Prof Claire P. Monks & Dr Kat Kucaba
Bullying in schools is a major societal concern, and an issue that worries children, parents and teachers. We know that bullying can have a devastating negative effect on those involved both in the short and longer-term. Research over the last three decades has provided us with keys to aid in the development of evidence-based intervention and prevention programmes with some success in primary and secondary schools. There is some evidence that suggests that programmes in primary schools are more successful than those in secondary schools in decreasing bullying. It may be that it is easier to change patterns of behaviour early on, before they become a ‘normal’ pattern of interaction. However, many of these programmes still focus on children in later primary school and in secondary school. That leads us to the question – are we waiting too late to work with young people on bullying? Does bullying occur in early childhood during infant or preschool?
Some children in early childhood (generally 3-6 years) do behave aggressively towards their classmates. They might hit, kick or push them, exclude them from games or call them names. Although some occasional disputes between children are normal, there is evidence that some children are consistently aggressive to others and that this type of behaviour early on can put children at risk of later difficulties. However, the behaviours observed during early childhood are not exactly the same as what we would term ‘bullying’ later on. What we see during early childhood is that those children who behave aggressively to others are almost doing so in an indiscriminate way, they are behaving aggressively to a wide variety of classmates, which is in contrast to what we see in bullying, where bullies pick on the same children over and over again.
Bullying in older groups often occurs in the presence of other children who may behave in different ways, either joining in or encouraging the bully, or by sticking up for the child who is being picked on. Research tells us that these behaviours can help encourage or reduce bullying (depending on their pro- or anti-bullying stance). In early childhood, although some children help the person who is being picked on, there are fewer children involved in helping or encouraging the perpetrator, suggesting that the role of the group is less important in early childhood. These differences between bullying in older groups and the behaviours we see in early childhood have led people to argue that what we are seeing isn’t bullying at this age. There is very rarely the deliberate repeated targeting of others, or the involvement of a ‘gang’ that we see in older groups. This might reflect the early origins of bullying.
Research among older children shows that friends are similar in aggressive, prosocial and victim behaviour already at ages from 6 to 12 years old. Therefore, we expect aggressive children to be friends with other aggressive children which is worrying as it can increase anti-social behaviour. Furthermore, friendships of children who exhibit anti-social behaviour look different: they use more coercion with one another which is something that other children don’t do. But the side effect of this behaviour is less reciprocated friendships among children who are aggressive. It is important to explore if these patterns are already present among friends at a young age and if they help to predict future involvement in bullying behaviour. We seek answers to these question in our current paper focussed on friendships of aggressive children in early childhood.
Although bullying as we would recognise it among older groups isn’t often observed among younger children, this does not mean that we shouldn’t work to support young children in bullying prevention. It is possible that some of the behaviours that we see in early childhood may lead to later bullying. It is therefore important that anti-bullying work starts early, with children when they first start mixing on a regular basis with peers; whether that is in preschool or infant classes. Although there are anti-bullying programmes that have proven to have positive effects for older children, for example KiVa programme that changes the behaviour of bystanders which in turn diminishes episodes of bullying, there are very few that have focussed on children during early childhood.
It is important that we develop tailored intervention programmes for young children. It is not sufficient to alter programmes designed for older children with simplified language or the use of cartoons or puppets. Helping children to develop their socio-emotional skills can be a helpful approach – one of the programmes that addresses this issue is Free of Bullying programme developed in Denmark. Given what we know about aggression towards classmates in early childhood, and some of the key differences it has to bullying, we need to ensure that programmes are age-appropriate – not only in terms of accessibility to young children, but also in terms of addressing the types of behaviours that they themselves may be exhibiting or experiencing.
We are behind in developing programmes addressing these forms of behaviour with young children compared to where we are with older children. We suggest that it is important for researchers and practitioners to work together to develop evidence informed programmes to address these behaviours with young children in order to support the development of those who behave aggressively, those who are targeted and their peers.
Interesting links:
Free of Bullying Programme for 0-8 year olds https://www.freeofbullying.com
KiVa Programme https://www.kivaprogram.net
Monks, C. P., & O’Toole, S. (forthcoming). Bullying in preschool and infant school. In P. K. Smith & J. O’Higgins Norman (Eds.) Wiley Handbook of Bullying, Vol. 2. London: Wiley.