Family Background of Bullies

On this blog I will discuss the family background of bullies as discussed within the academic journal article “Bullying in School: An Overview of Types, Effects, Family Characteristics, and Intervention Strategies”, by Paul R. Smokowski and Kelly Holland Kopasz.

According to the journal article research has shown that the families of bullies are “often troubled.” In fact, the parents of bullies are often hostile, rejecting, and indifferent towards their children. Within the household of a bully, the father figure is usually missing and the mother tends to have a permissive parenting style. As a result, supervision over bullies tends to be very minimal. In addition, some parents will dismiss the aggressive behaviors of their children as a rite of passage. What makes this circumstance particularly concerning is that research suggests that a bully’s level of aggression will continue to increase if the caretaker continues to tolerate or dismiss the aggressive behavior.

The aforementioned revelations are interesting because they hint towards a possible origin for bullying. As noted within the article, the lack of parental supervision seems to be one of the initial factors that give life to bullying behaviors. However, on this occasion the blame does not fall onto the bully, but rather onto the parents of bullies. It may be that bullies simply exhibit aggressive and violent behaviors out of a need of attention. Attention that these children should be, but are not, receiving at home. By ignoring their child, parents may be fueling their child’s aggressive behavior to a point where it becomes a normal part of their lives and once again the issue of normalization reemerges. In addition, by ignoring their child, parents are irresponsibly passing the problematic behaviors exhibited by their aggressive child onto other individuals. Perhaps future anti-bullying strategies should focus on strengthening the relationships between bullies and their parents. Not only would this strategy lessen the amount of bullying, it would also benefit the bully’s overall family relationship.

The journal article notes that since supervision in the homes of bullies tends to be minimal, discipline tends to be very inconsistent. However, when discipline is enforced, the parents of bullies tend to use “power-assertive techniques.” In other words, punishment of bullies often occurs in a physical form or in the form of angry outbursts. Consequently, these children begin to learn that aggression and violence can be used as means to solve their problems. In essence, these children begin to imitate the aggressive behaviors they see at home, because they view them as efficient means to obtain what they want.

Once again the article hints that blame for bullying falls onto parents. How can children be expected to behave properly, if this behavior is never modeled or reinforced at home? In order for anti-bullying strategies to be effective against bullying children, schools and parents must work together. Progress will never be made if different behaviors are modeled and reinforced within different settings. Instead, this mixture will create an increasingly difficult situation which becomes increasingly hard to address. In fact, with the passage of time bullying children may learn how to change their demeanor within different settings in order to manipulate the people around them and decrease the probability of getting caught while bullying.  As stated on previous occasions, prevention is the best intervention and this may prove to be especially critical when dealing with children.