Throw Out Patterns of Thinking that Accept or Excuse Bullying

We have reached a point in our society where it can no longer be acceptable to sit back and watch children engage in name-calling, taunting, pushing, and grabbing, as if resigned to the inevitability of this kind of bullying. Also, in regards to gender stereotypes, the adage that boys will be boys is a dinosaur. If we want children to be of good character and able to handle conflict peacefully, we need to cast out patterns in our thinking that say, This behavior is normal. Its been going on forever. There is nothing I can do about it. There IS something you can do! Children need to have their natural sense of empathy fostered and encouraged. They need to be taught to see other people’s points of view. It is important that the consequences of their actions are explained to them in terms that drive the point home.

React with “Moral Feeling”

Thomas Lickona in Educating For Character (1992) states, “Recent child-rearing research finds that children who are the most empathic and altruistic have parents who react strongly to their children’s offenses.” For example, you might say, “You hurt Amy. Pulling hair hurts! Don’t ever pull hair!” rather than “How do you think it feels when you pull Amy’s hair?” or “Do you think it’s a good idea to pull Amy’s hair?” It’s the combination of the parents’ moral reasoning and moral feeling that appears to motivate children to take seriously what they have done and to become sensitive to the feelings of others. I personally have found this to be true with my children. If emphatic moral feeling is attached to the reprimand and reasoning, children pay attention. By simply saying, “Don’t pull Amy’s hair. It’s not nice.” — with or without punishment — we will not teach the child to relate his/her behavior to another’s hurt.

Reduce and Monitor Television Viewing

It is also important to note that learning relationship skills is taking a back seat to watching TV and videos and playing video games. Children are not interacting with each other to build necessary social skills. Children bring their computer games to school, which further decreases interactive games and activities. Preschool and primary school teachers repeatedly tell me that children are coming to school without basic social skills. These teachers believe that the media play a large role in this situation. The TV is a wonderful baby-sitter! The price we pay for that “baby-sitter” is costing our children the ability to develop socially.

Teach Social Skills and Expect Courtesy

We need to teach relationship skills in our classrooms and homes. We get so many mixed messages from society and our culture that it is sometimes difficult to know which relationship skills we are missing. Courtesy has gone by the wayside. We often don’t even notice when our children don’t say “please,” “thank you,” or “excuse me.” Language has become littered with vulgarity. Vulgar language seems so commonplace now that it is the accepted norm in many families. “Put-downs” are a form of accepted humor. This is reinforced by countless “sit-corns” where we are entertained by family members and friends insulting each other all in the name of humor.

5 Practical Suggestions for Relationships

• Teach social skills.
• Teach and reinforce courtesy.
• React with “Moral Feeling.”
• Throw out patterns of thinking that accept or excuse bullying:
  • “Boys will be boys!”
  • “Hazing is a tradition!”
  • “Name-calling is normal!”
• Reduce and monitor television viewing. Encourage interactive play with other children.

For more information about conflict education and caring communities, see Susan Fitzell’s book, Free The Children, Conflict Education for Strong and Peaceful Minds. Available in both print and electronic versions!

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Take the time to discuss with children, at a level they can understand, the effect TV shows  and other forms of media have on them.

When my son was five years old, I think he believed that if he watched too much TV, he would have brains that look like oatmeal. That’s the only visual image he had for “mush.” Yes, I sometimes would answer in exasperation to the many “Why?”s I got when I enforcing our TV watching rules, “…because TV turns your brains to mush!”

Actually, that’s not far from the figurative. Four-, five-, or six-year-old children developmentally are not able to understand that their brain is being conditioned by media messages. At some level they can begin to understand that TV teaches them something.

Television and Media “Teaches” for Better or for Worse

I used to say to my children, “When you watch Mr. Roger’s, you learn about people and the jobs they do. What else do you learn!” or “TV teaches you about … (fill in with something positive that is very concrete to them, such as ABC’s, counting, etc.). When you watch Power Rangers, or VR Troopers, you are learning also. How do Power Rangers solve their problems? (Most children will answer: “Fighting or they beat up the bad guys.”) This show is teaching you to solve problems by fighting.” This is an important conversation to have about the influence of media on children. Variations of this conversation need to happen regularly.

Teach Children what Television and Media Teaches Them

It is important to help children understand that on TV a person can get kicked ten times and can then get up, but in real life getting kicked hurts.  In addition, discuss with children ways that superheroes can solve problems without violence.

Living in a society saturated by violent images, parents have a difficult road to follow if they are going to take a stand against media violence. Somehow, a balance needs to be achieved. If we completely deprive our children of all media violence, we worry that they will eventually rebel against our standards, making violence a steady diet, or will feel that they don’t fit in with their friends.

At Home: A Moderate Path in a Media Saturated Culture

A moderate path would be to carefully choose the shows that your child is allowed to watch. Monitor the amount of time your child watches those shows. Watch with your child. Discuss their values, lessons, and methods of problem-solving. Discuss what is real and what isn’t. Discuss the real life consequences of behavior modeled on the television show. If your child is paying violet video games, discuss the images and messages in video games, also.

In the Classroom: Critical Thinking through Television and Media Analysis

In the classroom, teachers can take an interest in their students’ favorite shows. Discuss the shows with the students to help them to understand what is real and what isn’t. Help them to employ alternatives to violence in their own play.

Teach and Reinforce Empathy

The single most important thing that parents and educators can do for preschoolers to limit negative effects caused by violence in the media is to teach them empathy. Preschoolers cannot see another person’s point of view. To require three- through five-year-olds to see someone else’s point of view is developmentally inappropriate. Preschoolers can feel empathy. Empathy needs encouragement to flourish. Here are some examples of how to encourage empathy:

• Allow children to talk about their emotions
• Notice a child sharing or showing concern for others
• Hold class or family meetings where relationships and feelings can be discussed openly

And finally, when children are unkind to one another, instead of forcing an apology, require restitution. Here are some excellent ideas for restitution and meaningful discipline. “Restitution Ideas for Disciplined Children” by Debra Pachucki

Excerpted from Free the Children by Susan Gingras Fitzell.

Developmentally appropriate conflict resolution solutions! Get this Book Now! A unique approach to helping ourselves and our children deal with conflict Get Susan Fitzell’s book now. Don’t waste any time Free the Children, Conflict Education for Strong, Peaceful Minds Bring Susan to your campus! Featured seminar – Bullying: Choices and Consequences

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Jane and I are on the same page. I love her work and her strategies for working with youth. I was doing some research tonight for a new book I’m writing on motivation and included some of her ideas regarding offering youth choices. Her book, The Win-Win Classroom, as well as all her other writing is insightful and practical.

http://janebluestein.com/2012/guidelines-for-offering-choices-to-students/

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http://www.amazon.com/Educating-Character-Schools-Respect-Responsibility/dp/0553370529/ref=cm_cr-mr-title

I hold this book up as a must read at every one of my bullying prevention workshops. It is filled with dozens of useful, practical, and doable ideas. It shows teachers how to promote and teach the values necessary for our children’s moral development. His twelve point program offers practical strategies designed to help parents, teachers and communities work together to form a decent and humane society. Educating for Character received a 1992 Christopher Award “for affirming the highest values of the human spirit.”

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http://www.amazon.com/Raising-Son-Parents-Making-Healthy/dp/0890878110/ref=cm_cr-mr-title

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As a parent who has spent my children’s lifetimes trying to teach them how to learn, I was very excited when I walked into my daughter’s college apartment and found mind-maps, mnemonics, color, etc. all over one of her walls.

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Mind-mapping through Engineering Courses

Now, it’s not unusual to find mandalas on her door or on her walls, or flash cards scattered about, but this was a huge mind-map made from recycled 8.5 X 11″ pieces of paper. I had to get a picture and I’m going to attach it to this post so that you can see it. I have no idea what it all means, but I do know it helped her to get an A in the course.  As some of you know, Shivahn co-wrote a book with me, Umm…Studying? What’s that?  so it feels good to me to know that she didn’t ‘just’ write the book, she also uses the strategies that she shares with other teens.

Have a great day. It was hailing-raining here today and I have to finish a book that I’m writing on motivating students. I’ll be presenting a webinar: How Can School & Home Develop Motivation and Success for Youth? February 26th

For more information about study strategies for your student, see Susan Fitzell’s book, Ummm, Studying? What’s That?. Available in both print and electronic versions!

Bring Susan to your campus or parent organization!

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The Power of Saying, “I’m Sorry”

It’s really easy to call someone a bully, but it’s not so easy to be called a bully yourself. We’ve all made mistakes in our lives – sometimes when we were kids and didn’t know better, and sometimes when we’re adults and really should. Making mistakes is part of being human, but realizing we’ve made a mistake and not doing anything about it compounds the problem. Taking responsibility for our actions and apologizing can make a world of difference, not only for the person who was bullied, but also for the bully themselves.

Recently, at a school assembly, I asked the kids to think of someone they need to apologize to. I encouraged them to seek out this person to say they were sorry and to make it up. Immediately after the presentation a brave young woman who was a victim of bullying but also a bully herself told me her story.

“In grades 7 and 8 I was a bully. Right now I really regret that. Every day for the full year in grade 7 I would kick him and he would have bruises on his shins. Now I feel bad. He was petrified of me. In grade 8 I did say I was sorry but I didn’t mean it. But now I see that my actions could cause him to do really bad things. I am very sorry.” Shortly after speaking to this young woman I received an e-mail saying that she had tracked down the young man to apologize.

Saying, “I’m sorry.” is one of the most important things that we can do, not only for the person we hurt, but for ourselves. In an article on the power of apology in Psychology Today, author Beverly Engel talks about the benefits of apologizing. For the person on the receiving end, an apology contributes to “emotional healing when he is acknowledged by the wrongdoer” and “helps us to move past our anger and prevents us from being stuck in the past.” On the giver’s side, “the debilitating effects of the remorse and shame we may feel when we’ve hurt another person can eat away at us until we become emotionally and physically ill. By apologizing and taking responsibility for our actions we help rid ourselves of esteem-robbing self-reproach and guilt.”

When my daughter, Amanda, was bullied I secretly dreamed that the girls who did it would one day call her up and tell her they were sorry. Two of her childhood friends apologized on her last day of school, but her best friends walked away without a word. Two of the girls she was physically frightened of from the second school let her know in their own way that they were no longer a threat, but I’m not sure an apology will ever happen. I know that an apology will not erase the hurt, however I do know that it can help remove the anger and start the healing – healing that needs to take place for both the person who hurt and the person who was hurt.

Laurie Flasko, CSP, teaches and challenges her audiences through her own life’s example. For more information about Laurie and her work, visit her website at www.laurieflasko.com. To order a copy of Bullying is NOT a Game. A Parents’ Survival Guide visit www.bullyingisnotagame.com or follow Laurie on Facebook at Bullyingisnotagame.

Contact Laurie to speak to parents, kids, teachers, mental health professionals at lflasko@laurieflasko.com 905-357-2345

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1) He’d just exercise. Yeah, right. My kid gets more exercise just getting up in the morning and jumping the five feet down from the top bunk of his bunk bed than most kids do before lunchtime. He has always been incredibly active… so much so that at the end of a very long day at daycare, one of his teachers asked my husband, “Do we wear him out at all for you?” to which he answered, “No, but thanks for trying!” At the age of three, he might spend nearly an entire summer day in the backyard with me, swimming (I mean swimming under water, on the water, jumping, diving, and so on) until he was cold, and then getting out and running around the backyard in sweats until he was warm enough to swim again. Rinse, repeat. He can ski all day and not want to stop. He can out walk, bike, and skate the grown-ups. He is now older and plays soccer at recess and likes to take laps around our block on roller skates or his bike for fun. Yes, more exercise does help his ADHD, but we haven’t reached the level of exercise yet that controls it. I read an interesting article titled “Riding is my Ritalin” (1) where the young man in question was able to stop taking Ritalin when he reached 25 hours of exercise per week. That’s a lot of exercise. If we were all still hunter-gatherers, my son would not only get that much exercise and more, but I bet he’d also be elected chief of the tribe. He’s fearless; in fact he loves danger and finds it easier to think the more exercise he gets. Mastodon, beware. But we are city dwellers now. (Can’t I just stay at the cave?)

2) If schools didn’t make students sit. My son would need a jungle gym, an obstacle course, and a death-defying thrill ride integrated with his classroom to have his ADHD work for him rather than against him with his school work. It isn’t particularly hard for him to sit, but if you make him sit he’ll never stop talking. Or popping his mouth, cracking knuckles, or making sound effects. He loves to make jokes and will blurt out anything that makes him laugh in the hopes that other people will laugh, too. The kid has a great sense of humor, but can be a real distraction in the classroom.

3) If you didn’t just want him to get better grades. Yes, he is getting better grades taking a stimulant. No surprise there. I do better when I’m full of coffee, too. But the behavior that made us look at drugs as a possibility had nothing to do with grades at school. His teachers have told us consistently that he is a smart kid, and he was getting mostly B’s or “at grade level” on his report card (and my husband and I were both OK with that kind of performance). The behavior that made me think “We have to do something NOW!” is that he is impulsive. His little brother was suffering as a result – the impulsive tap that was too hard, the impulsive words that were too hurtful, and the impulsive contact with no-touch areas on other people’s bodies – just as I had suffered with my own older brother and his (undiagnosed) ADHD, I was now watching my younger son suffer. A great quote that describes this is “Kids can be naturally impulsive, inattentive and overactive, but those with ADHD are more so, all the time.“ [fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”yes” overflow=”visible”][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”][1, emphasis mine] And you cannot effectively correct impulsive behavior. It is inherently uncontrollable as its name indicates – someone with ADHD has an impulse and they do it. The part of their brain that says, “I have been punished for that 37 times, and this time mom’s really gonna kill me” is asleep, and so they do it for the 38th time. Try to parent that without losing your mind. Try to parent that without help, because I assure you if my kid did any of this stuff to your kid, you would be insisting we did something to FIX IT.

4) No, really, you just want him to get better grades… I’m not at that point yet. But I know people who have been there. If your child was described by his teachers as smart and did well in school up through junior high and then started getting all Ds in high school, would you do something? What if Sylvan Learning Centers didn’t help either? What if your tutoring had no effect? Or grounding him, and every other thing you could think of? What if your poor kid cried about it? If you walked in those shoes, would you think a medication that let him do his homework at night in one hour instead of five hours was a good thing? We aren’t talking about getting an extra percentage point to make the Dean’s list or be valedictorian, we are talking about your child’s self-esteem, their ability to get into college at all, and their ability to learn. Really, please stop complaining about this one until you’ve had to parent it.

5) Didn’t feed him junk food. Yeah, that’s funny too. My child tried a soda for the first time at a party when he was 6. We eat organic, whole wheat, Earth-mother food and he is still bouncing off the walls. It may affect other kids and make them hyper, but I do not see the effect of sugary, salty, processed, or fatty foods on this one even when he does consume them.

6) If you would just make him behave. I believed this one for a long time myself when my only child was my firstborn, a daughter. Once I had my son with ADHD, I redefined the word “behave.” If he is simply a distraction and is not hurting anyone –running around being a danger to others, saying the latest curse word he heard on the playground, or making too much noise– then his behavior is acceptable. If he is trying and succeeding to make his brother laugh without too many potty words, then he’s golden. Flexibility has become the key to sanity for me. Put it another way, I can’t make him behave, and he can’t make himself behave either. I try to avoid putting him in situations where he can’t behave. I especially plan ahead for situations that are too boring, because being bored to someone with ADHD is like a power vacuum. Boring works for about 12.3 seconds until we have an implosion or an explosion of his style, humor and excitement. Providing constant distraction and keeping the mess to a minimum, that’s the best I can do.

7) If teachers were <fill in the blank>. Are there really people who believe that teachers want the children medicated, so they’ll sit in tidy little rows and do their work? Evidently, there are people who think that. The teachers I have met have bent over backwards to accommodate my son’s differences in the classroom, and none of them has ever once suggested he’d be fine if we medicated him. Truly, as far as I am concerned, his teachers walk on water. They have done an amazing job teaching him despite his constant distractions. For example, one called him her “sound effects kid.” She didn’t try to correct this behavior constantly, because she said that she figured a child’s personality was fairly well formed by third grade. She felt that her choices for children at that age were to work with or around personality quirks, reasoning that constantly disciplining him would just make both of them nuts. How can you not love her? His teachers have been fabulous; he learned in spite of his ADHD and they managed to teach a class full of kids with one of them bent on disruption. Please don’t bad-mouth the teachers.

8) If he weren’t your only child, you would know this is just what kids are like. I have two other children, neither of whom is even close to having ADHD. One is grown and I’d like to think I did a pretty good job raising her, but she’s the kind who practically raised herself. And the other non-ADHDer is in kindergarten; he’s a handful but is definitely not going to be diagnosed with ADHD. So if my sad parenting skills or lack of experience were causing me to need to medicate my child for ADHD, I’d be hard pressed to tell you why the other two are fine.

9) If you weren’t such a bad, permissive, inattentive, <fill in the adjective> parent. Please see number 8. I think I’ve had equal opportunity to screw them all up.
You know what? There are exceptions to everything. I’m sure there are parents who push doctors for ADHD drugs for Johnny so he can go to the Ivy League school. I’m sure there are teachers who might push parents to do something to control their kids. And I’m sure there are kids who would benefit from less junk food, less TV, and more exercise. But I’m equally sure that unless you have parented a kid with ADHD you don’t know what you are talking about. The behavior is relentless. You don’t just get a day to slide and neither does your kid. You are beyond vigilant in an attempt to keep your kid from hurting themselves or someone else with one impulsive action. You rest when they sleep, and you know what? They sleep less than other kids, too.

But they also love animals. I read that in a book on ADHD and said to myself “You have to be flippin’ kidding me! Other kids with ADHD love animals as much as mine?” And they are typically creative. He is artistic and funny. He is great company if you want to do something athletic or busy. He’s a great conversationalist and is often a joy to be with. But the rest of it you can have. It is relentless. It makes him unhappy too, to never be able to behave. So we have a compromise. He takes a stimulant and gets to feel successful at school and at home. And we sometimes get labeled “bad parents” because we can’t do this without drugs right now. But my sons are both winning from this, and that’s what counts.

1.  Barcott, Bruce; accessed 1/15/2013; Bicycling Magazine website (www.bicycling.com); http://www.bicycling.com/news/featured-stories/riding-my-ritalin?page=0,8.

Jamie Reifsnyder is the mother of three fabulous kids. She lives with her husband, two sons, and four cats in New England. She hopes that some day we’ll understand ADHD, autism, and other neurological differences well enough to enable all kids to blossom.[/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]

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