If your child is a bully

Bullies are always other people's children, never your own. Just as many small children think of "strangers" as monstrous aliens lurking 'round corners, so adults are inclined to think of bullies as obvious-looking thugs from deprived backgrounds, rather than ordinary children - their own little darlings - behaving badly. There has been a lot of discussion recently about bullying and its consequences on the unfortunate victims - of how its emotionally crippling effects can go unnoticed by parents and teachers while its physical manifestations, the mysterious bumps and bruises, are explained away as "accidents" because the child is too frightened or unwilling to admit what is going on. Where the child does reveal what is happening, it is possible to attempt to sort out the problem.

But how would you react if you are told that your child is the bully? After you have finally been persuaded that it really is your child who is the culprit and not a case of mistaken identity, or of your child being led on by a best friend, what do you do? In the days of "spare the birch and spoil the child" it was simply a matter of beating the evil out and "teaching him a lesson". The fact that the child had been awful to others was seen as innate malevolence. Today, hitting a child is seen as a form of bullying in itself, and children's behaviour is usually looked at in the wider context of friends and family. So not only will you have to do something about your child's victimisation of others, you also have look at how life is for him or her - and you may have to do a bit of inner reflection too.

"Awful though it may sound, some of our children are the bullies," says Wendy Grant, author of 13 to 19 (Element). "This is a very serious problem, not just because of the harm it does to others, but also because of what it is doing to them. If you suspect your child may be a bully, try to find out why and deal with the problem. If you can't, seek help. Don't hesitate to use the school or an appropriate organisation. "Bullying is often the result of poor self-image or a hidden response to fear. It can be a behaviour observed in the way parents deal with life. If you tend to be belligerent or you frequently put down other people or ridicule them, you are setting a very poor example for your child."

Marie Murray, head of psychology at St Vincent's Psychiatric Hospital and co-author of ABC of Bullying (Marino) agrees. "We must be aware of the messages we are passing on. If we as parents talk in a derisory way about one section of society, we are sending a message that it is our belief that some people are better than others. We cannot then be surprised if our children react to this."

If it is confirmed, through independent, objective evidence and your child's own account, that your child is bullying, there is no point in ranting and raving about how mortified you were when you were called into the principal's office, or screaming about how your child has let you down.

So what do you do? Don't panic, say the experts. Discuss it calmly with your child but let him or her know you take it very seriously. "You must show disapproval of the behaviour but not of the child. You must state clearly that it is not acceptable and that it cannot continue," says Marie Murray. "But you also promise support. Tell them you will help them not to bully. "You then insist that they take responsibility for their actions and own up to what they did. Apologies must be made. If money was taken, or someone's lunch spat on, it must be replaced and the young person must make that repayment through household work or some other method of earning money to pay it back. But you should not humiliate or torture them.

"Then you need to find out why it happened. Ask yourself certain questions: did they not have as much money as everyone else? If they were stealing homework, do they need remedial help? Look at your family situation," Murray advises. "Has here been a death, separation or burdening financial problem of late? If a child feels insecure at home, he may feel he needs to be controlling in school. "Look for the meaning behind it. `I don't think I'm liked so I have to be tough and fight.' `I feel insecure so I pick on someone weaker who will make me look strong.' We need to get away from the notion that a bully is a destructive, violent person."

For many bullies it may be just a passing phase, a reaction to circumstances, but one that needs to be dealt with speedily and seriously for all the children concerned.

Recent airings of the subject may be making a lot of people uncomfortable as they recall past behaviour. A middle-aged mother told me recently that, at the age of 13, she and a friend unmercifully teased a smaller child in boarding school, flushing her favourite teddy in the loo (they didn't allow it to disappear) and imitating the child's extensive vocabulary and posh accent.

However, she maintains, it was just out of devilment; they had no idea of the effect it would have on the child, who eventually left the school. It is only now that she has her own children that she realises how awful it was. "Even though we could see she was upset I think if someone had made us look at how it felt from her side we would have been amazed, and would have stopped. I think it just happened because we needed more to do in the evenings than prayers and lessons."