult examples.
3. Listen if your child complains of being a bully. Just because her school has an anti-bullying program doesn’t mean you can imagine the problem no longer exists, or exists only in her mind. Remember that boys can be victims of bullies too (and girls can be bullies, as well).
4. Get help if you suspect your child is a bully. While many bullies learn how to be controlling and coercive at home, some bullies are children with Oppositional Defiant Disorder and other mental health issues, raised in homes with responsive parenting. Don’t be embarrassed. Take action.

The take-home message from this study is that parents cannot assume an anti-bullying effort at school solves the problem. Things may actually get worse or at least get no better. As always, parents must still pay attention and take action to protect their children.

© 2013, Patricia Nan Anderson. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Ask for Dr. Anderson’s new book, Developmentally Appropriate Parenting, at your favorite bookstore.