baby bullies

Squirt seems to have met her first "bully." Now I'll be the first to acknowledge that little beans are curious creatures and, in that curiosity, sometimes accidentally hurt eachother. But there is a little boy in Squirt's daycare class who seems to enjoy making the other babies cry... He likes - no loves - to pull hair. That in itself isn't the problem, since most of the babies in this classroom like to pull (read discover) eachothers' colorful pigtails. They tug once and stop. He tugs and squeals with delight when he elicits tears. And then tugs again and again and again until someone runs over and peels him off the crying baby.

This morning, as soon as I sat Squirt on the play mat and walked away, he motored straight to her and started yanking on her hair (note that she did not have colorful pigtails today). She started crying as soon as she saw him coming, which tells me he's the likely cause of her disappearing baby-scrunchies. I'm glad I was there to comfort her. I firmly told the boy "no" and "bad," but there was nothing else I could do. I talked to the room's caregivers and they told me that he always does this. Admittedly, they try to stay on top of it as much as possible and, today, put him in a play area by himself as "punishment" (think baby time out). But, again, there's not much else they can do. I can't help but wonder if his parents know about his behavior and, if they do, what, if anything, they are doing to mitigate it.

This interaction today got me thinking about bullying in general - something I've never really put much thought into. At this age it's not really "bullying" per se, but in a few years it will be. How do I teach my daughter to respond to a mean classmate? How can I teach her to not let it get to her? How do I teach her to react to it and defend herself without getting into trouble herself? On the flip side, how do I teach her to not become a bully herself?

RAWR!