In our latest collection of videos from BritMum video bloggers, we hear several sides to the ever-challenging question of child-on-child aggression.
With the recent furore and strangely flat response from the authorities over child cage fighting the debate comes at a time we’re raw and ever-concerned about the experiences our own children are going to have.
Being bullied can be the defining experience of a childhood, it can put bright and eager children off school, denting their learning, it can create internal conflicts in the smallest of bodies about appearance, years earlier than we might expect. And it can cause real-world conflict between parents, even those with which we’ve previously been friendly.
“One of my least favourite topics,” says Susanna from A Modern Mother, and she’s not alone. Helen from the knackeredmotherswineclub.blogspot.com finds the whole subject “stomach turning”.
John and Ruth from www.geekmummy.com had thought they would have nothing much to contribute to the discussion, and then not long before filming John had a “run in” at a soft play area.
Their daughter Catherine is three, and the problem of bullying seemed a long way over the horizon until a group of boys at the soft play area seemed to make a beeline for little Catherine, running to her, hitting her on the head right in front of John.
Despite John’s shouts, the boys continued and John asks, what can he do in that position. It’s not his place to tell another person’s child off and yet, the parents were doing nothing...
At what age does this sort of boisterous activity become bullying? Is it when it’s repeated, a campaign, rather than a one-off misdemeanour or is the moment play turns violent?
Penny, who blogs at www.aresidence.co.uk, is a head of department in a school and drama teacher. She asks, “can you bully-proof your child?” and the answer, it seems, is a child can learn to bully proof themselves, learn to “throw away those comments”.
Watch the video and hear all the different sides to the story and then please do share your thoughts and reactions with us.
