Bullying is a very common and serious behavioral issue occurring in the childhood population. As the topic receives more and more media attention parents and early child hood educators are increasingly becoming aware of the situation. Bullying definitely occurs in school aged children but what about the toddler and preschool set?
What is Bullying?
Bullying is a persistent issue among children. “Bullying can be verbal or physical, making another child feel bad and hurt. Bullying can be in the form of name calling, excluding a child from play activities, making fun of the child's appearance or mannerisms, or physical aggression, inappropriate touching, pushing, shoving, hitting,” says noted adolescent, adult and child psychiatrist Dr. Anandhi Narasimhan.
Bullying often has to do with inflicting aggression on another in order to establish a perceived place of prestige by lowering the social status of the other. Although many studies focus on preteens and teens, the findings generally apply in early childhood as well, says Sue Adair, Director of Education for The Goddard School.
Bullying in Daycare
Studies show that up to 30% of children surveyed in sixth to tenth grade have admitted to some involvement in bullying, either as a bully, a victim, or both. [Journal of the American Medical Association, 2001]. But what about bullying at the preschool level?
Bullying also does occur on some level in preschool and day care facilities. It is important to understand that there are different degrees of bullying among children and adolescents, and adults for that matter. “On the benign end of the continuum we have children who on occasion in their life attempted to bully or intimidate others into doing what they might want them to do, but the bullying characteristics have not yet become in any significant way ingrained into the character structure of the child,” says Dr. Warren Seiler, child and adolescent psychiatrist and author Battling the Enemy Within: Conquering the Causes of Inner Struggle and Unhappiness [Victory Laine Publishing, 2010]. Such a child may actually feel quite bad and guilty after their first attempt to bully, and may, in fact, never try to bully anyone again.
On the other end of the spectrum there are children, adolescents, and adults who have become most severe in their characterological pathology along these lines that they will stop at nothing to torment an individual into doing whatever it is they want them to do. This is usually the result of a young person who has become significantly narcissistic and therefore lacks the empathy for the feelings and needs of others. In addition they tend to lack an actively ingrained moral conscious and spiritual awareness, explains Dr. Seiler.
While preschool children, for any number of reasons, may be aggressive and mean towards other children in the preschool, this may or may not fall under the category of bullying. Dr. Seiler believes that bullying is a concept that actually applies to children and adolescents who are of the age to consciously recognize what they are doing as opposed to preschool children who may typically act out aggressively if they don’t get their way and/or if they are struggling with any number of potential difficulties either internally or as a result of the environment they are living in.
Daycare facilities on the other hand often have children varying in age from the very young to the early adolescent and potentially beyond early adolescence. According to Dr. Seiler, incidents of bullying in daycare facilities depend on the age of the children.
“When considering “bullying” in an early childhood setting, children move from a place of established social status in the family to the social uncertainty of the classroom. This causes some level of stress in most young children. Add to this the fact that the young child’s social perspective is limited and there is ongoing brain development. The result is the almost daily 'I’m-your-friend/I’m-not-your-friend' phenomenon. This occurs regularly in preschool and daycare facilities,” says Adair. Severe cases of bullying are usually not the majority of cases.
As parents and early childhood educators understand bullying children under 5 in the daycare setting, children can understand the difference between normal conflicts and bullying.
Resources:
Interviews with Dr. Warren Seiler, Sue Adair, and Dr. Anandhi Narasimhan were conducted in May, 2010.
Nansel, Overpeck, et. al. “Bullying Behaviors Among US Youth Prevalence and Association With Psychosocial Adjustment,” JAMA. 2001; 285:2094-2100.
Carla Snuggs - As a writer for Suite101.com since 2005, it is a privilege to continue on as theTopic Editor for the subject of Day Care. I received a ...
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