Liguori: Bullies have feelings, too

Kathy Liguori is co-owner and operator of Tutor Time child care centers in Middle Island and Medford.

It's encouraging to see President Barack Obama and the first lady spotlight the problem of bullying in the schoolyard, as they did in a conference at the White House earlier this month. And good for Facebook and Formspring for making it easier to report and remove abusive posts.

But as school districts across New York move toward installing programs to reduce bullying, as is required by the new state Dignity for All Students Act, we need to be careful not to focus solely on the experiences of the unfortunate victims. I have found in my work with kids from age 3 to 12, that it is best to deal directly with the bully -- and not by bullying back. That, unfortunately, is what punitive actions feel like to the child doing the bullying.

Instead, address the root of the problem with the bully directly and do it with compassion: "Why do you want to inflict pain on another person?"

For some, this may feel like a cop-out. But if you "seek first to understand, then try to be understood" -- as Steven Covey put it in his "Seven Habits of Highly Effective People" -- you are much more likely to be able to influence the bully's behavior in a positive way.

Here's one example: Some time ago, an 8-year-old child who rode the bus to our after-school program was being picked on by some older kids, including his 12-year-old brother. This made the emotional pain inflicted twice as bad, because it came from a family member. When we became aware of the situation we sat down with the older brother and asked him what was driving him to be so hurtful, when instead he should be standing up for his sibling.

By creating a safe environment for him to tell his story, we were able to learn from him that he resented the attention his younger brother received, both at home and in school. It wasn't so much his brother he was mad at, but rather the adults in his life. We spent a great deal of time exploring this issue with him, talking about why and ways he could express that better. And we also consulted with and coached the boys' mother. In time the bullying behavior stopped, and now he acts as a mediator for his younger brother.

Here's another: One of the 8-year-olds in our program told us that an 11-year-old in our center was picking on him. We were surprised to hear this -- we'd never had a problem with the older boy. We sat down with him to get his side and eventually he explained that he had been picked on at school when he was younger so he thought now it was "his turn" to do the picking.

We pointed out that he didn't like being picked on. So why would he want to do it to another child -- especially one who had never hurt him? The look on his face told us all we needed to know: He understood and promised to leave the little ones alone. And he did.

It's important to cultivate a culture of compassion within learning environments, and to use social norms and peer pressure to make it socially unacceptable to bully others. Encourage classmates of the victim to let the bully know that such behavior isn't acceptable. Engage the parents of the bully in addressing the problem. At best, the parents need to be aware of their child's unacceptable behavior. At worst, there is always the possibility that the bully is learning his behavior from what he sees taking place in the home -- and this provides an opportunity to intervene.

Early, properly targeted intervention is a key component to prevention. It is imperative that we take action now, before today's schoolyard bully becomes tomorrow's abusive spouse. But you must get to the root cause of the aggressive behavior before you can begin to solve the problem.