What Happens to Children who Bully?
While a bully may appear to be popular up to approximately age 14 or 15, their relationships are based on a clique or gang mentality. The bully is usually not able to sustain a friendship (which is based on dependability, trust, loyalty and mutual respect) but instead forms alliances. Some children look up to bullies in some ways because they are powerful and get their own way. Some children side with the bully because they enjoy the bully’s power and control over others, but most children side with the bully for fear of becoming a target themselves. However, by late adolescence, the bully’s popularity begins to wane, and the bully’s peer group is composed of other bullies. Without intervention, the bully will have solidified his/her dysfunctional interpersonal relationships. A study spanning 35 years by psychologist E. Eron at the University of Michigan found that children named by their schoolmates, at age eight, as the bullies of the school were often bullies throughout their lives.
