If anything upset him, Dovi would react forcefully — not out of malice, but out of intense emotion. “If someone knocked over his bike, he’d see it as a personal affront and give the other kid a strong punch. He’d think his bike was being destroyed.”

Among girls, bullying often plays out in the verbal and social arenas, rather than physical altercations. Mrs. Kuessous notes that often, these negative social interactions stem from an unhealthy sense of self. “The need to control others comes from an unhealthy need to draw attention to oneself, no matter who suffers in the process. At the other end of the spectrum, you could have a much less popular girl who becomes a bully and acts in a way that makes other girls fear her.”

Rabbi Kalman Baumann, principal of Miami’s Yeshiva Toras Chaim Toras Emes Klurman Elementary School, concurs. Most bullying, he says, tends to come from children who are too far toward either end of the spectrum, with self-esteem that is overblown and exaggerated on the one hand, or deficient on the other. For example, Aliza’s son Lipa felt himself lost in the shadow of his goody-goody older brother. To establish his own macho persona, distinct from his brother’s saintly one, Lipa adopted a swaggering, bullying manner with the neighborhood kids.

For Chaya’s son Ari, the root of his aggressive behavior was, ironically, being bullied. Ari had a host of minor intellectual and social disabilities that were significant enough for people to view him as a little weird. When friends and neighbors teased him or picked fights, Ari would lash out with his fists in frustration, earning the title of the neighborhood bully.

Bullying is often triggered in the early days of a boy’s school career, observes Rabbi Moishy Stamler, who directs anti-bullying programs in Lakewood schools. Thrust into an overwhelming world with unfamiliar rules, possibly tormented by older or larger students, a scared little boy may absorb the unspoken message that he needs to be on top to survive.

“My Son Did What?”

“The hardest thing I ever did was raise that kid,” declares Chaya. “I loved him to pieces, I was his best friend, and he was so overwhelming and impossible. I loved him and couldn’t wait to get him out the door.” Chaya remembers years that Ari was repeatedly suspended and sent home early, so she needed to entertain him all afternoon along with her toddlers and baby. “Forget doing well in school — I just wanted him to stay there!”

Other mothers echo Chaya’s experiences. Finding healthy outlets for an aggressive child and teaching more positive communication techniques is exhausting, and can feel like an exercise in futility.

But what won’t a mother try to help her child? “Therapies, psychologists, OT, auditory processing, everything. I did my hishtadlus, and I davened like crazy. Literally, all I did while they were at school for four hours was read books, research, and make phone calls,” says Chaya.

Often, aside from the intrinsic struggle of inculcating good middos — and doing damage control! — mothers face the judgment of friends and neighbors. Mothers who are blessed with (relatively) calm, good-natured children often can’t imagine the anguish of a parent whose child seems out of control.

“Bullies are the bottom of the totem pole. People treat you horribly; they have absolutely no compassion,” reports Miri. She describes many encounters in which she was screamed at, and her son called names by outraged parents of children whom her son had hurt. She recalls, with some shame, her reaction during one particularly nasty encounter: “I remember thinking, I give you a brachah that you should have a child like this. We’ll see how you manage with this nisayon.”

For years, Miri would avoid the playground during peak hours, only venturing out in the evening, for fear of what her son might do to her friends’ kids — and to her friendships, in the process.

Aliza remembers feeling that society’s opprobrium, though well-intentioned, was somewhat misguided. Hearing emphatic condemnations of bullies in lectures or in magazine articles, she’d wonder, “Who are you talking about? You’d think it’s some horrible gangster coming to school! He’s a Yiddishe child with middos he needs to work on.”

The self-flagellation can be intense, too. Mothers blame themselves, worrying that their deficiencies led them to rear deeply flawed offspring.

Miri describes her relief upon realizing that her aggressive son Dovi was actually the anomaly in her family. “My next son after Dovi is a total victim. The first day he came home crying because someone had hurt him was so vindicating!”

Similarly, Chaya remembers, “I thought it was just me — I couldn’t parent successfully like everyone else!” Only as her family grew did it dawn on Chaya that not all children struggle with these issues, and that her son’s difficulties did not stem from poor parenting.

Like all Yiddishe mamas, they also worry about their children’s futures. Would they continue bullying as adults? Who would marry them? And, perhaps more awful to contemplate, what would happen to the poor unsuspecting souls who did?

Schools Partnering with Parents

As the guardian of most of a child’s waking hours, the school is a potentially powerful partner in parents’ efforts to help their children learn healthy behaviors.

Rabbi Baumann has been among the pioneers implementing effective and compassionate programs to combat bullying. He explains that proactively creating a warm, positive environment with a sense of community lays the groundwork for a school without bullying. Of course, even the most nurturing classroom can’t eliminate the problem entirely, so Toras Chaim Toras Emes uses a system of escalating inevitable consequences to deter bullying (each act of bullying is met with a predetermined consequence, which automatically increases in severity as bullying continues).

Programs designed to create safe environments to protect kids from being bullied are the same programs that help the perpetrator deal with his need to bully others, explains Rabbi Stamler. In a warm environment that emphasizes connection and interpersonal relationships, boys feel safer and less threatened. That’s why his programs feature lots of team-building exercises, which help kids see that different boys shine in different areas. When they all feel needed and connected, their heightened sense of self reduces the need to put others down to feel secure.

The most important thing schools can do to protect kids from being bullied—and to protect bullies from their own baser instincts—is to stop concentrating solely on the classroom, and shift that focus to the schoolyard and hallways as well, adds Rabbi Stamler. Parents should advocate for teachers to closely monitor the times and spaces outside of class, where much of the day’s social interaction takes place.

It’s also the school’s responsibility to catch the challenging child being good, says Mrs. Kuessous. “Girls who are ‘victims’ have to see that the school won’t tolerate this behavior, but at the same time, we very much celebrate when girls are acting properly — and we include the ‘bully.’ Everyone has redeeming qualities; we give her the chance to be good in her eyes and others,” she explains.

While awareness of effective measures for combating bullying is spreading, not all schools have adopted successful protocols.

Chaya’s son Ari was sent out of class repeatedly for misbehavior. Since Ari’s bullying stemmed from being out of sync with his classmates socially and academically, this only exacerbated the problem.

In the lower grades, the administration let him sit in the office and play games, but as he got older, they suggested that maybe he simply wasn’t cut out for school — and shouldn’t come back for the next year. “The school didn’t know what they were doing,” explains Chaya, “and they were sort of nice to a fault. But if a kid is having difficulties, the school can’t say, ‘We don’t have the ability to service that.’ There may be nowhere else!” In their out-of-town community, there were no viable alternatives. When the so-called “victims” of Ari’s harassment finally drove him to drop out of school, he ended up in public school, and ultimately left Torah and mitzvos.

Aliza, conversely, was faced with a school she felt was too punitive. Once, when she advocated for a little more compassion for her rambunctious son, the principal asked in frustration, “How many times can you pet a porcupine?”

“As many times as he needs,” answered Aliza, but her appeal fell on deaf ears.

Rabbi Stamler agrees that getting a reluctant school administration on board is a major challenge for parents. Much of the breakdown in communication comes from the huge difference between a home environment and school. “It’s like putting a person alternately in the Arctic Circle or Florida, with two totally different climates,” he says. It’s often easy to forget that schools don’t have the flexibility and resources that the home does, and that the child’s behavior might present very differently in the two environments. Bearing this in mind, parents can be more understanding of differences in approach.

However, if the school truly is too rigid to reach out to the bully effectively, concludes Rabbi Stamler, the parents may need to go it alone. But how?

Breaking the Cycle

What tools can help a child who is stuck in a pattern of destructive behavior?

Ask the school for support. Reach out immediately to the school, urges Mrs. Kuessous, and stay in constant communication. Find out what’s happening in school, and if they have any suggestions for how you can help your daughter.

If the administration is not supportive, and is simply punishing instead of trying to work with the child, Rabbi Baumann suggests reminding them that you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. Emphasize the school’s responsibility to your child too, and ask them to keep emotion out of the equation and instead look for ways to build him up. “Exploding and taking it out on the kid — that’s not chinuch, that’s revenge,” says Rabbi Baumann.

Get outside help. Ideally, says Rabbi Baumann, if the child needs professional help, the school would work together with their own social worker or with the family’s therapist, but even if the school can’t or won’t provide that level of support, be sure to get your child the help he needs.

Focus on the good. According to Rabbi Stamler, the best thing you can do is to try to put yourself in the child’s place. Find something positive about him, and use that to build him up. “Fortify the child by building up his confidence and self-esteem. Be communicative and as connected to the child as possible. Give him what he’s lacking — extra love, self-confidence, building a skill — so he won’t need to be a bully.”

Sometimes, when a kid is making himself really hard to love, this can take quite a bit of creativity, observes Miri. “I’d say, ‘Wow, you brought a toy for the baby!’ — even though he’d just dropped it by mistake and the baby found it on the floor. I tried to make him into a benevolent dictator instead of a despot.”

Create healthy circles around the child. There’s no overstating the importance of modeling appropriate behavior and communication. “If a child sees healthy behavior, she will learn. She’ll see that in the beginning, bullies get their way, but as they get older, it won’t get them friends. Eventually, she will learn the right way to gain friends,” says Mrs. Kuessous. For that reason, as much as possible, encourage friendships with healthy, positive friends who see her goodness despite her weaknesses.

Teach empathy. “Many argue that you cannot teach empathy, but I believe it is possible,” says Mrs. Schonfeld. To help your aggressive child understand the effect his choices have on others, you can try empathizing with his own disappointments, role-playing, pointing out the commonalities between people, and openly discussing and naming emotions.

Connect with a mentor. Being inundated with well-intentioned but often conflicting advice can be overwhelming. Read books, take parenting classes, and learn the best techniques you can, but finding a single mentor to turn to can be a lifeline, says Miri. “You need a mehalech. With these kids, you can’t just fly by the seat of your pants.”

Getting to the root of the problem doesn’t happen overnight. In the short-term, Miri found life couldn’t always be unconditional warmth. “Soft, sweet empathy-building sessions are important, but alone, they wouldn’t have been enough for my son. I needed to give as much space as possible, but come down hard if the rules were broken. ‘No’ is absolutely no. Red lines must be enforced — but have as few of them as possible,” she says.

Of course, it’s relatively simple to rattle off a list of steps a mother should follow. Reality is a lot messier. “People are so quick to judge — why can’t you control this child?” relates Chaya. “I’ve read every book and gone to every class. Not all tactics always work with every child!”

An Eye to the Future

Is there hope for a child who exhibits such antisocial tendencies at such a young age? The answer, the experts unanimously say, is yes.

Rabbi Bauman poses a question in the name of the great medieval commentator Rabbeinu Bechaye: Why does Mishlei single out the ger, the stranger, as someone from whom we may not steal? Theft is prohibited across the board, explains Rabbeinu Bechaye, but it is human nature to take advantage of the weak, so the prohibition is repeated regarding the more vulnerable classes of society, such as strangers, widows, and orphans.

“Basically we’re all bullies in the right circumstances; it’s a normal, natural impulse to exert power and control over others,” explains Rabbi Baumann. Though the child who displays aggressive behavior needs more help in this area than others do, it is a fairly common problem that should be viewed in the context of normal misbehavior.

At the same time, the child who has a tendency to misuse his power also has the capability to utilize those same strengths constructively. Both Miri and Aliza report that their sons have natural leadership abilities. From the moment he gets home from school, Miri’s son, now 12, is flooded with phone calls from friends who want him to organize the fun, and Aliza’s son would sometimes be asked to handle the preschool classes if the rebbe had to step out for a short while.

As they grow and learn to channel their dynamism and energy in healthy ways, children like these can become forces for good in their families and communities.

The hope that an erstwhile bully can move past that label is not unrealistic. Mrs. Kuessous is optimistic, provided the environment is supportive. “If the people around her are patient, and try to mirror for her where she’s going wrong; if they celebrate her successes, and don’t overreact too much to what she does wrong — she’ll learn. She’ll see for herself that it won’t get her very far.”

A Mother’s Role

“Having sweet children wouldn’t mean I’m a good mother,” says Miri. “It would mean I’m a blessed mother.” Faced with the pain of watching one’s child acting unacceptably, it’s easy to fall into the trap of judging one’s own success or failure by the child’s choices. These brave women remind us that the only thing we control is our own choices.

Whether your child appears to be the victim or the aggressor, your only responsibility is to help your child behave appropriately. “If you want to make the world a better place, look at yourself first,” says Chaya. “That’s our raison d’ךtre: to ask, what’s my part here?”

The mother of the bully is in for a bumpy ride. But with faith — in her child’s innate goodness, in her own ability to rise to the occasion, and in the infinite wisdom of the One Who granted these challenges — there’s every reason to hope that there is a bright future ahead for her child.

The Bully’s Neighbor

Has little Chezky from next door done something deplorable? If you need to bring a problem to his mother’s attention, here’s how to do it sensitively.

Think twice. Does every isolated incident need to be relayed? Kids tend to be rough and tumble, and if there’s an ongoing problem, chances are the mother is aware of it, so ask yourself if your report will serve a constructive purpose.

Consider involving an impartial third party. While there’s no need to make a federal case out of every infraction, in cases that warrant intervention, it may make everyone more comfortable to enlist an objective outsider, like a rav who is sensitive to issues of this sort, suggests Rabbi Stamler.

Verify that you have the full picture. “You’re not responsible for disciplining someone else’s child — just to ensure that your child is doing the right thing,” says Chaya. Do your best to understand the role your child played in the interaction. Even when the other child seems so obviously wrong, your child may have had a significant role in instigating the discord.

Derech eretz still applies. “Hurling insults is not okay. The fact that he bullied your child doesn’t give you a green light to bully the mother,” says Miri.

Bottom line? Says Miri, “There’s another mother on the other end — and it could be you. The kid’s parent is mortified, at the end of her rope, and sad; she’s not a terrible parent. Think about that for a moment before you knock on her door.”

(Originally Featured in Family First, Issue 573)