I work for a nonprofit organization that provides counseling services to teens and families.  One of our top 10 presenting issues tends to be bullying.  We put out resources and advice articles about bullying all the time.  When my son is a teenager, I think I’ll have a pretty good idea of how to talk to him about this topic.  But, what do you do when your toddler is the bully?

Sadly, my kid is THAT KID.  The bully.  The one who hurts other kids.  It only started in the last couple of weeks.  We got a report after picking him up from daycare that he started pushing his classmates.  Then came the hitting, the kicking, and hurting the little ones in the baby class.  After the very first report we started talking to him about it every night: “It is not nice to push.  You need to be gentle.  Hitting is never okay.  The only thing you can kick are balls.”  Over and over again.  

Today I picked him up from daycare and was told that Nolan was not nice to the babies again.  I sat down by the babies and said, “Look, you have to be nice and gentle with the babies.”  Then the worst thing I can imagine happened.  He pushed this little girl over.  Hard.  So hard that she flew backwards and hit her head on the wall really hard.  I scolded him right away, “No!  No pushing!  Why did you push her???  That is not nice and not okay!”  His response was a sinister smile and laugh.

I was so ashamed.  Embarrassed.  I like to think I am a good person and have been doing my best to teach him to be polite, to be a nice, to be…good.  Until recently, I thought he was a good little boy (but always very curious…sorry, I’ve been reading too much Curious George).  I know it is likely a phase and that if we continue to talk to him about it and model good behavior, he will catch on but right now it’s so frustrating.

He’s not only hitting kids at school.  He’s hitting me too.  And Ryan.  And he’s kicked the dog.  Everything we say to him is just going in one ear and out the other.  I’ve tried spanking [see edit below].  No response.  We’ve tried time out.  But the consequences of this behavior just don’t seem to be getting through to him.  

Hopefully we are getting the negative behavior out of the way early and won’t have to deal with any issues when he is a teenager or young adult.  Hey, it could happen. 🙂 

[Edit] Let me rephrase – we tried spanking…twice. Only twice. I’m not here to get into the spanking vs. not debate. I was spanked as a child and came out fine. That being said, we are not taking that approach, especially given the issue we are dealing with. One more thing for context – he isn’t even two yet.