Bullying

This post is a response to a reader who asked me to post about my experiences with bullying. What I would like to do in this post is to talk about why a child might become a bully. 
With my combined experience as a teacher, educational psychologist and counsellor of over 15 years, I have met my share of bullies in schools. I have discovered that very rarely, it is a simple clear-cut case of a bully being a bully because he/ she simply wants to or aspires to be a bully. There are often underlying reasons resulting in a child becoming a bully.
For the younger children, sometimes, it is a learnt behaviour from significant adults in the family.  The children have seen these adults get their way using these behaviours and the children are simply copying the behaviours, not realising it is not the right kind of behaviours when interacting with their peers. In other words, the bullying behaviours are a way of life for these children. Usually, I would speak to the parents to find out more about the family situation and work with the parents and child.
Sometimes, the bullying behaviour is a reaction to changes in the children's lives, e.g. death in the family, divorce between parents, new family member (could be younger sibling or step-parent and/ or step-siblings), relocation, and others. The adults may see the changes as a part and parcel of life but to a child, it is a major upheaval of things familiar to them and often beyond their control. These children thus react in the form of bullying to retain some sense of control in their lives. Usually, I discovered that in such cases, the adults have neglected to explain the situation to the children, often citing that children won't understand or that the children would adapt easily. Again, I would speak to the parent(s) and work with the parent(s) and the child.
From my personal experience, the above are the more common reasons of why a child is a bully. I feel it is just as important to understand the reason(s) why a child is a bully while tackling the bullying behaviour. Without understand the reason, any course of action will only just subdue the bullying for the time being and it would resurface again later. 
I hope this post has been helpful in highlighting what are some of the possible reasons of a child becoming a bully.