How do small children bully?

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Some Aspies here say they were bullied by other children as young as 4 or 5 years old. But I don't understand what sort of bullying 5-year-olds are capable of. There are different standards of social performance at 5. For example, it was normal for children to cry when they fell over in the playground, or pick their nose in the classroom, or walk without moving their arms or whatever. I remember when I was 6 this boy in my class fell over in the playground and started screaming for his mummy, and one of the other kids quickly got a teacher to see to him. Then we just carried on playing. But if we had all been 12 and he was screaming for his mummy after falling over, he would have got bullied big time.

I was stood in a cue just yesterday and there were two little girls standing next to me.
Two sisters I guess. One who was about 6, the other about 9.

The one who was 9 started to bug the other one by poking her
the little one eventually turned around and slapped her bigger sister
the bigger sister retaliated by punching the other one in the head

this kind of thing is very common
i was a little brother and that is the kind of thing i was subjected to from the day i was born
smaller kids get stuff stolen from them, subjected to physical violence
which they inevitably retaliate against with physical violence

and then when caught fighting
the smaller one gets the blame as the bigger one who has a better command of the english language
and if the older child is NT, then will manipulate the truth to make the other child look like the culprit

that kind of thing, as well as having your stuff taken off you and being constantly called names
sometimes in mass numbers

is what happens

Children mimic their parents and siblings: if you grow up in an unhealthy/abusive environment you will reenact your anger at children your age. I was a little jerk when I was that age, but nothing compared to some of the stuff I saw. I remember in kindergarten one kid bloodying another kid's nose. Kids like to target anyone different, they will be as cruel as any adult to their peers if the perceive them as weak, but they will go way out of their way to harass someone different from they are

DIVAIR

EDIT: As the saying goes, "S**t rolls downhill!"

I was bullied big style at the age of 4 and 5 and it was by one kid who would keep jumping on my back and pushing me to the ground and riding me like a horse. He would not stop even when I was crying. He would do it more! He had older brothers and aas used to rough play fighting etc, and I was scared and shy and I did not mix with others. I was the shortest and smallest in the class and he was one of the tallest.

Queue.


That sort of thing sounds like normal sibling fighting. All siblings do that.

But it seems to me that bullying becomes more prompt as children get older, because the social expectations become more stern. At high school there were strict social pressures where boys had to be 'tough' but it was socially acceptable for boys to mess around or get dirty. And girls were under pressure to have to stand around talking and fussing about with their hair and makeup, but it was socially acceptable for girls to cry, although there was an acceptable way to cry obviously.
But in primary (elementary) school there weren't so much social pressure on how to be. Kids had more choice, for example a lot of girls dislike getting dirty but if I girl did get dirty it didn't invite bullying.

Omg, mom says when i was little I used to do this to the neighbors kid. My dad would let me ride on his knee or back but I could never get enough of riding people even this small child who couldn't escape my riding and kept huffing under me. I feel bad for him, he was always the sweetest kid and we were great friends, we even touched each other's weewees according to his plan of hiding in his parents bedroom under the blankets. I guess I'm proud he was my first sexual experience. Just not about riding him the wrong way.

i think some things such as minor violence is built into us, part of our reptilian primate brains I guess.

I had an older brother who used physical violence to bully me. I believe the only reason why he stopped
was because at the age of 11, I started karate, and in a fairly short period of time I learn't the basics of
protecting myself and hitting back. Something my brother didn't like the look of.

As i grew older, i got pretty good at karate, and could kick above my head easily, easily his head height.
Something that my older brother didn't like the look of at all, thank Goodness.

Karate is probably the reason why i am still alive, as not only my brother stopped bullying me, but
the local kids also stopped. And i wasn't a bully. So things were good.

Although, some of the kids who would have normally bullied me with violence, learnt to bully me covertly
using slander, and good at inciting others into joining their victimisation campaign.
Something they appear to be still going strong with.

Last edited by madbutnotmad on 26 Feb 2021, 3:34 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I think it starts when children spend a lot of time together, like in kindergarten or preschool. Those who are different get singled out then. For example I didn't really "click" with other children socially so I never spent time outside playing with other children, so I didn't really spend time with any until it was time for school. So I can see how it can start as early as 4 or 5, but it can definitely be at 6 when children start school. I was getting shredded by other kids when I started at 6, and after injuries I was pulled from school to try again the following year at another school. At 6 the bullying is both verbal and physical.

I still can't work out how 6-year-olds can bully like that. Is it different to the bullying of adolescents?

They just do... They say mean things in a mean tone, and move their muscles to hit you, sometimes with objects. How better can I explain it? I was pulled from school after two kids distracted me while a third ran up and pushed me into a metal pipe face first. There was a lot of blood.

OK then, maybe American kids are different then.
But my aunt has worked at a mainstream school with 4-7-year-olds for 40 years and she says that she has never seen drastic bullying. The worst bullying she saw was from angry kids with behavioural problems due to coming from a dysfunctional family, but those sorts of kids didn't gang up on others like high-schoolers. They just done things like push others over in the playground.

I didn't get bullied as a young child either, and I had behavioural problems (but due to ASD/ADHD, not bad parenting). The bullying started as soon as I reached high school. I think when I was aged around 8-9 some kids would say mean things like "I'm not sitting next to you!" at the lunch table or something, and one time a girl called me a skank because I had an odd way of eating, but this was when I was 10. I remember when I was 5 other little girls used to stare at me, chewing their fingers, as if something about me fascinated them.

I remember a boy in my class pee'd his pants when he was 7 in the classroom but nobody laughed or bullied him.

I didn't say anything about it being in America. My early life until teens was spent in Europe.

You are a very fortunate person then--REALLY!

When I was in the second grade a kid tried to put my eye out with a stick, stating, "Well, weren't we playing war?"

Later I tried to kill him because he and his older brother tormented me relentlessly. My older brother told me the old wives tale if you hit someone in the nose hard enough it would push the broken bones into the brain, thus killing him instantly. I had his arms pinned down with my knees punching down with all my might: it nose never even bled

Nope, children totally suck, they can be horrible little monsters

DIVAIR

When I was 7, some kid smashed my head with a big rock......

I guess that's how you got your smashing good looks.

There is, actually, a bump on my head----but it has nothing to do with the incident described above...