Middle-class parents who spoil their children have created a new breed of playground bullies who are tormenting their classmates, British MPs have been warned.

The youngsters – dubbed “the brat bullies” – come from “nice” homes but have been brought up to always get what they want, said Michele Elliott, director of children’s charity Kidscape. Some children were arriving at school believing that they were “little gods” because their over-indulgent parents had never been able to say “no” to them, she said.

Ms Elliott’s remarks follow warnings from British head teachers this month that parents who can’t say no to their children are guilty of “loving neglect”. She told the House of Commons’ education select committee: “In addition to children coming from homes where bullying is basically fostered, we found a whole other group of bullies who come from homes where they are so indulged that they go to school and they are little gods.

“They think that everything just revolves around them.

“We call them the ‘brat bullies’.”

“They are spoilt by their parents and feel that the world basically owes them, and that the other children should be as in awe of them as their families,” she said.

“They expect all the teachers and other kids to kow-tow to them. If they don’t, they start to bully the other children.

“The parents of these children are pretty difficult to deal with because they do not see the children in that situation.”

Ms Elliott added that “brat bullies” were more likely to be girls than boys arguing that boys tended to “sort each other out”.

This month, Mick Brookes, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, said some children at primary school were falling asleep at their desks because their parents did not send them to bed at a reasonable time.

He told the committee that girls used “non-verbal communication” to bully each other. A group of girls would walk up to one of their classmates and deliberately turn away without speaking to her in order to isolate her.

NZ Herald: Well-off child a new breed of school bully