How do children learn to bully?
Children are not born to bully. Modern psychological theory suggests that human beings are not born with instincts, unlike animals, but loss of control over impulses comes mainly from responses learned during upbringing counterpoised with certain genetic pre-dispositions. Parents that express anger physically will likely produce children who tend to express anger physically. Children from homes where there is domestic violence tend to over or under-estimate violence, thus very much affecting their later relationships with others and their own children. Unfortunately, significant adults are often inadvertently a bad example to our children; we frequently ostracize those whose customs and patterns we do not like. This form of institutionalized bullying conveys the idea to children that it is alright to establish a hierarchy of “good people” and “less good outsiders” and to humiliate others. Yes, unfortunately, children learn to bully, but they can also unlearn bullying. It all depends on
