Your child is a bully, what do you do? Why empathy, not harsh punishment, is the right course
- Positive and negative reinforcement, role modelling, and punishment – these are possible ways to deal with your child’s bullying, experts will tell you
- Harsh punishment may not work, but nor will leniency. You need to understand why your child is a bully, and instil empathy in them
No parent wants to be told, or to admit, that their child is a bully. It reflects badly on their parenting skills and their role as a moral compass to their children.
Some parents sweep their shame under the rug, while others go to the opposite extreme. This happened in a recent case in which a father in America made his 10-year-old daughter walk to school in the freezing cold as punishment for bullying classmates on the school bus.
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The girl was suspended from using school transport for three days. Instead of driving her the 8km (5 miles) to school, the father made her walk to teach her what he thought was a valuable lesson.
He drove alongside his daughter, filmed her walking, and posted the video on social media; it received more than 20 million views. Not surprisingly, his actions drew wide support as well as harsh criticism.
Such strict parenting is not uncommon. In 2012, a four-year-old Chinese boy was stripped down to his underpants and forced to stand in the snow by his father. The boy had done nothing wrong; the father just wanted to help build his self-confidence by pushing him to his absolute limits.