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A charity's survey of parents of bullies found 80 per cent of 900 parents suffered high levels of stress and feared they were losing control of their child, writes Shirley Kumar.

The charity Parentline Plus, which launched their findings to coincide with the government’s first anti-bullying week, said it wanted parents of bullies to be offered better support.

According to the survey more than two-thirds of parents calling the charity’s helpline from April, 2003, to March, 2004, were worried about their child’s uncontrollable anger.

Although most parents complained about their teenage sons' bullying behaviour, the charity said, “a worrying level of nine to 12-year-olds were being cited as bullies”.

A quarter of all calls were from lone parents with more than half saying their divorce or separation had a negative impact on their child’s behaviour, found the survey.

The charity said schools and other support staff should be trained to advise vulnerable families. Anti-bullying policies needed to be more family orientated, it added.

Children’s charity NCH said all schools should have a teacher responsible for implementing the government's anti-bullying strategy.

The government launched its campaign by asking children to wear green wristbands to show they would not tolerate bullying.