Category Archives: Research

Are preschoolers really capable of bullying?

May 15, 2019Researchaggression, bullying, early childhood, early years, intervention, peer relationshipscss51

We hear the words “bully” and “bullying” being used all the time. We have never known as much about the act of bullying as we do now (e.g. see here, here, and here). As teachers, parents, and caregivers, we are concerned that our children are being bullied or will become bullies and we’re even more conscious of these behaviours because we hear so much about the negative consequences resulting from bullying behaviour. This post draws on recent NZ research into parents’ and educators’ attitudes towards “bullying”-type behaviours in early childhood.

Defining bullying
Researchers understand bullying to be: “aggressive behaviour or intentional ‘harm doing,’ which is carried out repeatedly and over time in an interpersonal relationship characterised by an imbalance of power” (Olweus, 1993, p. 8-9). This definition means that each aggressive behaviour must meet three main criteria to be labelled bullying:
1. The behaviour must be carried out with the intention to cause harm. Accidental harm is not considered bullying.
2. The behaviour must be repetitive. A one-off aggressive act is not considered bullying
3. There must be some evidence of an imbalance of power. This could be an imbalance in age, physical size, relationship roles, popularity, ‘belonging’ (e.g. at school, in a friend group) etc. Behaviour that causes harm but occurs between equals is not considered bullying.

Recently, researchers have started to question whether pre-schoolers are capable of engaging in aggressive behaviours that met all three criteria. Is it appropriate to label such young children as bullies? During the early years, children are developing social skills and friendships. They are learning how to regulate their emotions and develop self-control, and it can take them a while to process others’ perspectives. While these skills and abilities are developing rapidly during early childhood, this is still an immature period in a young child’s development. This means it can be very difficult (and dangerous!) to label young children’s aggressive and bullying-like behaviours as intentional behaviour used to cause harm. These behaviours may in fact reflect poor self-regulation, reactivity, or experimenting with behaviours observed in their environment, rather than having the malicious intent required for being categorised as bullying.

A real challenge in understanding early childhood bullying relates to how we define bullying at such a young age. Bullying behaviour is subjective in nature and the definition and criteria used by researchers to define bullying may not be applied (or known) consistently by educators, parents, and caregivers. This is not a criticism of those educators, parents, or caregivers: Very rarely do we actually discuss the definition and criteria used to label aggressive behaviours as bullying.

What do parents and educators think about “bullying” among pre-schoolers?
In my most recent study, I was interested in speaking to early childhood educators and parents about whether they thought pre-schoolers were capable of bullying, and the types of behaviours that these educators and parents believed constituted bullying among this age group.

The majority of early childhood educators (76%) and parents/caregivers (72%) in this study believed that pre-schoolers were capable of bullying. However, these behaviours were referred to as “mostly unintentional bullying” [emphasis added] and comments were made that preschool-age children do not understand what they’re doing and the impact their behaviour may have on others. For instance, a parent stated: “I don’t think they intentionally bully others but act in a way that they think is ordinary” and an early childhood educator noted: “Yes [young children are capable of bullying] but I don’t believe they realise what they are doing. They know they are upsetting the child but don’t understand the impact this has on the other child.”

An interesting finding out of this study was that what early childhood educators and parents/caregivers classify as bullying behaviours changes at different ages of the child. Participants made comments such as “I don’t think they can bully in the same way as an older child does” and “Yes, young children can act as bullies but not comparable to the way a tween or teen or adult may bully.”

It seems that early childhood educators’ and parents’ expectations of pre-schooler’s aggressive behaviours differ from their expectations of older children. This may reflect the types of behaviours we label as bullying during the early years.

Common bullying behaviours reported by educators and parents
While we could create a long list of the different negative behaviours that pre-schoolers can use, the educators and parents who participated in this study indicated that physical forms of aggression (e.g. hitting, kicking, punching etc.) were the most common form of bullying they observe in pre-schoolers. This was followed by relational (e.g. social exclusion) and verbal (e.g. threats) forms of bullying. While it is difficult to determine whether young children do engage in more physical bullying compared to relational and verbal bullying (because no observation data has been collected on these behaviours), we do know that early childhood educators and parents still perceive physical aggression as being much more serious than relational aggression. These adults are also more likely to intervene immediately in cases of physical aggression, whereas adult intervention is more likely to be delayed or not occur at all after relationally aggressive behaviours are observed.

So, are pre-schoolers capable of “bullying”?
Although my research indicated that a majority of educators and parents believe that pre-schoolers are capable of bullying, many raised serious concerns about labelling such young children as ‘bullies’ because it was difficult to discriminate between typical social behavioural development and intentional aggressive behaviour. The inconsistent understanding of what constitutes bullying during early childhood is another reason that labelling can be dangerous.

So, what should we do when we feel like a child may be exhibiting ‘bullying’ behaviours? When I talk with educators, parents, and caregivers about young children’s aggressive behaviour, I always find myself emphasising the importance of understanding the ‘why’ of behaviour. By understanding the purpose of children’s behaviour, we are better able to understand:
– their intentions
– what they think they will achieve by using the aggressive (or prosocial) behaviour
– whether they believe the behaviour is un/acceptable and
– whether they think there may be consequences associated with the behaviour

Often, we rely on our own observations and knowledge of the child to make judgements about whether their behaviour was aggressive or whether they were bullying. However, this can be dangerous – applying the “bully” label to behaviour and young children incorrectly can lead to stigmatising effects, and there is a need to acknowledge that bullying is distinct from more typical aggression and rough and tumble play. Similarly, attempting to label a child or the behaviour is not likely to be helpful in facilitating healthy social development and relationships. Behaviour is meaningful – as adults involved in caring for and educating children, we must always stay curious in order to understand why children are behaving the way they are.

You can also read this blog here

Another reason why conversations with young children are so important

February 27, 2018Research, Research interestbrain development, conversations, Harvard, language, talking to young children, young childrencss51

Conversations with young children about their behaviour allows us to better understand why they use certain behaviours. Research coming out of Harvard also shows that having conversations with young children improves their literacy skills. Read more about these study here

Latest blog post – Conversations with young children about their negative behaviour – it is just ‘naughty’ behaviour

February 26, 2018Researchbehaviour, child development, conversations, early childhood, parents, social behaviour, social development, social skills, talking to young children, teachers, young childrencss51

Understanding whether young children believe aggression to be acceptable or unacceptable is one of the first steps for teachers and parents to better predict their behaviour and understand the feelings and needs that are expressed via these behaviours. As adults, when we see young children using aggression, we are often quick to step in to solve the problem for the child. While we do this with very good intentions in mind, we might be missing critical opportunities to support young children to develop their own social competence and strategies to respond to social situations.

Research has shown that children who view aggression (e.g. social exclusion, rumour spreading, kicking, punching) as acceptable are more likely to use these behaviours to solve social conflict. So if children’s acceptability beliefs predict their behaviour, can we use young children’s social behaviours to better understand the feelings and needs (e.g. frustration or anger) that underlie those behaviours and support children to develop their own appropriate strategies to solve social problems?

Some real scenarios

Consider this scenario …

Sam was playing with blocks on the floor and Riley came over and kicked the blocks over. Sam stood up and said to Riley, “I’m not going to be your friend anymore if you don’t stop it.” Sam then walked away to tell other children not to play with Riley. Riley sat on the floor crying.

Now consider this scenario …

Alex and Bailey were playing in a life-size car. Alex was singing and Bailey said “Stop singing, we won’t hear the sirens” – but Alex continued to sing. Bailey then hit Alex on the head and Alex responded by hitting Bailey on the head but much harder, making Bailey cry.

Both these scenarios are real examples of behaviours that occurred during my research observations of young children playing with their peers in early childhood centres. Teachers and parents often consider these to be common, ‘typical’ behaviours used by 3-5 year olds; however, less is known about what young children think about these behaviours and whether they think they are acceptable. To some extent, one could argue that because the child is using these behaviours, they must believe that they are acceptable – and indeed, research has shown this to be the case for much older children – but what about younger children? As teachers and parents, we are often very quick to make conclusions about why children use aggressive behaviours without providing opportunities for children themselves to explain why they chose to use a particular type of behaviour.

Recall Scenario 1. I asked Sam why he had responded to Riley by saying “I’m not going to be your friend anymore.” Sam’s response was that it was because Riley was

“kicking over my blocks and that’s not nice. I was building a road for everyone to play with. But I’m sorry for making Riley cry.”

Even though Riley’s behaviour was inappropriate, by giving Sam the opportunity to explain and justify why he excluded Riley from the group, I now understand (1) that Sam views kicking over another person’s blocks as “not nice” – but also (2) that he is remorseful and sorry for retaliating with aggression that caused Riley to cry.

Now recall Scenario 2. I asked Alex why she had hit Bailey on the head. Alex’s response was

“Bailey hit me first so it’s okay to hit back.”

Again, while both girls in this scenario used harmful behaviours, this response tells me that Alex views physical aggression as acceptable, particularly if it is in retaliation to another negative behaviour used by a peer.

Scenarios 1 and 2 also show that by seeking information about why children choose to engage in aggression, we can more accurately understand:

Whether the behaviour was intentional, and
What functional purpose the aggressive behaviour serves for the child.

Like any behaviour, aggression comes from a functional place and young children are not just being ‘naughty’. As teachers and parents, we can take this information and teach children more appropriate ways to respond to their peers when they interact socially and when they are faced with conflict.

From aggression to teaching opportunity

New Zealand’s early childhood curriculum, Te Whāriki, provides a foundation for children to be supported in learning about boundaries of acceptable behaviour and how to respect the rights of others. Teachers and parents play critical roles in encouraging young children’s positive social participation and competence, and this can be facilitated by providing support for behaviour that is socially and individually appropriate. For example, we can encourage children to reflect on the impact of their behaviour and empathise with the situation by asking questions such as:

Why did you do that?
How do you think (name) is feeling now?
How would you feel if that happened to you?
What can you do now?

These are all questions that tap into young children’s motives. Questions like this allow teachers and parents to understand more about the function of the child’s behaviour – and, more than that, such questions also encourage young children to reflect on the why of their own behaviour. Generally, no matter how young or old you are, if you don’t know why you’re doing something, it is very hard to change your behaviour.

The ways in which teachers and parents approach young children after the children have engaged in aggression are also important if we want to use these situations as teaching opportunities. For instance, when a child is frustrated and incredibly upset, they may not be in a receptive state to reflect on the situation. Timing is therefore important if we want young children to be receptive to our approaches. Rather than responding reactively and in the heat of the moment, we often need to be patient, allowing the child to cool down and process the situation and their behaviours. However, there is a fine line between allowing a young child sufficient time to cool down and intervening early enough to ensure they make the connection between their actions and the impact of their behaviour on others. The timing of this intervention will differ for each individual child; however, it is important that the approaches that teachers/parents choose to use promote a sense of acceptance and ensure that the child knows they are supported by the teacher/parent rather than being judged and labelled. All approaches to intervention should protect young children’s mana and develop their social and emotional competence – all of which have a significant impact on their peer relationships.

By approaching situations with empathy and openness, teachers and parents can use these social situations as an opportunity to teach appropriate and acceptable social skills. When teachers and parents rely on their own judgements and conclusions about why a child has engaged in aggression, or when little consideration has been given to the context and models of behaviour that children may have around them in the home and community, critical teaching opportunities are lost. While we often assume that young children who engage in aggressive behaviours lack social skills and social competence, we can’t forget that there are a number of children who strategically use aggression to achieve social dominance or other personal goals, usually in the form of proactive relational aggression. These children often are aware of their social status amongst their peers and may have more advanced social skills, as they are better able to predict the behaviours that will more effectively hurt or upset their peers. In some cases, these children could be using these types of sophisticated behaviours for much of their early years without being taught that these behaviours are unacceptable or being given more appropriate and acceptable social skills to use to achieve their underlying personal goals.

Take-home message

If there is one thing I want teachers and parents to take away from these findings it is this – there is value in directly asking children about their intentions and to explain their behaviour. Young children are much more clever than we give them credit for. By giving them a voice, we are proactively engaging them in the conversation about how to develop more acceptable and appropriate social skills before their aggression becomes pervasive.

You can also read it here

Podcast – How to handle social exclusion

November 22, 2017Research, Research interestaggression, behaviour, bullying, intervention, podcast, researchers, social exclusioncss51

I have worked closely with Professor Jamie Ostrov over the years and recently he spoke to Jen Lumanlan from Your Parenting Mojo about some of the research he has conducted on social exclusion and relational aggression.

Listen to the Podcast here

He makes reference to one of my most recent publications on teacher and parent perceptions about young children’s aggression.

It’s a great listen and I hope you enjoy it.
Cara

Relational aggression: Why are young children so mean?

November 13, 2017Researchaggression, behaviour, bullying, caregivers, early childhood, educators, intervention, learning, parents, relational, teachers

Original blog post published November 3, 2017 on NZARE

When we think about relational aggression, one thing that may come to mind is the ‘bitchy’ female behaviour commonly seen in middle childhood and adolescence and portrayed in movies such as Mean Girls. However, children as young as three have been reported gossiping, spreading rumours, and excluding or denying their peers from participating in play. More than 20 years ago, researchers labelled these behaviours as relational aggression and noted that they differ from typical forms of physical aggression commonly seen in young children in that these relational aggression behaviours focus on causing harm to social relationships.

When I first learned about these forms of relational aggression among very young children, I was an Early Intervention Teacher. I was horrified by my ignorance – how could I have not been aware of these behaviours occurring within the early childhood centres I worked in? When I started talking to other educators about these behaviours, most confessed that they see these behaviours “all the time” but said that it was “just a normal part of growing up that the children will grow out of.”

With a keen interest in social development and working with children who displayed behavioural concerns, I was horrified that despite early childhood educators being aware of these behaviours, very little intervention took place because it was viewed as typical behaviour, something that children will grow out of – a kind of developmental milestone that children experience. This left me with a very uneasy feeling. I knew that I couldn’t walk away and do nothing, now that I knew what I knew.

My hunch

Intent to cause harm is a central component of the definition of aggression. However, from everything I had learned in my Undergraduate psychology papers, I wasn’t convinced that such young children had the skills to be able to participate in relational forms of aggression with the intent to cause harm. I thought it likely that these children were just modelling others’ behaviours and weren’t deliberately using these sophisticated behaviours to achieve hierarchy and prominence in their social groups or to exclude their peers. After all, these children had only been in existence on this earth for a very short three years, and it seemed to me that it takes time and experience to learn how to skilfully manipulate social situations to get what you want and to develop a keen eye for other peers who can be easily persuaded or dominated or may be weaker than you. I just didn’t believe all this could happen in the first 3 years of life.

In this blog post, I consider this key question from my doctoral research: “Can young children (3-5 years old) engage in relational aggression with the intent to cause harm?” and share some of my findings. I aim to highlight the role of teachers and parents in inadvertently communicating to young children that relational aggression is more acceptable than physical aggression.

What I found

From children

I collected and analysed hours of video and audio recordings of young children engaging in social play in both unstructured and structured activities. This data clearly confirmed that children as young as three do indeed engage in both relational and physical forms of aggression.

I found that the choice of which type of aggression to use was often based on what the child wanted to achieve from the situation. For example, some children used relational aggression as a reaction to another behaviour – such as when another child was kicking blocks over and the aggressor said “I won’t be your friend if you keep doing that.” In most incidences of relational aggression though, the behaviour was premediated and proactive with the aim of gaining social dominance of the play situation or of an object. This differs to children who predominately used physical aggression, which is often reactive.

What was most interesting, though, was the conversations I had with children after I had observed them. This was an opportunity for children to watch the videos of themselves engaging in play and social encounters, while telling me why they were doing what they were doing. I was amazed by how aware these young children were about their behaviours. Most of the children were able to clearly articulate and describe why they were excluding another peer from play and what they expected the outcome to be. For example, one child (aged 4) wanted to play on a bike and continued to threaten the two other children by saying “If you don’t give me a turn I won’t be your friend.” The child continued to repeat this phase in an aggressive tone for almost three minutes. When we watched the video of this incident, I asked the child: “Is it okay to say ‘I won’t be your friend’ to other children?” The child responded, “No … [but] I don’t care, I wanted to have a turn and I didn’t want to wait my turn.” Once the child got a turn on the bike, positive emotions of laughter and satisfaction were displayed as the goal had been achieved.

These conversations were a unique opportunity to see situations through the eyes of a young child who had directly engaged and participated in the aggressive behaviour. It was clear that by giving young children an opportunity to justify their negative behaviours and aggressive actions, we as adults (and researchers) can better understand why some children choose to use aggression to achieve social goals whereas others choose more prosocial behaviours. So can young children engage in relational aggression with the intent to cause harm? Indeed they do, and they often do it in such sophisticated ways that, when standing on the periphery of their social worlds, educators and parents don’t recognise it. One we engage in conversation with children, we can better understand their intentions.

From educators and parents/caregivers

My discussions with educators and parents/caregivers highlighted a number of concerning factors that may have contributed to the reasons why relational aggression goes unchecked. In particular, I found that:

Teachers and parents viewed relational aggression as less serious than physical aggression. For example, a teacher defined aggression as being “pushed or shoved, like a physical type of behaviour … It actually needs to be more than just saying ‘I don’t want to be your friend’ and that sort of thing. It needs to be more than that.”
Teachers and parents were more likely to do nothing about relational aggression, yet they responded immediately to physical aggression. For example, a parent stated that when responding to a child pushing another child, “I would tell the child that it is bad behaviour and I’d put them at the end of the line so they feel how it is to be at the end of the line and learn patience.” However, in response to relational aggression, a parent said to the child, ‘It is sad to be left out’ and went on to find them an activity that everyone could play together.
Teachers and parents were more likely to feel empathy for children who had been victims of physical aggression compared to relational aggression. For example, a teacher commented: “I mean, these words are bad, but they happen with kids all the time … You can actually see the physical stuff and it hurts them.”

These findings about teachers’ and parents’ views weren’t surprising, because they were consistent with previous research, but they were incredibly disappointing because they contradicted best practice recommendations to intervene and respond to all forms of aggression. Clearly these perceptions reflected a systematic denial that all forms of aggression are serious and require intervention.

Without intervention, we inadvertently communicate to young children that the behaviour is acceptable. The consistency in both teachers’ and parents’ perceptions and practices in regard to child aggression suggested a much broader societal standard – one which I became even more concerned about. This is an aspect I am investigating further in a subsequent study exploring New Zealand educators’ and parents’/caregivers’ perceptions of relational and physical aggression (in particular, identifying why they differentiate between these two forms of aggression).

So what does this research mean?

The take-home message from my doctoral research is to not underestimate the socially damaging behaviours that young children use to achieve goals. Aggression isn’t something that children will “just grow out of”. As adults, we need to recognise that all types of aggression can be harmful and we need to communicate to young children that all types of aggression are unacceptable. In order to do that, our responses to these behaviours need to be consistent. Young children are sensitive to our responses, so if you intervene and communicate that their behaviour is harmful to others, there is a high chance that child will stop engaging in that behaviour. This really puts the onus back on educators and parents/caregivers to be consistent in responding to young children’s harmful behaviours – both physical and relational.

My current research project is allowing educators and parents/caregivers to have a voice about the types of resources and supports they would like to help them facilitate healthy social relationships in their young children. If you’d like to share your perceptions and make a difference to the social development of young children, parents can participate here and teachers here.

Social Development

Research at University of Canterbury, New Zealand