My girls were 8 and 10 years old when they had their first experience with being bullied. A new school year had begun, and with it came new students that had moved in over the summer.
I picked them up from school everyday, so they waited for me, along with other children waiting for rides, in front of the main entrance to the school. This particular day, as I drove up, I saw that my younger daughter was crying uncontrollably. I immediately hurried to get out to see why.
My older daughter relayed how they had just come from the girl's bathroom. While in there an older girl, a new student, had blocked their exit when they were done. My older daughter stood up against her, telling her to leave them alone, but it scared my younger girl.
I went directly into the principal's office, who was sitting behind her desk. My daughters told her what happened. When she asked where the girl was now, they said she was still in the bathroom. She had us wait in the lobby while she went into the girl's bathroom. Seconds later, she and the girl passed by us, and was made to wait for her mother in the principal's office.
A while later, the girl came out crying harder than my daughter had been earlier, and apologized for her behavior. The mother reassured me that nothing like that would ever happen again. It didn't.
Children who are bullies are usually the children of bullies. It is a learned trait, and is a cover for the insecurity they feel inside. They fall into the categories mentioned in Romans 1:29-32, particularly verse 30. They are, among the other things, inventors of evil things and disobedient to parents.
We find that in Genesis that Ishmael mocked Isaac, who was 14 years younger than him. For that, he and his mother was cast out, because Sarah saw that the bullying would continue if they stayed. We find this pattern all down through history...the bullies always pick on the younger and/or weaker. The only way for bullying to stop is for adults, parents, and peer groups to get involved in children's lives.
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