Helping Our Kids Cope with Bullies at School

Most children will experience bullying at some point. What can parents do to help protect their children and to help their children cope if they are bullied? Host Dawn Davenport, Executive Director of Creating a Family, the national infertility & adoption education and support nonprofit, interviews Brooke Randolph, LMHC, a child and family therapist and author of The Bully Book: A Workbook for Kids Coping with Bullies; and Debora Gish, LCSW, with Adoption Connection with 20 experience working with kids and families.

In this episode, we discuss:

• What is bullying?
• Distinction between bullying and typical childhood cliquish behavior or “mean girl” behavior or kidding around behavior of middle school boys.
• How to help kids not be over-sensitive to teasing or taunting. For example, a first grader having a hard time distinguishing between name-calling meant to bully and the kind of taunts that are part and parcel with schoolyard games like tag (e.g., he went to the teacher over “na na na na na na, you can’t get me”).
• What children are at greater risk for bullying?
• Why do children bully?
• Cyberbullying
• Bullying on the school bus.
• How effective are the classic things we tell kids about how to handle bullies?
• Effective tips for helping kids handle bullying.

Transcript

Please pardon any errors, this is an automated transcript.

- Hello, and welcome to Creating a Family. Talk about adoption, foster care, and
kinship care. I'm Tracy Whitney, your new host for the Creating a Family podcasts,
including this one and Weekend Wisdom, which drops every Saturday morning. Today,
we're bringing you a classic interview from 2016 on helping our kids cope with
bullies at school. It was an excellent conversation between our former executive
director Don Davenport, Brooke Randolph, a child and family therapist and author of
The Bully Book, a workbook for kids coping with bullies, and Deborah Gish, licensed
clinical social worker with adoption connection who has more than 20 years of
experience working with kids and families. This topic can be a tough one for parents
and caregivers and we are confident that you will glean some very practical
strategies and tools to help support your kids. Let's go listen in to Dawn's
conversation.
Welcome Debbie and Brooke to creating a family. Thanks Dawn. It's great to be back.
Yeah, it's great to be here. Thank you for the invitation. Right. Let's start at
the beginning, which is always a good place to begin. Brooke, you just finished
writing a book on this topic, so you're going to get the first one, which is,
Which is, I mean, how do we define bullying? What is bullying? Well, I would say
that bullying would be an intense experience of dominance from one child to another.
We'll keep it with children. And that may be dominance that is shown emotionally,
physically, coercion, other kinds of ways that they take some sort of control and
dominance in the relationship. However, what I found when I asked for some kids to
review this book was that kids were able to take small instances,
maybe not that long term that would create the intensity or something that was
extreme in a single moment, but just an incident of teasing and felt like they
found some benefit in even working through the same things. Well, you know, that
raises a good question and a question that came up before the shows every week we
post on our online community, which by the way, you can access, we've got a number
of ways to access us online. We have the largest communities in adoption online. But
one way to reach us is through our support group, which is a closed Facebook group,
so you can find that at facebook .com /groups /creatingafamily, or just type in the
words creating a family in the search box. So we posted about this, and it was an
interesting discussion about bullying in general. So I'm going to try to kind of
tease out the distinction between bullying and typical childhood clickish type
behaviors, or even mean girl behaviors, or the kidding around type of behaviors of
most middle school boys. And here's a question that will lead us off. This is from
Ian. He said, "My first -graders school has an aggressive anti -bullying curriculum,
which is great, except that it may have made him a bit oversensitive. He is a hard
time distinguishing between name -calling meant to bully and the kind of taunts that
are a part and parcel of schoolyard games, like tag. For an example, he went to
the teacher when a kid said, "Nana, nana, nana, you can't catch me," when they were
playing tag. So he wants to know if our experts have any suggestions for helping is
Sun distinguished between bullying and playful taunting? I was so thankful to get
this question, because I think as with anything, we want to be cognizant when it
goes too far, but there's a certain amount of teasing or ribbing or just mean
behavior that is a part of childhood. Debbie, can you help us think through ways
that we, how do we know when rises to the level or our behaviors rise to the
level of bullying
that's a good question and maybe brook has more expertise in this but uh... i think
when p _c _ 'ing tries to point out you know inherent vulnerabilities like a
disability or an identity or a racial thing or four things where they're really as
book said you know pointing out a place of dominance or finger pointing to a place
of weakness then you're kind of crossing a line i believe in very hurtful and can
move into what can potentially develop into bullying i don't know for one -time
incident you know in a school yard game is going to count as that but there's a
way that people seek out other people's vulnerabilities and can be very hurtful and
have lasting effects. Brooke, some thoughts on that, and does intent matter? The
intent of the person who is doing the teasing or the silly behavioring or whatever?
Well, I think there's a couple of different things going on here. I think in some
cases that regardless of the intent, if a child is emotionally wounded, we want to
attend to that. However, I certainly see what this father is saying about his child
being hypersensitive as a result of the community and culture that is surrounding him
and trying to show this child kind of where the boundaries are and what the
benefits are. I will say this is not something I've dealt with before. Most of the
kids were learning different kinds of social skills, but they don't seem to be
So that would be a great way. I mean, I would just encourage him to keep talking
to a son and building that up and also, you know, letting them know these are
things we will address, these are things we won't address, and maybe pointing out
sometimes where he does those kinds of things to other people and see if the child
can start to see the difference. - Yeah, that's a good suggestion. And we're gonna
be talking later in this hour about ways to handle bullying in one way that I
think clearly does not raise to the level of bullying or even close can help his
son and know that a response to this, rather than going to the teacher and saying
he called me a name, or teased me or taunted me or whatever, is to teach his son
a response of, you know, "No, you can't," and then run, something great, so that he
has a response that, "Yeah, all right, Debbie, you mentioned something,
which was, I thought, such a good point about pointing out vulnerabilities, identity
issues, racial issues, religious issues, disabilities, things like that, as well as
adoption. That could possibly be one as well, or having been being in foster care
or something like that. But I think there are probably some others. So what type of
children are at greater risk for bullying. You've mentioned a lot of them.
Any others of children that stand that that might have a tendency to be picked on
in ways that would rise to the level of bullying? Yeah, you know, it probably has
to do with the child's perceived insecurities, the ways that they stand out from the
majority group in whatever given context of their school, because each school has a
school culture, socioeconomic status, racial, etc., and so ways that children may be
in a distinct minority. Have you seen ways that adoption has played out where
children are teased? It seems like adoption is so common now, and so many children
children have been, and have you seen times where children have been teased for
having been adopted? Well, one very interesting anecdote that happened in my own
family is I have two girls that came to our family through adoption and my sixth
grade daughter came to me one day and she's very comfortable in her skin around her
adoption and she said, "You know, mom, the two biggest taunts at school that you
can say to anyone is, "Oh, you're gay," or, "Oh, you were adopted." And I was
quite surprised by that, how easily that, whether or not adoption is talked about,
it's a way to try to say, "You don't belong," or, "You..." I'm not completely sure
all of the reasons why it's said, but it really is intended to be a jab to deep
down into their identity. And people say it regardless of whether or not they know
someone is adopted or not. They'll say it as a way to put them down or show them
as different or not belonging. - Oh, that's such an interesting point. Yeah,
and I also wonder not that these necessarily are more associated with adopted
children, although they could be, delayed social skill development. Kids who stand
out, obviously, and kids on the autism spectrum, but children who stand out as
different, and certainly sometimes children who have come from traumatic backgrounds,
it often are delayed in other ways as well, and that those children might stand out
as a difference, and thus more vulnerable perhaps, yeah.
- I'm also curious from Brooke of whether or not there's a propensity for children
who have been bullied themselves to become bullies, that they're often insecure
themselves and they are the ones who want to find insecurities and other children. I
don't know if you have things, thoughts on that, Brooke. - Sure, it's very
interesting. The manuscript for the book, I actually wrote a decade ago, more than
now, when working with an individual child on his experiences with being bullied,
and also using the book as a way to help him process how he was responding to it,
and that he was actually returning some of that also. So there is a little section
of that in the book in the how do I treat bullies and how am I responding and
trying to get them to look at their own behavior. Well that raises that that's a
perfect lead -in actually Debbie did a better lead -in than I did. I was planning on
it. Thank you Debbie. Why do children bully? And we got a question or a statement
actually from Raeanne. She says, Bullying is learned behavior. If you look behind a
bully, you will see bully parents. I actually don't agree with that, but I wanted
to throw that out because I think I'd like to explore why children bullying.
We have another comment, but let's explore this one first. So Brooke, what are your
thoughts on Rianne's statement that bullying is a learned behavior usually from parent
to child? Well, sometimes that's True. Sometimes kids use dominance and bullying for
other reasons. They feel insecure. They can. And so they do.
There's lots of different motivations. Yeah, I think as well. And let me have a
question from Kelly that's appropriate at this point. She says, "What to do if your
child is the bully? What can you do to encourage empathy in a child so they don't
turn into a bully or so they stop bullying other kids if they're already doing
that. I don't think anyone sets out to raise a bully, but obviously this happens to
some parents. So, yeah, let's talk about that. Then I've got two anecdotes to share
about that, but, yeah, thoughts on that Debbie. If your child is a bully, what are
some ways to help encourage empathy? Yeah, I think that that is the key question is
creating empathetic children and being empathetic adults. I too have an antidote on
that one when I previously worked as a medical social worker and working with
children with cranial facial anomalies and met with a girl who was born without an
ear and in the office she was with a peer,
a boy peer, And I'm like, "Oh, hi, who are you and why are you here?" And I
assumed he was her brother or friend or something and it's like, "This is my
classmate." And he's been teasing me and so my mom brought him with me to this
appointment so that he can understand what it's like and what I go through. And I
had a very interesting and open conversation with this boy about his own experience
of being bullied around having asthma, and he was fairly awkward in the appointment,
but this mother had had the intervention of creating this empathetic environment where
they spent the day together traveling to a doctor's appointment and learning, and I
thought that that was incredibly ingenious. You know, the parents obviously agreed to
do it. Well, and here's one, here's an anecdote from Debbie. She said,
"My now 17 year old was a bully in fourth grade. We had an ice cream summit with
the kids she bullied and their parents. Knowing that this behavior was seen by her
family and dealt with made my daughter much more humble. She got the message that
her behavior was unacceptable and it never happened again. And then I will share a
personal anecdote from my family, one of my children when he was five years old.
And when I say this is out of context for him, it's certainly not a part of, it
truly wasn't. We were totally surprised. He had been threatening another little girl
that was not in his class. I can't even remember now what it was he was saying,
but this child was frightened, but she didn't know who it was. She didn't know my
child, my child, because they weren't in the same class, but she knew what class
and the teacher and the principal went through every kid in the class because my
kid would be the last one, the last boy, because she knew it was a boy, the last
one they would thought. And then they got to him and she said, "Yes, that's him."
And of course, we got a call from the school. I was as shocked as they were. And
it was, of course, it was embarrassing. I was horrified. And yeah, so what we did
was we made him think about, of course, we talked to them. And then we We said he
needed to make restitution. He had to come up with a way to make her feel better.
And then when his only suggestion was baking cookies, which is one of his favorite
things to do, we said that that was a beginning, but he had to keep thinking. Had
to keep coming up with some more things, some more ways to make restitution to her.
And it's never happened again. And he was then and is now one of the most
compassionate people. So I think it fell into with him that I think it just came
out and it worked and he got a reaction and I think he was playing around with
power I think, you know, I don't know and fortunately he was caught and the
ramifications were big enough and harsh enough that he, I think he learned his
lesson. So obviously I don't want to believe that Rian is right by that my son
learned that behavior because I certainly don't think he did. But whether we
succeeded at teaching him empathy, I don't know. We tried to. We tried to talk
about how this little girl had felt and how she was frightened and how he had been
frightened before and how would he feel. But I'm not sure if we taught empathy or
we just taught that there were consequences. Either way, the behavior stopped. So
thoughts on that one, Brooke? I I love both of those ideas, making it very
community and saying you're not getting away with this, bringing it into light. I
think that was a great idea. I love how you are talking to your son about making
restitution. I also think that there can be times where kids simply don't know how
to get what they want or get what they need or express themselves, maybe because
they are delayed socially, maybe they are just emotionally upset about something.
I have an incident with a child who put a pretty threatening note for a small
child into another child's locker. And the school called and we discussed and turns
out that really the child was just frustrated that this slightly older child wouldn't
play with him and didn't know how to express that well. And so when we could then
kind of coach on how to express yourself and how then do we need to, you know,
heal this relationship and so finding out what's going on with them and also, you
know, all of those other parts about what is socially acceptable, what is going to
work for you and not work for you, what are the consequences of negative behavior
and, you know, we are not going to allow certain things to occur. Yeah.
And then what I liked about that is that you looked behind to try to understand
why the child. Partly, it could be a matter of simply wanting to have dominance.
But in this case, in the case you described, and I think so often the case, is
there something going on underneath. And it may just be the need for attention. It
may be other things, but it's worthwhile digging and not just assuming that the
bullying child is a bad kid or just a mean kid or whatever.
Let me interrupt this classic interview about bullying to tell you a little bit
about creating family's exceptional prenatal exposure training for parents available at
bit .ly /prenatal -exposure -training.
This facilitated three -session training helps parents and caregivers recognize and
understand the primary and secondary symptoms of prenatal substance exposure that we
can see in children across all ages. Parents and caregivers will also learn how a
child's brain is impacted by exposure and what strategies are most effective to
support these kids to learn and thrive. We limit the size of each training so that
parents and caregivers can learn and connect together. There's plenty of time for
discussion in these modules, and if you're interested in signing up for this, please
go to bitlybit
dash, exposure, dash, training for more information and the next series of sessions
that suit your calendar. With generous supports from partners like the Jockey Being
Family Foundation, we can occasionally offer discounts on this training, so be sure
to sign up for the Creating a Family newsletter to stay informed about these
opportunities. You can sign up for the newsletter at creatingafamily .org /newsletter.
And don't forget when you sign up to choose one of the free guides that you can
download as a thank you for signing up for the monthly newsletter. Now let's get
back to the show. - I did wanna talk about two specific instances that we had
people ask about that I think are worth assessing because they, I don't know if
they're more common, but let's start with with cyberbullying. That is a real issue
and when kids can get online and quite frankly kids are getting online at younger
and younger ages, children are being given phones at younger and younger ages. And
even though a lot of these social networks have an age requirement, I noticed that
a lot of parents do not enforce it. So let's talk specifically, if Brooke, if you
want to begin on that one, on cyberbullying and what we mean by that,
and if you know anything about it as far as its prevalence or its destructive
nature. Well, I am just glad that my son is not there yet and barely aware of
social media. This is such a complicated thing for parents to manage,
and I'm happy that I have some time to learn from other people before I have to
deal with it all of the time. I think there are some basic things we need to do
about monitoring our children for their safety and for appropriate behavior. I have a
friend actually who once grounded her child from Facebook for using incorrect grammar
and said that, you know, this is something that's serious and we're going to make
sure that you present yourself well and explain things very well. Laura, this
I was reasoning my post, because my grammar's not always perfect, but okay, maybe I
should get done. But what was it that this stuff lasts forever? And be aware of
what you were posting and how you were presenting yourself. And you know, kind of
coming in early so that the kids do kind of take it seriously. Beyond monitoring
and being aware of what's going on, having conversations with kids so that they can
know that you are open to talking about it and they can share things with you and
then I would you know bring up conversations have you ever had this or I heard
about this you can tell them real stories or you can make them up just to see
what's going on with your kids and if those kinds of things are happening in their
peer groups even if they're not involved with them and they may be more likely to
talk about it if it's something happening to other people and they're not involved.
Right. What about requiring your children to friend you when they get on,
whatever the friend being the general term, it changes by social media, but when
they get on? Debbie, do you have any thoughts on that?
Yep. I mean, my personal thoughts is, you know, an affirmative yes. The whole media
thing is so fast -paced and changing and kind of out of control that sometimes
parents just put up their hands in despair. And I don't think it was quite the
same as in an earlier generation where, oh, well, they're just sitting in front of
the TV with 12 channels to choose from that are censored already on some level. The
Internet is a complete open book to so many things that prey on children's
vulnerabilities and social media as well. You know, there's so much documented and
there's something about the anonymity of it that emboldens, even between peers,
emboldens them to say things they would never say face to face. We're losing the
art of conversation. Our children aren't learning the subtleties of how to interact
interpersonally in a way that's kind and caring and complex that you resolve
conflicts when you have them versus escalating them that can so easily happen on
social media because there's this distance and this anonymity that you can create.
So I do definitely think parents need to be much more involved than there's a
tendency to be. Yeah, I agree with you. If our kids are determined to get around
us, the truth is they probably can, but the more involved you are and and also
this goes back to just strengthening the basic relationships we have with our
children I think that's very important but also I mean to the extent we can stay
involved in our children's social media life as well. I agree with you.
Well here's one that will harken back to any of us that that rode the school bus.
Here's a question from Phyllis. "She's a great timing for this show. Our school
starts next Monday. I have two kids and they will ride the bus for the first time.
It almost seems like a ride a passage to experience bullying on the school bus.
It's hard to find someone who didn't experience this to some degree. I want to
prepare my kids, but I don't want to scare them and I don't want them to be
wimps, if you know what I to me. Alright Debbie let's talk about the age -old
tradition of school buses and and building and I guess that kind of brings us back
to what rises to the level is taunting on the school bus by the older kids is is
that bullying because that certainly does happen and how do we help our kids without
scaring them and also empowering them not to be wimps. Thoughts on that Debbie? Do
you remember myself writing the school bus for the first time and being teased?
That was in middle school. Middle school, yeah. Yeah. Yeah,
I don't have great advice on that. I mean, I think one good thing would be to get
to know the bus driver to create a relationship with the bus driver and have a
rapport and communication around what happens on the bus and that you introduce your
child to the bus driver and that they feel an ally in the ultimate authority on
the bus. Also finding a friend, helping them find a friend that they can sit with
each day, see if there's a way to get to school and find out who else is on the
route that you might know or might be in their class. I think allies is really an
important part of navigating the world, having friends and people that you trust that
you can go to that you feel safe and partnered with if that makes sense. Yeah and
for children just beginning to ride sit near the bus driver try to get if there
aren't assigned seats if there are assigned seats try to get your child assigned
relatively close and if not encourage your child to sit near the bus driver at
least at the beginning until they get their sea legs. Any thoughts on school buses
as far as territory for bullying, Brooke? I actually never rode a bus to school,
so I haven't had that experience which is of course unusual. I would encourage at
least the person who asked the question to let the children be advocates for each
other and not just have friends but you know this is what you need to do when
things they're going on with your siblings, and then also helping them be prepared
that people say a lot of things and they're gonna have to let it roll off their
back sometimes and knowing kind of what that line is. I personally, and maybe not
everyone would agree with this, but use the example of talking to my child about,
you know, sometimes when you are very upset and you are throwing a fit would be
the word we would use. Mom doesn't respond to everything that you say. And sometimes
when people are very upset, they say a lot of words that they don't always mean.
And sometimes we just ignore those for right now. And if it really is bothersome to
you, then come home and tell mom about it. But you don't have to address everything
on that moment, which may just kind of exacerbate the problem. Yeah, exactly.
And some kids are constitutionally more able to ignore than others. And I had one
of my children, just deeming to this day to a certain extent, but certainly when
she was younger, had the hardest time ignoring other behavior. And we would talk
with her about it, and I was riding with her in the car. And she had a friend
who was doing something that was annoying her, so she started screaming at her
friend. "Ignore, ignore, ignore." And I was like, "Oh, we have a ways to go with
this one." Including how exactly to ignore.
But that brings us to some of the classic advice that we tell children for handling
bullies. And one of them is just ignore it. So Brooke, how effective is that for a
technique for children for handling bullies or our behavior that may be approaching
bullying? It really depends on the situation. In the school bus situation,
they may simply be walking by someone and not have to then deal with them much
after that, so that's a good time for ignoring them. If a potential bully is
seeking attention or enjoying the reactions that they get,
then ignoring the behavior may exterminate it pretty quickly. I think that's why we
tend to go with that first and try that and hope that it eliminates the problem.
Unfortunately, there are other reasons that people are bullying other situations and
they're just going to keep trying. And it won't always work. Is it just me or is
Dawn fantastic at asking the questions you would want to ask if you were sitting
with experts like these? If you enjoy this topic and want to learn more about how
to strengthen your family, check out our library of free courses at bit .ly
/JBFsupport. Thanks to the Jockey Being Family Foundation, we can offer you a library
full of 15 free courses designed specifically to strengthen and support adoptive
foster and kinship families like yours So when I'm hearing and what I'd like for
the rest of the show We're going to be talking about it's building up an arsenal
of responses that we can Utilize with our kids and empower our kids to think
through what their options are and which one might work best in this situation.
Okay, so just ignore it is a great first step to see if that helps.
Another thing that we often will tell children is they're probably jealous. You'll
say, you know, so -and -so is picking on me and the classic parental responses.
Ignore it, they're just jealous. So Debbie, any thoughts on that? I mean, that could
be a reason why they're doing it. Jealousy is possible. That is a possible reason.
How effective do you think that would be? To say that to yourself? No, say it to
your child. So your child can internalize it, but yeah, not to yourself but to your
child. Yeah, help your child think through the reasons. I mean, I think it could be
one.
Wow, that's a difficult one, because Sometimes if it really is a bullying situation
where they are pointing out a weakness or an apparent weakness,
sometimes it kind of is a minimization of that to a child. So let's say they're
teasing them about adoption or something and you say, "Oh, they're just jealous of
being adopted." Well, is that really true? You know, maybe it is, maybe it isn't,
or, you know, Yeah, or you know, I think that I probably has limited Youth and
could be minimizing the point of vulnerability for the child and the pain that it
causes to Poke at that. So I would use that one cautiously or only truthfully Yeah,
I mean there there I guess it's helpful in the sense of thinking through why
somebody somebody is doing it, in that sense, trying to give them some abilities to
think through what's the reason. I agree with you. I think that is helpful to try
to create empathy for your child if there is a situation where you end up learning
something about the other child, but not to try to help your child have an arsenal
back to But to create empathy of, you know, life is kind of hard for them right
now and school is rough. And so they sometimes they, in order to feel better about
themselves, they put down other people. I don't think they ultimately want that. They
probably ultimately want a friend. So you know, what can we do differently that
helps break that down? You know, community schools or communities that go on for
years and just stopping a bully or isolating a bully doesn't necessarily fix things
in the long term. Creating restorative practices, or like you were talking about,
restitution in ways that bring that child back into the community in a positive
sense that builds them up is to the benefit of everyone. The bullying stops and the
child feels included and doesn't need to lash out. So thinking parents about you
know this is a long story can sometimes be helpful and I have seen that happen in
my own children's lives where you know a little girl that was very mean to my
daughter early on in like first grade I was just so delighted when she invited her
to her sixth grade birthday party that the story had slowly but surely turned around
not just for her but for this child in general in the school community and that
was So such a beautiful thing to see. Yeah, and good for your daughter and to
hopefully see that things can change and that we can affect change. Um, yeah, in
fact, had anything to do with it. Well, here is a response from Walt. He says,
dealing with the bully is quite easy, really. Walk up to him, punch him right in
the face. He might not want to, he might want to fight at that point, but he
won't want to fight you again the next day. Boys only pick on those who do not
respond in kind, particularly probably with our boys. This is a not atypical
response. Well, then I went back and commented that this is effective for a limited
number of, you know, you've got to have the physical strength you've got to, you
know, not end up being the one who's going to get creamed. he came back and said
that as a child he didn't have the physical strength. He was a smaller child, but
that by being plucky and by not putting up with it, it stopped the bully.
So he feels very strongly that this was a very effective technique for dealing with
bullies. Brooke, thoughts on that? Well, while I have said that I in some ways
admire the ability of males in general to punch each other and get over things,
and that it's slightly more complicated for women, just isn't something we can
encourage for children in schools these days. I don't know any schools that would
tolerate that. In fact, I had a parent who read this book tell me that his first
grader was being pushed around by a fourth grader, and the first grader took a
swing at the fourth grader, and they tried to suspend the first grader. Yeah, I
tell you, it's nuts now. I mean, we really have gone too far, although nobody wants
to see, you know, fighting in the schools, but it does, yeah. So you raised such a
good point in what I really had not thought about, and that is, there are
consequences now, particularly in a school setting. Yeah, that's such a good point
taking any type of physical thing even if it is deserved. Yeah darn because
sometimes Now I would say you're really good to tell your kid. I'll just punch him
Not that I would say that just saying it Or to do it yourself a triple a little
kid, you know, but All right, so Basically from your standpoint is the ramifications
to the child being bullied or is too strong for them to take Walt's suggestion.
Certainly not on school grounds. That would be very dangerous for them and even if
they do it off school grounds there's likely to be a report to school and the
school can still act on that. Yeah all right so darn you You know,
that would be so rewarding at times, but I'm probably sharing more than I should
right now. All right. So, let's see. And there may be a little bit of romanticizing
of a bygone day of how well or effective that actually was, you know. Well, you
know, I wonder that too. Although it's funny, when I have talked with, and you're
correct that it's almost always men but when I this weekend was in a situation
where I was around other people and somebody said oh what's the topic of the show
this week and I said bullies and it was it was surprising to me the number of men
who said I you know I that's how I handled it you know or I you know I punched
the guy or I pushed him off his bike or you know things like that that it really
got me thinking a bit about you know I wonder if that was a bygone day, or if
it, I don't know, maybe it still happened some and just doesn't get, you know,
outside the school setting. I did wonder if there was maybe a little romanticizing
that was going on with these men now, yeah, and not quite sure how effective it
was at the time. Perhaps it was. I'm sorry to interrupt you again, but I wanted to
let you know that if you are looking for more support like this to hone your
parenting skills and help you support your children as they head back to school,
please check out our current social media resource campaign at creatingafamily .org
/backtoschool. Thanks and let's go back to the show now.
- All right, I'd like to talk now about techniques. We had, I had mentioned earlier
that it seems like our best approach is to arm our kids with an arsenal of
potential options for dealing with bullies and help them assess if they,
if we're involved to be able to help them assess of which of these techniques might
work. Brooke, we mentioned before that just ignoring it is certainly a valid
technique and perhaps a good beginning one depending on the nature of the bullying,
how far it's gone, and it's what we can determine as to the cause.
What are some other techniques that you would recommend for kiddos who are
experiencing bullying? Well, of course, I like to let the kids brainstorm and test
out ideas on their own, thinking about what they can do, whether it is to enlist
the help of a peer, to walk away and play somewhere else if it's to talk to an
adult about it, how they I want them to talk through how they handled it,
how the people around them handled it, how they wish it had been handled and what
they would do or want done differently in the future so that we can kind of create
a full plan for them. Okay, and some of the suggestions, having the children having
the child brainstorm and then if they don't come up with these suggestions, encourage
them to one, elicit the help of a peer and I think Debbie had mentioned the
creating allies in the school bus making certain that your child has support.
Children who are alone or more vulnerable than children in groups, walking away,
talking to an adult, and I would add to that helping your child identify adults in
different situations that they could tell if their teacher is not around and it's
happening at school, who are some of the other adults, including somebody who works
in the cafeteria, things like that. Debbie, any other ideas, any other things you'd
like to add to our arsenal of responses? Yeah,
But let me ask one in specific, one in specific that it's not really Walt's idea
of punching him in the nose, but the standing up to the bully that takes such
courage, it just takes such immense courage to do, but is there a place for that?
Yeah, I mean there probably is, and maybe role -playing with the parent of either
witty responses or just self -assured responses that you can say and walk away trying
to, you know, in contrast to the punching in the nose, but ways that aren't
necessarily returning, you know, eye for eye, you know, trying to, you know,
think ahead of what kind of responses you could have. And help me think through
some responses to your daughter's experience of the taunt of oh, you're adopted,
intended as a put -down, what type of responses, if you remember any, that you
helped your daughter come up with? Well, that was an interesting situation, but one
that they could say would be, "Oh, yes, I am, and are you?" Or, "I am,
and so what?" Just to, like, with a punch, if you resist a punch,
it hurts worse. If you absorb it and go with it, then it loses its power.
And so in that particular situation, she actually asked me to help the school
broaden their curriculum around bullying and what was included in that.
And adoption was not part of the conversation. You know, there was gender identity,
there was racial identity, there was family consolation, but adoption was not in the
conversation. And so I ended up doing education in her classes that she wanted me
to do around what is adoption and why is it not okay to talk to people around
that. And it was super powerful. I was so surprised. Yeah, what a great idea and
it would be powerful. One that has been reported a couple of months ago by one of
our in our support group whose daughter was being teased about being adopted,
and her daughter responded, "At least my parents chose me. Yours got stuck with
you." Now, yes, that may not be the nicest thing, and it was interesting because
some of the people were pointing out that that in itself was an unkind response.
But in response to being teased, it gave this little girl power,
and it shut the other kid down. So I don't know whether that's a proper thing to
encourage, but in this case it had a good outcome in that the other kid was shut
down and this little girl felt empowered. So I throw that out as a possibility as
well. Brooke, some thoughts of other things, other responses that we could help our
kids think through? Or responses or witty comebacks, anything along those lines as
well. - Well, I think it depends on your child and how they feel about the
situation and just kind of their personality too. Some kids can be a little more
sarcastic and own that and other kids may, you know,
to the, well, you're adopted comment may just be like, "Yeah." - Exactly.
And this little girl in particular, yeah, her mother shared that this little girl in
particular was very spunky. So this was a, this comeback was very in keeping with
her personality. Yeah. I think that's a good point. And for some kids, they would
just be, yeah, blasé, but they wouldn't even need to respond. Right. And knowing,
you know, I think the reason why some of these responses work, and I just loved
Debbie's analogy about the punch, is that bullying is often about power and
dominance. And so when you meet it, then,
you know, yes, it could escalate, however, it's more likely they're just going, "Oh,
okay, and we're going to figure out how to work from here." Well, and that comes
back then into the standing up, because so often it is about power. Therefore,
if the other person doesn't allow themselves to be dominated, then it's not the
response that the bully wants. Yeah, interesting. Now what about in situations where
you're able to identify that there is, I think it's helpful, if this is a recurring
issue that is happening, and let's say it's happening in the school environment, to
think through, try to analyze when the bullying is occurring, where the bullying is
occurring, and come up with some specific strategies. I realize this is not always
possible, that the bullying does not follow a pattern. But if it does, or if you
can tell, there is a place, the lunchroom, or the school bus, or whatever, where
this bullying, what are parents' options then for working within the school. We'll
start with you on that one, Debbie. Your example, by the way, was a great one of
coming up with, being allowed to do some teaching on a subject, which is, talk
about the most effective way of working with the school. What are some other
thoughts with work? Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, just to back up a little bit,
part of it is parents really being invested in their child's school, knowing their
teachers, knowing of peers knowing their friends, that if an issue comes up,
they aren't suddenly the new parents storming the office around their child, but that
there's relationships that are built and that you're dealing with a problem in the
context of relationship, which is so much more effective. You know, sometimes
bullying, when it actually is very severe bullying, it's happening in secret and
there's a fear elements going on, and so if you find out about things that are
pretty severe that have been kept secret and your child has been intimidated, then
you do need to really elicit the administration and the teachers to try to find
interventions. My school is very big on restorative practices where it does begin
with addressing it with the child and their parents, et cetera, but then there is
some sort of process for restoration and protection for the child but also
restoration of the relationship and returning of that child somehow positively to the
community. So yeah I think the the biggest thing is getting involved in the school
from the get -go so that you're not unknown and your child's friends aren't unknown
and who the kids that are potential bullies are known to you. Yeah that's a great
point. Yes. I mean, don't let the first time you have any interaction with your
child's teacher or school be when you're complaining about an act. Brooke,
other thoughts on things that we can do as parents, either working with the school
or working with our child on ways to handle bullying? Absolutely.
Try to work with the school as much as possible, suggesting to them some
alternatives, that if this is happening on the playground, that the children or your
child is given two or three different options on what they want to do during recess
or whatever time that it is seen if the school is responsive.
I also think as parents that we need to be prepared that if the school is not
responsive or not appropriately responsive, maybe trying to loop all the kids in on
one and say you know you all just need to get along better and so the child being
bullied now feels they're in trouble and it's even more intimidated that we as
parents have to know you know what are we going to do is that we you know try to
take our kids out of the school
or seek additional guidance from therapists who can then kind of also be an advocate
with the school. I had a situation, you know, middle school is terrible for
everyone, right? I hope so. And in middle school, I was at a very small private
school and of all things was teased for being a cheerleader and kind of isolated
because it's a small school and there were only a couple of cheerleaders and so we
were isolated. And the school didn't address it appropriately for my mother's desires
and she came to the point where she said you know you have to finish out the
school year and she didn't use this language but basically I was allowed one mental
health day a week I had to keep my grades up and if I needed to stay home and
do my homework at home then I did and that's probably a pretty extreme reaction
however you know kept things smooth at school and kept me but it also Do you feel
supported and heard absolutely absolutely? Yeah. Yeah, which is where I think that
that's how I would feel I actually think it was is a great response assuming that
you were able to keep your grades up and And your mother was in a situation Yeah
Well and your mother was in a situation that are you were old enough to be left
at home alone or your mother was in a Situation to be at home with you that I
realized there's some families where that would be more problematic But yeah, and You
know you raised such a good point, I hadn't even thought about this, the approach,
and I've seen it done, where one child is being picked on, but rather than address
the kid who is the bully, all the children are brought in and talked to as if
it's a universal problem or a joint problem. And that feels so unsatisfactory, well,
it would feel unsatisfactory if I were the person being picked on, or as the parent
of that child, that it's being addressed as a universal problem, not as a problem
specific that this particular child is doing something wrong? Yeah, that just makes
me angry thinking about it. Well, we have to know the difference. I think my child
had some occurrences last year that were more social struggles, and it wasn't
necessarily bullying. However, people were saying mean things to each other, And that
might have been a situation where you get the three kids that were involved together
to sit down and work hash through it. And I believe eventually by the end of the
school year, they were all friends. I wouldn't have considered that a bullying case.
However, if it had come to the point where it was just one or two kids against
one, then I don't think the sitting down together is beneficial because they've
already established a relationship of power. And so the child here doesn't have an
equal footing for any kind of conversation. Yeah. You make a good distinction, and
it comes back to the thing we were talking about at the very beginning, that not
all acts of meanness or of teasing rise to the level and that we as parents need
to have the ability to sit back and assess, that Sometimes just letting it roll off
your back is the appropriate response, and in other times it isn't, and we have to
help our children and ourselves understand that distinction. That's such a very good
point, and a good point for us to stop on. Thank you so much,
Debbie Gish and Brooke Randolph, for being our guest today to talk about this very
important subject. I know that our audience is going to want to get more
information. And I know that they're going to want to buy this book. This is the
book by Brooke Randolph. The title is The Bully Book, a workbook for kids coping
with bullies. It is a workbook format. Children are encouraged to draw and there are
suggested questions. So it's a great book for helping your children. I would assume
if your child is being bullied or if you are in a situation where you think your
child is a bully. To get more information about Brooke or about the book, you can
go to her website, brook -randoff .com. To get more information about Debbie Gish,
you can go to the website of Adoption Connection, the adoption agency that she works
for, and that website is adoptionconnection .org.
That is adoptionconnection .org. Thank you so much for joining us today, and I will
see you next week.