‘My son is a bully’

“My son Klaas is ten years old and a nasty bully. It took me a long time to say this out loud. I am giving this interview in the hope that other parents in the same situation will feel less isolated.

If your child is bullied, everyone understands you. But if your child is a perpetrator, you are also seen as a perpetrator yourself. Especially if you don’t recognize it. As we have long done. We blamed everyone except Klaas. We didn’t help him with that. When your child is bullying, there is only one thing you can do: be open to complaints about their behavior. The less empathy he shows in others, the more you have to have it. From there you can seek help.

Outraged

I know Klaas is not bad. He flings out of uncertainty, because he is afraid of not belonging. The offense is the best defense. Actually he is very vulnerable, but I understand very well that other parents are not willing to see that. Parents whose child he has taken down think he is a rotten kid. They judge him for what he does, not for what is behind it. I would do the same in their place. That insight has helped me. When Klaas was sent away from playgroup for aggressive behavior, Michiel and I were still deeply indignant. We only saw a single-minded son who swung around me like a vine when I left him.

Not invited

Other children did the same to their parents. Only, they eventually started to play well. Klaas became angry, and he took that anger bluntly towards other children. He was strong for his age – his blows were hard. When he bit another boy, that boy’s parents did not rest until Klaas was sent away from the class. My husband and I were outraged about this, but in elementary school my outrage gave way to concern.

From the beginning, the teachers complained about Klaas’ rude behavior. He pushed other children off the playground equipment. When his neighbor boy had his birthday and was the center of attention, he took treats from other kids. To which he was not invited to the party. He hated that. We had never experienced such things with Klaas’ older sisters; they are popular and loved. I thought Klaas was different because he was a boy – tough, strong, macho like his father.

Alpha male

My husband Michiel is a kind of Jerommeke. He loves going to the gym and is extremely confident. At our first meeting he said that he was going to start a business and that he would not be satisfied until he employed 40 people. He succeeded. In my eyes he could do anything, he knew everything, I looked up at him sky high. I passed that on too much to the children. They got the feeling that Michael was in charge. If they were annoying, I said, “Just wait until Dad gets home.” Klaas in particular saw Michiel as a god himself. Maybe that’s why he started playing the alpha male at school.

Blinders

But with that I blame Michiel. And that is too easy. Michiel has never been a bully. At his company he sometimes has to act authoritarian, firing people. But he doesn’t do that for fun. He does, however, find it difficult to accept other people’s authority. All these years he couldn’t stand the teachers having the final say over his son.

As far as he was concerned, they were too soft, he thought they set boys and girls’ standards. If there were more men in education, there was nothing wrong, according to him. With reference to Louis Tavecchio, an Amsterdam professor who argues that the overrepresentation of female teachers in primary school is inadequate for boys. God, how happy I was with Tavecchio. I clung to him. As a result, it took longer before I realized that Klaas was going too far.

Typical boy joke

In third grade Klaas chose a pathetic girl as the target. A shy child with learning difficulties. In manual labor, he stuck a note on her back saying, “I’m stupid.” The teacher could immediately grab him by the collar because he had done it in his own cock’s feet. I thought that was still cute. Yet I also thought: huh? My son?

Michiel thought Klaas’ wrong action was typically a hard boy’s joke. Not nice but not a disaster either. He thought it was an exaggeration that we were called on for this and dismissed the teachers and me as over-concerned wimps. Klaas did not miss that. There came a moment when he only listened to Michael. I had no more control over him.

Followers

Since time immemorial I have been a computer and lice mother and shelter teacher. I like to chat in the schoolyard, so I know everyone. That gave me goodwill; I think Klaas would otherwise have been expelled from school. One day I saw a crying little boy running across the playground in panic when I picked up Klaas. Like a skittish animal in a corner. He wanted to go home, but he couldn’t because Klaas closed the gate every time he wanted to go out. A few followers were laughing out loud. Those followers gave Klaas gasoline. I now understand from their parents that they did this because they were afraid of him. Anyone who was not for Klaas was against him, and when he got angry he was a kind of devil.

Threatened

A sad mother of a newcomer to the class spoke to me. She claimed that Klaas was the reason that her child was not allowed to go to a party. He is said to have said to the birthday boy or girl, “If you invite him, I’ll beat you up.” I hated it. Klaas himself had been so upset when he was not welcome at parties.

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Bogeyman

Relationships in our home trickled down to the outside world through our daughters and their girlfriends. Michiel became known as an ogre who held his hand over Klaas and oppressed me. In the meantime I was biting off more and more. I began to see Michael’s pride as an act of weakness. The time when I worshiped him was over, he felt that. He couldn’t have it, hit back by extra ‘ties’ with Klaas. It affected our marriage. That has really skimmed the edge of the abyss.

In group seven, Michiel and I were summoned to school because of suspicions that Klaas and his friends had stolen money from a new boy. Klaas denied, Michiel believed him. Not me, I had caught him lying several times. And he had often anticipated new children. Maybe because he was afraid they would become more popular than him. I often dreamed that I was visiting Klaas in prison. I was terrified that he would be sent to a school for difficult-to-educate children known as a repository of budding criminals.

Collision course

Three quarters of a year ago I kicked a terrible scene in a panic attack, calling Klaas who was being arrogant, calling him a bastard and loser. I went way too far. Michael was furious with me. Justly. I saw in Klaas’ eyes that I had hit him, I thought that was unpleasant. And it turned out backwards, he was just on a collision course.

When an unsuspecting substitute teacher gave him the turn to calculate a sum on the board, he wrote “Missy is a silly”. The teacher sent him out of the classroom, but he didn’t go, she eventually had to pull him out. In the playground he lifted a boy’s paw that ran past him. The boy sprained his ankle. The parents protested at the school. The management informed us that the school no longer wanted to bear any responsibility for Klaas, and that he had to leave.

Conditional punishment

Then Michael was suddenly shocked to death. He realized from one moment to the next that he had been wearing blinders. In his dismay, he responded fantastic. He apologized to me, said he would change and that he hoped I would accept that. That was such a relief. My love for him was right back. For the first time we were united again, we tackled the problem together. Once Michiel is behind you, you have a good deal with him.

He called the parents of the boy with the sprained ankle and went through the dust. He took the blame and asked if they would give us another chance. We would have Klaas examined and put him in intensive therapy. Those parents agreed. It helped that the boy’s sister was our daughter’s friend. They pleaded for Klaas to the director, who converted her sentence into a suspended sentence. I will always be grateful to them.

Therapy

Klaas has become a different boy in the past six months. Partly because he is terribly shocked, because he does not want to leave school. Partly because he feels that Michiel and I are now a team and that we can no longer be manipulated. And partly because he is in a very good therapy: the Rock and Water Training.

His therapists teach us that there can be three reasons for bullying. Out of uncertainty, so to prevent others from giving the first blow; from lack of empathy, because they have no idea what they are doing to someone else; or because they lack a sense of belonging to others. With Klaas it is probably a combination.

He struggles with confusing feelings that make him angry. He may feel that anger, but he should not act on it by hurting or bothering other children. It’s not how you feel, it’s how you act. They teach Klaas empathy through role plays. He takes turns being the bully and the bullied. And he must give a good answer to the question of how he would feel if someone else acted like that to him.

New

In the meantime, we must never again let him get away with wrongdoing, never again cover an incident with the mantle of love. It functions. We dare to enjoy a new Klaas very carefully. An additional advantage is that I dare to carefully enjoy the new Michiel. Our relationship has become more equal. I don’t look up to him anymore, he has more respect for me. We are now friends. ”

This article has previously appeared in Kek Mama.

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