Today is officially, “Dump the Jerk Day.” Seriously. Clear out the debris and deadwood. Make space for someone who treats you good so you can have a wonderful Valentine’s Day. Worse than being alone is feeling alone when someone else is taking up all the space and breathing all the air. Then you’re not only feeling alone, there’s also no space for someone good to come into your life.
This is a good time to hold your dating choices under the microscope and, when appropriate, to recognize your bad choices for the jerks that they are. Then, jettison those persons from your life before Valentine’s Day comes around.
Even if you’re married with children, you can do it. In some ways, despite the difficulties, it’s more important because you need to set a good example for your sons and daughters. Teach them to stop abuse and bullying.
You can’t convince bullying spouses to change; you’ll never prove that you’re right or should have what you need; you’ll never deserve the rewards they withhold from you. They’re not interested in the truth or in your reasons or your wonderful logic. They’re not interested in loving you the way you want to be loved. They know best and they’re only interested in getting their way; in controlling everything – money, sex, cars, computers, phones, friends, family.
So many blog comments are from women wanting to be told that they’re right in their arguments with their husbands; that they should be allowed to do a few things like see their parents or girl friends or have a few dollars for groceries. They seem to think they need to get permission from their controlling husbands to even spend a few dollars of the money they earn. They’re always surprised that their good arguments don’t convince these control-freaks and bullies to change their behavior.
Many coaching clients come or call when they’re stuck in the same endless dynamic. Some husbands say the same things about the controlling wives.
Eventually the women get worn down. They’re too tired to fight about everything, especially the silly little stuff so they give up and accept the bully’s rule. Then they become victims. They accept that it is their fault; there must be something wrong with them.
The solution begins with a difficult realization: When it gets to that point, you’ll never win the argument. You’re being poisoned slowly, there’s no convincing a toxic predator to change and your only hope is getting away.
No matter what the cost, if you don’t get away, the poison will take its effect; your soul will be destroyed. Even if you have to begin from square-one again, you must begin. You’ll need all the strength and courage you can muster. You’ll develop the endurance and skill as you proceed.
Of course it’s hard. When you’re living in the ninth circle of hell, it takes a lot to get out. But that’s what you’re being called to do. Your spirit is calling you to make the effort. Your bright future is calling you to make the journey.
If you have children, don’t see them as an impediment. Let them stimulate you to break out of prison and start a new life as far away as you need.
Of course, if we can catch it earlier, it’s easier to declare and maintain your boundaries. Then it’s easier to demand loving behavior and to get away if the abuse continues.
All tactics are situational. Expert coaching can help you make a plan that fits you and your situation. Expert coaching can help you overcome the voices of your fears and self-bullying. Expert coaching can help you honor the commitments and responsibilities you still want to honor.
What do you do after you’ve been hit hard and knocked down by life? What do you do after your dreams have been shattered? What do you do after you’ve been rejected or lost everything? What do you do when you’ve been defeated? What do you do when you realize you chose an abusive bully and you don’t know how to protect your kids? The wisdom of the ages, from all traditions and cultures, gives the same answer, even if the reasons are very different.
In “The Ghost and the Darkness,” Val Kilmer plays a British engineer trying to build a bridge across a river in Africa. Two lions, accurately named “The Ghost” and “The Darkness” begin stalking and killing the men building the bridge. The lions outsmart every attempt to trap and kill them.
Finally, Val Kilmer develops a brilliant plan to trap one of the lions in a railroad car. They do trap the lion but he escapes, burning down the car. Kilmer is devastated and defeated.
The killings mount until the workers start leaving. They hire a skilled hunter, Michael Douglas, who is also caustic and sarcastic. At the climax to the first half of the movie, when the hunter sees Kilmer’s dejection and hears of Kilmer’s failed plan, he says, “There’s an old saying in boxing, ‘Everyone has a plan until they get hit and knocked down. Then the plan goes out the window. What matters is what you do after you’ve been hit and knocked down. Do you stay down or do you get up and fight again?’”
There it is. Kilmer faces his plans in ashes and his life as a failure because the men will leave, the bridge will be abandoned and he’ll never get another job.
The tension comes to a head when Douglas has a plan but the lions outsmart him and kill all the wounded men in the hospital. Douglas, the great hunter, is devastated and defeated. In total, the lions killed over a hundred men.
Kilmer says to him, “There’s an old saying in boxing, ‘Everyone has a plan until they get hit and knocked down. Then the plan goes out the window. What matters is what you do after you’ve been hit and knocked down. Do you stay down or do you get up and fight again?’”
There it is; the point of the movie; the point for all of us in the real world. Will we be defeated by defeat, will we give up when we’re back to square-one, will we give up when life is unfair or too destructive for us or will we get up and fight again, build again?
We, who don’t face killer lions everyday, still do face risk and disaster everyday by:
Human agency – we get fired, we put our savings down on the wrong stock, we give our retirement money to the wrong Ponzi scheme, some maniac or drunk driver kills people we love, some crazy person kills us and 10 others at work, we’re in the wrong place at the wrong time when a riot, revolution or war breaks out, our parents are toxic, our grown children won’t let us see our grandchildren or our spouse is negative, harassing, bullying and destroying our kids’ self-esteem and confidence, and running away means being broke.
Natural forces – tsunami, earthquake, hurricane, prolonged drought or flood.
Even the smaller failures growing up can seem like disaster – we fail a test or a course, we’re rejected or dumped by someone gorgeous or handsome, our secrets are spread over school or the internet, we don’t make a team we’d hoped for or counted on, we don’t get into the school of our choice, our parents don’t or can’t give us the latest stuff, the cool kids scorn us, we do something really embarrassing.
Our children face the same questions repeatedly: Will we be defeated by defeat; will we give up when we’re back to square-one; will we give up when life is unfair or too destructive for us or will we get up and fight again, build again?
“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent,” Eleanor Roosevelt.
As adults, our job is to:
Teach kids to get up and fight and build again, no matter what happens, no matter how unfair, no matter how devastating. Remember the sign on the bridge to Terabithia, “Nothing Crushes Us.”
Be models of great-hearted human beings who are not defeated by defeat; who don’t give in to depression and discouragement; but instead, who get up and fight and build again. Our job is to be models of courage, strength and resilience in the face of whatever life holds for us. Our job is to be models in the hope that our children will be inspired to be as great-hearted.
Notice, I ignored whether Douglas and Kilmer finally kill the lions. Yes that’s important to building the bridge and to the material parts of their lives. But that’s not important to the human spirits of Kilmer and Douglas being great because they’re undefeated by defeat; to them having the indomitable will to continue, no matter the obstacles and not knowing whether they’ll succeed. Okay; the factual resolution is that the Ghost and the Darkness are now preserved in the Field Museum in Chicago – and they did kill that many people.
“Strength comes not from physical capacity. It comes from indomitable will,” Gandhi.
Notice, I also ignored the historical implications of colonialism. Of course, that’s there, but that’s not the main point for my life.
The point is to use the movie to stimulate in me the greatest that I can be. There are thousands of heroes and heroines, real and fictional, who can remind us to get up off the floor when life has knocked us down. The point is to use everything I see and hear to inspire me to choose whether to live a selfish, shabby, sordid story or a great and worthy story; to chose to be the hero of my life.
“Glory is not in never having been knocked down. Glory is in rising up again, each time you are knocked down,” Vince Lombardi.
In the first scene of “The Last Samurai,” starring Tom Cruise and Ken Watanabe, the Samurai has a dream in which he sees the tiger coming for him. He doesn’t know what it means, but he knows that it is important.
Later, in the first battle, where the Samurai army overwhelms the poorly trained Imperial troops, the Samurai sees Captain Algren (Tom Cruise) wounded but fighting with the lance holding a flag that has the same tiger on it. The Samurai watches God favor Algren. Algren kills another Samurai who is by far a superior sword fighter. At that moment, the Samurai could let the others kill Algren, which would be the normal course of events. But he stops them.
The Samurai realizes that his destiny has just called to him. He doesn’t know the future, but he senses that his destiny is calling him. He spares Algren’s life and has him taken with them.
At that moment, he can’t know that Algren will come to respect and honor them, he can’t know that Algren will become one of them, he can’t know that Algren will save him from the evil minister’s plot to have him assassinated, he can’t know that Algren will help him fight and die gloriously, he can’t know that Algren will present his sword to the Emperor and that the Emperor will finally listen.
At that moment, all he can know is that his destiny is calling to him. And he chooses to hold the door open for his destiny to be slowly and eventually revealed.
As he says, “A man does what he can until his destiny is revealed to him.”
Whether we refer to it as a call to our destiny or a call for us to take up a quest, a hero’s path, we must hold the door open, we must let our destiny in or we must walk through and follow the path to our destiny. If we don’t open the door to our destiny, if we turn our backs because we don’t recognize it or are afraid to grasp it, our lives will turn into ashes, parched and burned, sifting through our fingers.
And we must follow our destiny even though we can’t know what the future holds. Winston Churchill said, “It is a mistake to try to look too far ahead. The chain of destiny can only be grasped one link at a time.”
The Samurai reached for his destiny not knowing what it would be.
Stop for a moment. When has your destiny called, especially in unexpected ways? When have you had a sense that a new and glorious and possibly frightening future has called to you? When have you turned away? When has your reason or your fear turned you away from what your guts and accurate intuition wanted you to heed?
And what might happen now if you started listening for your destiny’s call? What might happen if you vowed to heed the call next time, to reach out and grasp your destiny, one link at a time?
Expert coaching can help you distinguish your destiny, the call of your accurate intuition from the call of your fears or your wishful thinking or other peoples “purpose” for you. Expert coaching can help you overcome the voices of your fears, guilt and self-bullying. Expert coaching can help you develop a plan that honors the commitments and responsibilities you still want to honor.
Reach for your destiny; reach all the way. Choose whether to live a selfish, shabby, sordid story or a great and worthy story. Be the hero of your life.
The axis mundi of “Secondhand Lions,” starring Robert Duvall, Michael Caine and Haley Joel Osment, is that the kid is desperate to learn what he needs in order to become a good man. He’s never heard truth from his mother. He’s never had a good man in his life. How can he figure out what’s true? How can he learn what he needs? How can he overcome his self-doubt? To what should he devote himself? Whose side should he take?
Finally, one night, he pleads and forces Robert Duvall to give THE SPEECH – “What boys need to know in order to become good men (and girls to become good women).”
The Kid: “I don’t know what’s true. I don’t know what to believe.”
Robert Duvall: “Sometimes the things that may or may not be true are the things a man needs to believe in the most: That people are basically good; that honor, courage and virtue mean everything; that power and money, money and power mean nothing; that good always triumphs over evil – and I want you to remember this – that love, true love never dies. You remember that boy, remember that. Doesn’t matter whether it’s true or not, you see, a man should believe in those things because those are the things worth believing in. Got that?”
I love that speech. It’s not about what’s true; it’s about deciding what ideas will be your pole star; it’s about deciding what you will devote yourself to in the creation of your future. And these are values that are worthwhile devoting yourself to.
If you devote yourself to those values you can live gloriously every day. If you turn your back on the good; on honor, courage and virtue; on true love, your life will be empty, you will have no chance.
A theme in “The Last Samurai” is living nobly, living with honor – no matter the consequences. That’s why, at the end, when the young Emperor asks Tom Cruise to tell him how the Samurai died, Cruise answers. “I will tell you how he lived.” That’s the example the Emperor needs.
Choose whether to live a selfish, shabby, sordid story or a great and worthy story. Be the hero of your life.
In “The Last Samurai,” with Tom Cruise and Ken Watanabe, the Samurai asks Tom Cruise what he has devoted his life to. Up to that point, nothing. He has had and still has nothing worthwhile to devote himself to. So he is empty; a shriveled heart moving from one whiskey bottle to the next. And the rest of the movie the question falls from the air like a warm spring mist, “To what will you devote the rest of your life?”
What might be worthwhile?
The great literature shows what is not worthwhile – money, power, position, fame, celebrity, ego, videogames. You know the list – the 7 deadly sins and all the rest.
Of course, we want to master skills and we want enough money and stuff and a job that doesn’t crush us. But if making our living costs so much that it ruins our lives, it’s not worth it. You know, “What profiteth a man if he gain the world but lose his soul?”
There are some people who do devote their lives to their careers or their missions, but not many. You know how wonderful you feel when you master a skill you love. And how the world opens up when you master yourself or when you devote yourself to that which inspires your spirit.
Amy Chua’s article in the Wall Street Journal, “Why Chinese Mothers are Superior,” has gotten enough publicity to make her book, “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother,” a best seller. She’s clear that she uses the term “Chinese Mother” to represent a certain way of treating children that may be found in people from many, many cultures.
If many people adopt her style of parenting in order to make their children play at Carnegie Hall that would be a shame. Amy Chua is an abusive bully.
She beats her children into submission and claims that they’ll have great self-esteem as well as becoming successful in the competitive jungle of life because they can accomplish the very few things Ms. Chua thinks are important.
They also won’t suffer from anxiety, nightmares, negative self-talk and depression because they’ll be successful in her real world. The bullying and beatings will make them as tough as nails. They’ll wipe out your kids; you lazy, slacking, guilt-ridden, ambivalent, permissive American parents.
“What Chinese parents understand is that nothing is fun until you're good at it. To get good at anything you have to work, and children on their own never want to work, which is why it is crucial to override their preferences.”
“Chinese parents can order their kids to get straight “As.” Western parents can only ask their kids to try their best.”
“Western parents are extremely anxious about their children's self-esteem…Western parents are concerned about their children's psyches. Chinese parents aren't. They assume strength, not fragility, and as a result they behave very differently.”
“Chinese parents demand perfect grades because they believe that their child can get them. If their child doesn't get them, the Chinese parent assumes it's because the child didn't work hard enough. That's why the solution to substandard performance is always to excoriate, punish and shame the child.”
“Chinese parents believe that they know what is best for their children and therefore override all of their children's own desires and preferences.”
Therefore, she proudly states that never allowed her daughters to:
“attend a sleepover
have a playdate
be in a school play
complain about not being in a school play
watch TV or play computer games
choose their own extracurricular activities
get any grade less than an A
not be the No. 1 student in every subject except gym and drama
play any instrument other than the piano or violin
not play the piano or violin.”
Why will some people take her seriously?
People who think that American culture produces only losers – selfish, lazy, narcissistic, weak, slacker teenagers and adults who will never succeed – will be tempted to improve their children’s test scores acting like Ms. Chua did. People who enjoy beating their children into submission will be tempted to use her ideas as a justification for dominating and abusing their children. People who think that China is the next rising super-power and that today’s Chinese children will rule the world and our children won’t be strong and determined enough to stop them will be tempted to channel their children down Ms. Chua’s narrow track.
There’s a grain of sense in what she says, but that grain is covered by a mountain of brutality that will be successful in creating only slaves or another generation of bullying parents, not in creating fully human beings.
What’s wrong with Ms. Chua’s ideas?
She lives in a kill-or-be-killed world of desperate striving for the most material rewards of success.
She’s rigid, narrow, and all-or-none with only two possibilities.
She allows only a few criteria for success – Stanford or Yale, violin or piano, maybe ballet. I assume only one or two acceptable careers like lawyer or professor.
She assumes that there are only totally slacking children (Americans) or totally successful children (with “Chinese Mothers”). If you give children an inch, they’ll become complete failures.
She thinks that the only way her children can be successful and happy and honor their parents is to be champions at her approved activities.
There’s almost no joy in their lives. Yes, there’s a moment when her daughter masters a difficult two-handed exercise. But the best that the rest of life holds is the thrill of victory and success at winning. There’s no possibility for joy in doing activities that thrill your soul and uplift your spirit.
Ms. Chua has only one value – compete and defeat; win at any cost.
This is a great and necessary value. It has made our society the first world. But if when the only value, when she ignores all the other equally great and necessary values she becomes inhuman – a barbarian, a torturer, no better than a Nazi or Communist or Fascist.
No wonder she’s aghast at all the personal attacks. She may be a brilliant law professor and accomplished writer but she’s completely out of touch with the world’s great traditions championing other values like great character, individuality, liberty, self-determination, love, beauty, compassion, spirituality and human connection. That’s why people take it so personally. Ms. Chua is attacking our most cherished values; cherished for good reasons. These values make us human in our most fundamental American, western ways.
Ms. Chua represents inhumanity justified by Darwin and Marx. She represents a revival of B.F. Skinner’s way of raising his daughter in a “Skinner Box,” as if she was a pigeon. When she grew up she sued him.
A better approach:
Have you observed your children individually and carefully? One approach does not fit them all.
Which children need you to provide more structure and which will be dedicated and determined on their own? Which children respond better when they’re encouraged and which respond better to having their imperfections pointed out? This is where expert coaching is helpful to design approaches that fit you and each child.
What are your children passionate about so they become energetic and determined on their own? Are following an artists path, playing the oboe, writing “silly” stories like “The Little Prince,” learning to program computers, studying bugs and strange sea creatures, mastering any sport, being a person who inspires others to be the best they can be, dedicating yourself to raising independent and creative children living rich and full lives, being a craftsman who makes great pianos or violins, coaching basketball teams at “minor schools” like University of Connecticut or UCLA to set winning-record streaks, being entrepreneurs like Bill Gates or Steve Jobs, making movies, loving children and a thousand other endeavors worthwhile to you? How can you encourage and nurture your child’s dedication and skill in those areas?
Character is critical. All of the world’s great literature points to the deficiencies of social climbers, bureaucrats and people whose only focus is to win at all costs. What would Ms. Chua have created if she could have gotten her hands on the children who became, for example, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Charles Dickens or Alexander Solzhenitsyn? Or great figures in the world from Joan of Arc, Hildegard of Bingen and Mahatma Gandhi to Martin Luther King Jr. or Aung San Suu Kyi, to name only five of thousands.
Don’t be a victim of your parents’ ideas about what constitutes success and how to achieve it. You can give your children the tools of the mind, will and spirit and let them create their own lives that they’ll love.
By the way, Ayalet Waldman wrote a somewhat tongue-in-cheek response in the Wall Street Journal, “In Defense of the Guilty, Ambivalent, Preoccupied Western Mom.” In part she defends her children’s choices and her catering to those choices. In part she also defends her selfish desires to discourage her children when their activities would inconvenience her. That’s not the answer either.
All of the poles in this discussion are the wrong places to be – being a wimpy parent or an uncaring, selfish parent or a brute.
Control-freak bullies and “Chinese Mothers” isolate you and make you dependent on them.
My conclusion is that if it looks like a bully, if it acts like a bully and if it feels like bullying then it’s a bully, even if it calls itself “Mommie Dearest.”
George Will reported in his Newsweek column, “More Stimulating that the Stimulus,” that “In Ottawa, the sensitivity police in a children’s soccer league announced that any team attaining a five-goal lead would be declared to have lost, thereby sparing the feelings of those who were, if you will pardon the expression, losing.”
This was confirmed by many other articles including, “Win a soccer game by more than five pints and you lose, Ottawa league says.” Although the title says enough, here are some quotes from the article, “In yet another nod to the protection of fledgling self-esteem, an Ottawa children’s soccer league has introduced a rule that says any team that wins a game by more than five points will lose by default… Club director Sean Cale… said the league’s 12-person board of directors is not trying to take the fun out of the game, they are simply trying to make it fair. The new rule, suggested by ‘involved parents,’ is a temporary measure that will be replaced by a pre-season skill assessment to make fair teams.”
The Club fields teams between the ages of 4 and 17.
It’s hard to keep calm when we hear this kind of idiocy. I suppose next they’ll want the Ottawa Senators to stop shooting if the ever get a two goal lead.
The bullies here are not good soccer players who score many goals, although they might be if they go overboard into vicious fouling and nasty taunting against overmatched opponents. The bullies here are the members of the Club Board who act like self-appointed “Self-Esteem Police.”
Bullying by “Professional Victims”
One of the 5 types of bullying that we deal with regularly is the “Profession Victims” who use their hyper-sensitivity and hurt feelings to manipulate and control their environment. They win when you accept that your job is not to hurt their sensitive feelings. Professional Victims and their supporters say your job is to do everything they want in order to please them…and they’re never satisfied. They win when everyone else is walking on eggshells to avoid hurting their feelings and causing them to blow up or withdraw into a pouting silence.
The rules of soccer, when followed, already make the game fair.
Professional Victims assume that their children’s psyches and self-esteem are weak and fragile
The slightest problem will damage them forever. As if kids can’t maintain their self-esteem when they’re beaten badly by a better team.
I assume, on the contrary, that children begin strong and have to be taught to see themselves as weak and fragile
Children are not damaged by failing or learning their present location in the hierarchy of inborn gifts and hard work. I assume that when children fail it’s because they haven’t worked hard enough. The solution to not succeeding is to work harder to fulfill your potential. Children survive intense pressure, challenge and struggle. When they improve, their self-confidence and sense of competence increases.
Also, we all have much more choice about how we feel
You have to be taught to have low self-esteem after you lose at something you know you’re not very good at. You have to be taught to have stress, anxiety and depression after you lose. You have to be taught to wallow in negative self-talk and self-bullying. You have to be taught to give up.
People who succeed in life respond by directing their energy into a vow to do better and a determination to work harder, get better and win at life
We’ve all been beaten down at times. We’ve all found out where we stand in the hierarchy of who’s faster, stronger, smarter, prettier. And our position in that hierarchy has nothing to do with happiness or self-esteem. Ask any great athlete how they motivate themselves after having been beaten. Ask any great mother or father how they motivate themselves to do better after they’re done something really dumb in their family.
The general rule is never to give the Self-Esteem Police or the Professional Victims credence or power. Treat them as bullies and learn to stop them. Tell them to suck it up; stop creating and wallowing in hurt feelings. The lesson for these kids is to have more inner strength, courage and perseverance and to get more skillful so you can succeed in the real-world.
We need to learn how to win. Winning is critical for our survival as individuals and societies.
The general rule in winning big is to not be a jerk about it. Grownups are supposed to learn not to thrash their kids when they’re young, The big kids in any extended family are supposed to learn how to make it fun for the little kids to play ball with them. We’re supposed to learn how to be gracious winners when someone isn’t in our league in any game.
The general rule in dealing with defeat is to gather yourself, get more skillful and do better next time. And if you’re not good enough to be a champion, decide to be happy enjoying playing at any game in life, whether it’s sport, dance, music, art or any other area of endeavor where there are only a few “work class” players.
Expert coaching can help you design a plan for each individual child; from those who tend to be aggressive and nasty to those who tend to withdraw and need lots of encouragement.
By the way, so much scorn was heaped on the Ottawa soccer club that they did get rid of that rule. They now have a new mercy rule “under which a game will be called once one team has a lead of eight goals. Whichever team is ahead at that time will be credited with the win,”
There’s a wonderful and stimulating article in the Wall Street Journal by Amy Chua, “Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior.” It’s sub-titled, “Can a regimen of no playdates, no TV, no computer games and hours of music practice create happy kids? And what happens when they fight back?”
The sub-title’s focus on creating happy kids just points to the difference in approach that Chua is focusing on.
One important quote is, “What Chinese parents understand is that nothing is fun until you're good at it.”
I’m not throwing in an opinion yet but I’m sure that it’ll stimulate you.
We all remember: Colorado was home to the Columbine High School shootings in 1999. But as Jessica Fender reports in the Denver Post, “More Consistent Anti-Bullying Program Urged for Colorado,” after 11 years “good intentions have devolved into an uncoordinated approach that ignores best practices in some instances and leaves state authorities with no clear picture of how well the myriad policies work.”
As, “Susan Payne, [who] directs the state's Safe2Tell effort, [says,] ‘One of our issues is there is no consistency. While each school has to have a bullying policy, their policy is unique to their school.’”
Instead of thinking about which component is the most important, let’s look at what’s necessary in a different way. Think of what we need to stop school bullying as if you were imagining a target with a bull’s eye in the center. Everything in the bull’s eye is necessary. If you leave out one of the elements in the bull’s eye, you won’t be successful.
Effective, well-written laws to specify what’s illegal; that is, what’s bullying. Without these laws, people like Lori Drew, the mother who set-up the Facebook page and led the attack that caused teenager Megan Meier to commit suicide, can get away with that behavior. Or the kids who tormented Phoebe Prince, Asher Brown, Jon Carmichael, Ty Smalley, Jaheem Herrera, Brandon Bitner, Samantha Kelly, Billy Lucas, Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover and so many others in 2010 until they committed suicide, will also get away with it. Don’t limit the laws to include only protected categories of victims based on race, sex, religion, sexual preference, etc. Be inclusive about the abuse, no matter who it’s directed against. Maybe the phrase about protected categories should be, “…including but not limited to…” Laws should contain provisions against verbal bullying and cyberbullying, as well as physical violence and abuse.
Require all schools to have programs designed to stop bullies. These programs should contain a sequence of swift and firm steps to remove bullies from schools and school activities like sports. The steps should focus on protecting targets first, and rehabilitating bullies only after they’re removed. Effective anti-bullying programs also educate bystanders to become witnesses. That requires spelling out what witnesses should say and do, who they should report to and how principals and teachers will keep them anonymous and protect them. Effective programs also include close contact with police, especially in cases of cyberbullying and physical abuse.
Require training for everyone involved with school children, including bus drivers and cafeteria monitors. Increase recognition of the more subtle but very pernicious forms of verbal and emotional bullying. Increase awareness of the difference between episodic arguments and even fights between kids versus destructive patterns of taunting, harassment and physical bullying. Give all staff specific steps to follow in documenting and reporting bullying.
Colorado’s Safe2Tell program is a wonderful effort to help kids come forward anonymously and to bring legal pressure to bear on bullies, their parents and school officials who need to act.
Of course, laws, policies, programs and training are merely the necessary guidelines on paper. What makes them effective are dedicated people who are concerned and courageous enough to stop bullying.
Consulting and coaching within individual districts and schools does produce effective programs, stimulates the leadership of strong principals and energizes the support of good teachers and staff. In addition, there is a natural weeding out of people who choose not to act effectively and shouldn’t be put in positions of responsibility for children’s welfare and education. Effective programs develop and highlight models of great adults acting on behalf of children.
We don’t need to wait until there are more studies about why bullies bully. We don’t need to wait until we have more studies to define all the consequences of bullying that turns targets into victims. We don’t need to wait until we can write perfect laws, policies and programs.
We know enough about the stress, anxiety, depression, self-hatred, negativity, and loss of self-confidence and self-esteem, to know that the effects of being a victim can be life-long. Just as successful school bullies tend to become bullies as spouses and parents, and bullies at work, so victims of school bullies tend to become victims as spouses and parents, and at work.
We know enough to act now to stop bullies. We do need to act before more lives are ruined while we analyze, debate and vacillate. I’d rather err on the side of protecting targets at the risk of being to harsh on a kid that wasn’t really a relentless bully, than the present situation that errs on the side of protecting bullies and leaves targeted children isolated, unprotected, helpless and thinking that suicide is the only way to end the abuse and pain.
‘Tis the holiday season and kids’ expectations are high. They want what they want and they want it now!
We may want to draw new lines, cutting back because of the economy or because we’re just tired of their whining and complaining or because we think they’re on the path to become spoiled brats. But if we don’t please them, many kids will throw temper tantrums in public, as well as at home. They’ll scream that you’re unfair, that all the other kids get what they want, that their lives will be ruined if they don’t get what they want right now, that they won’t have a social life, that they’ll be picked on because they’re poor and that they hate you. Or if they’re very young, they’ll just scream.
They’ve made a list and they’ve checked it twice. They’ve kept score and know you’re embarrassed by the fuss and more likely to give in when they meltdown or get out of control or go ballistic in public.
They’re just like we were, if our parents let us be. If we’re distracted now, embarrassed or lack confidence, we’ll make exceptions when other people are around and we’ll give in. Of course, the kids will smell blood and up the ante.
The key is not to be embarrassed, distracted or self-judgmental. Be clear; if they don’t get what they want it really is not the end of the world. Don’t let their self-confidence and self-esteem depend on external stuff or other people’s opinions of them. Don’t take personally what they say. Do not care about or look at other people (including your parents) to see if they’re disturbed or disapproving. If you care what other people think, your children will know that they’ll eventually win. If you lose it; kids know that they will win eventually.
The rules don’t change in public, although your actions will be different in each different situation. Explain in private beforehand what you can afford and can’t afford, and what you think is appropriate and not appropriate. Be clear about the areas in which they have no choice and where their vote counts and where they have total control.
Normal children are supposed to learn how to manipulate you to get what they want; their job is to see if bullying works on you – where and when. Their job is to test you by pushing your boundaries to find out where they can get their way. Your task is to look at them lovingly when they’re throwing a stubborn fit because you can see how that determination, strength and perseverance will help them when they grow up. That doesn’t mean you give in to them. Your job is to stay calm and to assert your will to educate and socialize them whether they agree or not. You can give them your reasons in a way that makes it a statement of fact, not a matter for debate, not a matter they get to vote on.
Children just want to know the rules and boundaries. You help them feel secure when you’re consistent, calm, smiling, loving and firm.
Have a get-away plan before you go anywhere. You and your partner-spouse will have to agree beforehand. That may mean taking the kid for a walk or leaving early. If they lose it, you will have to get them away and do your best to calm them down. Don’t put them in situations where they get too hungry, tired or “wired” by too much input, sugar or caffeine. For some kids, a big lesson is that they’ll be removed while everyone else is having a fabulous time. Show them that their upset is definitely not contagious.
When the children are very young (pre-schoolers), long before you think they can understand language, you can calmly and firmly state, “If you behave like that, I won’t take you any more.” And then remove them. You’d be surprised: they understand your calm firmness long before you think they can. Often, you can distract them with whatever is around and interesting in the environment. If you train them now, you might be able to enjoy their polite and civil company when they’re teenagers.
Sometimes, with older kids, you can break them out of a fit by grading their performance. Just like you see in the Olympics, line everyone else up and give grades for the performance – a 6.9, an 8.7, a 9.2. With a loving smile and laugh, encourage them to do better, to shoot for a hissy-fit that’s worth a 9.9. Give them a big round of applause or a wave. Then go about your previous business. The more you’re enjoying yourself, the less they’ll push the tactic of throwing hissy-fits; the less they’ll think that negativity, anger, rage and explosions will get them what they want. By the way, boys will often stop any behavior you call a “hissy-fit.”
If you lose it once in a while, there will be no permanent damage. Of course there are a small percent of children who make the fight with you a matter of life-or-death for them. Calmly convince them that’s not a good use of their energy and they won’t win that fight until they’re 18 and leave home. If they continue that fight, they’re telling you they need serious help.
In their New York Times column, “From Dangerous Home to Safe House,” Amelia Duchon-Voyles, with Liz Welch, describes how Amilia helped a woman and child escape from a bullying and domestic violence situation. They also described the mother’s progress toward standing up to her batterer and to establishing a steady life for her and her son.
Good for all of them. Their individual efforts, in emergencies, under duress, save lives.
Some ideas for the targets of domestic violence are:
Don’t remain a victim. Whatever your second thoughts, stop the harassment, bullying, abuse and domestic violence by getting away safely. If you’re threatened, beaten, terrorized or abused, get away. Don’t live in fear. Don’t allow your children to grow up in fear. In your heart of hearts you know that if you stay, you’re dooming your babies to a life of pain, stress and anxiety; negativity and depression; low self-confidence and self-esteem; increased chance of addiction, alcoholism and suicide.
Find a safe house and helpers to get you away and to start a new and better life. Seize any window of opportunity; you don’t need a plan with all the details worked out. From a safe house you can make and carry out a better plan than you can when you’re terrified.
Don’t worry about the stuff you leave behind. It’s got his cooties on them. You’ll get new. More important than any attachment you or your children might have to the stuff, is the value of being free to breathe deeply again, to laugh and sing and dance with abandon, and to plan for a great future.
Your children need your good example more than they need his bullying, abusive presence and any benefits you imagine of growing up with a bully for a father. They need to be away from the fear. The boys need to learn that bullying and violence won’t be tolerated or get them what they want. The girls need to learn that they don’t have to tolerate abuse and battering.
Get stable over time. You can get education, skills and a job or career to make a life in which you can get your own place. Start stable routines for the kids. Convince them that there’s light at the end of the tunnel. Tell them hero/heroine stories. Even though it takes time and hard work, they can be fine as adults – successful people and good parents.
Be courageous, take the risk. Your future, your children’s future is calling to you to make your lives better. No matter what you say, if you stay your babies will believe your example. They’ll think that being a bully or being a victim are acceptable ways to go through life. Set a good example for your children.
In his New York Times Op-Ed column, Charles M. Blow reported on the experience of his three children and the results of a study conducted by the Josephson Institute Center for Youth Ethics, which interviewed more than 43,000 high school students. He reports that the study showed:
“Boys who went to private religious schools were most likely to say that they had used racial slurs and insults in the past year as well as mistreated someone because he or she belonged to a different group.
Boys at religious private schools were the most likely to say that they had bullied, teased or taunted someone in the past year.
While boys at public schools were the most likely to say that it was O.K. to hit or threaten a person who makes them very angry, boys at private religious schools were just as likely to say that they had actually done it.”
In addition, he says that, “While some public schools have issues with academic attainment, it appears that some private schools have issues with tolerance. No person is truly better when they lack this basic bit of civility.”
Most of the discussion and argument will focus on whether or not his general conclusions are correct about most private versus public schools. And many people will base their conclusions on their personal experience in each type of school.
But the important point is not about the generalizations. Don’t get distracted by academic speculation about the generalizations. The important point is about the schools your children are going to.
If your children are going to a school that tolerates or encourages other children to think that they’re special and, therefore, that they can tease, taunt, mistreat, bully or abuse people who are different, that’s the situation you need to focus on.
Children need to feel that they’re special and that high standards of behavior are expected of them. The problem is caused by the idea that, therefore, they can scorn or torment other people who aren’t in their group or who are different.
Bullies will target any difference they can find. It’s not the difference that causes bullying; it’s the bullies who find the difference. Of course bullies will focus on race, religion, color, gender, sexual preference, etc. But we all also know examples of mean girls and mean boys who bully people they decide are too tall or short, too skinny or fat, or who have different hair color or hair style, or different clothes, or who aren’t as fashionable or faddish.
Their bullying can range from verbal, emotional and cyber-bullying to physical violence. They form cliques or gangs to harass, cut-out, put-down, torment and abuse their targets. If responsible adults don’t intervene and stop the behavior, bullies will be emboldened to push every boundary and to take power. Unfortunately, mean parents often encourage their kids; sharing their prejudices and hatreds or thinking that popularity is worth any price. Also, bullying parents will protect and defend their bullying kids, like Lucius Malfoy protecting his rotten son, Draco, in the Harry Potter series.
I’ve consulted with principals, teachers and staff of both public and private schools, who won’t ignore, tolerate or support bullying. And we have developed effective programs to stop bullying. In addition, I’ve seen both public and private schools in which principals, teachers and staff look the other way or condone or even applaud harassment, bullying and abuse. Some even think that building school spirit this way is worth sacrificing a few weaklings or sinners.
I’ve also coached families of children in both public and private schools to help them learn how to stop bullies and how to be skillful when dealing with reluctant, do-nothing principals. The “reasons” for the bullying usually vary from situation to situation, but the tactics used by bullies are the similar across the board.
More than generalization to be discussed and disputed intellectually at a party, we’re hit home emotionally by what happens to our children. If one school, whether public or private, doesn’t stop bullies and it’s your children’s school, that’s the one that counts in your life.
But there is one generalization that cuts across all lines; we can stop bullies before we’ve analyzed in detail the reasons why a particular kid or group of kids selects its target(s) and long before we can teach them to have increased empathy and tolerance. The first step is always having clear, firm and immediate consequences for the perpetrators.
In his article in the New York Times, Erik Eckholm, points out that, “Alarmed by evidence that gay and lesbian students are common victims of schoolyard bullies, many school districts are bolstering their antiharassment rules with early lessons in tolerance.”
The article continues, “Rick DeMato, pastor of Liberty Baptist Church, [who] opposes the curriculum changes in the school district in Helena, Mont. [has led] angry parents and religious critics…[to] charge that liberals and gay rights groups are using the antibullying banner to pursue a hidden ‘homosexual agenda,’ implicitly endorsing, for example, same sex marriage.”
Stealth bullies win when they can change the subject to fit their agendas; when they can distract you from your subject and make the focus of discussion be something they want to discuss and over which they think they can win.
For example, suppose you complain about your date or spouse’s public or private sarcasm, put-downs and nasty, mocking humor. If he’s a stealthy, manipulative bully, he might change the subject by saying that you’re hypersensitive and you over-react, or that you hurt his feelings by complaining. If he can get you to focus on whether you’re hypersensitive or have no sense of humor or on making him feel better, then he wins and you lose. You’ll never get him to stop making those remarks.
Or suppose you’re angry that he hit you. If he’s a stealthy predator, he might complain that you didn’t communicate that in a supportive way or that you over-reacted or that you started it and you provoked him or that he felt put-down by your anger, which reminded him of his childhood. And that’s the only thing he wants to talk about. If he can get you to focus on your poor communication or his hurt feelings and past trauma, he wins and you lose. He’ll never have to talk about your pain when he hit you and, since he has a good excuse for hitting you (his past trauma), he doesn’t have to change.
Therefore, you must take charge of the agenda. Make him focus first on his sarcastic put-downs or on his hitting you. And you have to be satisfied by the result before you’ll discuss his agenda. If he doesn’t satisfy you, don’t go on to his agenda. Go as far away as you can.
What does this have to do with the anti-bullying policies and programs we started with?
The initial agenda in those schools is stopping harassment, bullying and abuse of kids or adults. The reason given by the bullies to justify their verbal, emotional and physical attacks was that their targets were gay or lesbian. I pay more attention to the actions than to the excuses and justifications. The agenda is stopping the bullying and violence. The agenda is stopping the negativity, pain, anxiety and depression bullying causes. The agenda is stopping the targets’ loss of self-confidence and self-esteem, and the increasing number of bullying-caused suicides.
Some people want to make the agenda be a torturous and emotionally-charged discussion of whether schools can be allowed to promote a pro-gay and pro-lesbian agenda. And whether parents or educators control what’s taught in schools.
If those stealthy bullies can get you into those discussions, you’ll never stop school bullying. They won’t have to stop their children from bullying and abusing other kids. They feel that bullying and violence should be condoned or at least tolerated because the bullies have good reasons to torment their targets. Since, they think, being gay or lesbian is a sin, if one of the targets becomes a victim and commits suicide, the world is a better place.
So keep the focus where it should be: anti-bullying programs that stop bullies. When I’m called in to help schools develop effective programs, I always challenge dissenters to come up with a better program to stop bullies before we talk about areas that would distract us from the main agenda.
One of the favorite tactics of sneaky, stealth bullies is to set traps for you. When you fall into their snare, they’re gleefully smug, “Gotcha! See, I told you!” Their hidden agenda is to prove you’re wrong, dumb and bad and they’re right, smart and good. They’re not interested in truth or equal relationships; they’re interested in putting you down and dragging themselves up.
For example Micky and Donald comment in the blog post, “Repeated Bullying Tolerated by School Officials,” (http://www.bulliesbegoneblog.com/2008/03/24/repeated-bullying-tolerated-by-school-officials/) “Just out of curiosity are you a single parent?” I don’t know them and their hidden agendas, but I’ll use their comments because their typical of that type of stealth bully. They never ask, “Just out of curiosity.” They’re always setting traps and they always have hidden agendas.
They’re waiting to pounce with, “I told you so! You’re over-reacting because you’re a single parent. Normal people wouldn’t make such a big deal out of their daughter being tormented, bullied and abused.” They think the bullying behavior was mild or negligible or normal and that we should ignore it, which to me means that they’re just like the school officials who ignore the torment, harassment, bullying and abuse.
But they won’t be straightforward and declare their opinion. They won’t get into a discussion in which they might be proven wrong and have to change their ideas. For example, they won’t say that they believe you’re over-reacting because you’re a too-sensitive, single parent or because your mommy and daddy were bad to you or because you’re afraid of the dark. That’s too open for them and doesn’t have the payoff they want.
Instead, because they’re sneaky, manipulative, controlling bullies, they’ll simply, almost innocently ask a leading question, “Are you a single parent?” or “Were your mommy and daddy were bad to you?” or “Are you afraid of the dark?”
They’re hoping you’ll say “Yes.” Then they can sneer and pounce – “See. I’m right. You’re merely over-reacting because mommy and daddy were bad to you” or “You’re only over reacting because you’re a foolish single parent.”
They feel safe and smug. Since they didn’t declare their opinions openly, if you say No” to those questions, they won’t have to admit that their theories or opinions were wrong. They won’t have to change their beliefs. Their harassment, bullying and abuse won’t stop. They’ll simply move on and try to lead you into another trap.
If you want or have to keep dealing with these covert manipulators, maybe because one is your boss or spouse and you’re not ready to leave yet, some tactics to try are:
Pin them down to expressing an opinion before you answer the question. You might ask directly, “What’s your point about whether I’m a single parent? Tell me directly what you think.” Or, “What’s your point about whether or not mommy and daddy were bad to me years ago? Tell me directly what you think.”
Be persevering. Wait for an answer. Then follow-up with a statement about their belief and whether your evidence will change their opinions. “So you think I’m overreacting because I’m a single parent? So if I’m married, will you change your opinion and will you accept that I’m not overreacting?” Or, “So you think that people get upset about bullying because their mommies and daddies were bad to them? So if my mommy and daddy were good to me, will you change your opinion and will you accept that I’m not overreacting?”
Laugh at the hidden connection. “That’s really silly to think that only single-parents get upset when heir children are bullied. You sound like a person who thinks bullying is fine.”
Simply ignore the question. You don’t have to answer every question that someone asks you.
Reverse the question onto them. “Oh, so you think we should ignore the pain inflicted on that defenseless target. Were you a bully when you were younger? Were you bullied when you were younger? Were you afraid to fight back?”
Laugh at the entrapment. “Oh, you really got me with that question. You look smug, superior and righteous. As if that means you’re smart and right. How childish and silly to play that game at your age.”
Parents who bully children, and parents who bully and abuse each other are all too common, but an often unrecognized bullying situation is teenagers who bully their parents, especially their single parents.
Of course, teenage girls can be manipulative bullies, but for a typical example, let’s focus on a 19 year-old boy who is mentally and physically capable of being independent but who’d rather sponge off his mother and lead an easy life at home. He’s not working enough to support himself, he’s not succeeding in full-time school and he’s not struggling sixteen hours a day to become an Olympic champion. He’s merely hanging out trying to have a good time every moment.
They’re good at arguing. They want to convince you that “love” and “support” mean that you give them money. You have to love and give to them, but they don’t have to give anything in return. Their hidden assumption is that if you can’t make them agree with any changes, they don’t have to change. They’re masters of whining, complaining and blaming others, especially you, for their problems.
They’re great emotional blackmailers: “A good, loving mother would take care of me while I’m getting it together. A caring mom would help me.” They’re also master manipulators of your fear that, if you don’t cater to them, they’ll fail in life and it’ll be your fault, not theirs: “I need your love to keep me away from bad company. If you kick me out, I’ll be emotionally damaged.” They’ll subtly hint that they’ll commit suicide if you don’t coddle them. They always have a friend who has a “good mother” taking care of him.
Your caring and fear make their arguments seductive. No matter how much you had to struggle on your own to be successful, it’s easy to think that if you only give them one more chance, they’ll finally wake up and get it. So you give him one more chance – over and over and over.
Popular culture also makes their arguments seductive. Most people have been raised to think that loving your child (“mother’s love”) means giving them what they want.
In my experience, one path in dealing with healthy, intelligent teenage boys almost guarantees failure. That’s the path of giving them what they want. The more you let them leech off your energy, wallet and good will, the softer they’ll become, the harder it will be for them to become strong and independent, the greater the chances that they’ll fall in with other lazy losers. The more you give them, the more lazy, entitled and spoiled they’ll become.
In my experience, the path that has the greatest probability of success is to kick those little birds out of the nest before they grow too big for their fledgling wings. They’ve already grown too big for the nest. In order to fly, they need to strengthen their wings by use under pressure and stress.
Of course there’s a risk. They might fail and turn to drugs, booze or burglary to support themselves. They might give in to depression. But, in my experience, staying home wouldn’t prevent that. Leeching off you will only make them weaker.
Confidence and self-esteem are developed by succeeding at real and difficult challenges in which there’s a chance of failing. Staying at home avoids important, meaningful challenges.
Some of the things to say to them when you tell them they’re moving out, depending on the circumstances, are:
“I know that inside you, you have this great one of you struggling to take charge of your life. Now’s your chance for that ‘you’ to take over. Struggle and succeed. I’d rather you struggle and prove me wrong while hating me, than that you love me and stay here as a whining, complaining loser.” Use the word “loser” a lot. Challenge them to prove you wrong.
“This is not a discussion or a debate; you don’t get to vote. This is definitely not fair according to you. I know you think I don’t understand your side of it or how hard it is in today’s economy, but that’s the way it is. I’m protecting myself from my own flesh and blood, who’d suck me dry if I let him. You can try to argue but it won’t change anything. It’ll just waste your time. If you threaten me or damage the house, I’ll call the police and there’ll be no going back.” Don’t engage in debate. Walk away.
“I love you and this is scary for me, but that fear won’t stop me. If you become a loser, just like (fill in the blank), I’ll be sad and cry that you wasted your life, but I won’t feel guilty. I won’t regret what I’m doing.” Then walk away.
“I’m going to have a joyous, good time in my life. After you move out, if you make it fun for me, I’ll take you out to a restaurant sometimes or have you over for a good meal. But if you nag at me and make it a rotten time, I won’t want to waste my time with you. Your job is to make it fun for me to be with you. Yes, that’s blackmail. You pay for my attention, kindness and money. Be the nicest to people who are closest. Be nicer and sweeter to me than you would be to a stranger. Suck up to me as if you want something from me. You do. Even if you can prove to me logically that it’s not fair, that’s the way it is.”
“You, my beloved son, are now facing the choice we all face in life at this age. Will you settle for being a loser with a good excuse – your mother didn’t love or suckle you enough – or will you be a winner despite your mother? Every one of your ancestors faced this. Your ancestors lived through plague, famine, flood, war and slavery. They lived through worse than you. I know you have the stuff of a hero in you. Your choice is whether you bring that out and succeed, or to be a whining, petulant, blaming loser.”
You have the body and mind of an adult. You want to make adult choices in living the life you want. Now you’re being tested. Being an adult means taking care of yourself financially and physically. You probably didn’t prepare yourself. That’s your problem. I could never teach you anything because you never listened to me when I gave you good advice. We both know that. You think you know everything. You think you know what’s best for you. Now prove it. The less you learned useful skills, the more you’ll have to struggle now. So what? That’s just struggle. I hope you’ll grow strong by struggling.”
Mom, make a specific plan. For example, “You must be out by (date). If not, I’ll throw your stuff out the window and call the police if I have to. No negotiation. No promises. We allow little children to get by on promises and potential. When they’re 13 or so, we start demanding performance. Now that you’re 19, I demand performance. Your performance earns what you get.” Mom, don’t give in to satisfy one more promise. Think through what you’ll give, if anything, and under what conditions. My bottom line is, “Make me enjoy it and I’ll consider it. Beat me up, physically or verbally, and you get nothing.” The more calm you are, the better. If he can get you upset, he’ll think he can win again…as usual.
Single parents are often easier to bully than couples. For example, see the case study of Paula bullied by her daughter, Stacy, in “How to Stop Bullies in Their Tracks.”
Stepchildren can jerk your chain more. A couple that disagrees strongly (one stern and one permissive) can be the worst case scenario.
This is a start. Because all solutions depend on the specifics of the situation, you will need coaching. Some circumstances that might alter your plans are if your teenager is not physically or mentally competent or needs extensive mental health counseling or is 13-16 or is a girl or there are drugs or alcohol involved or there are younger children at home?
Stay strong and firm. Don’t let him move back in even for a just week or month. It’ll reinforce the laziest in them and it’ll become permanent.
In her article in the New York Times, “The Playground Gets Even Tougher,” Pamela Paul points out that Mean Girls begin their nasty, vicious harassment, bullying and abuse on the playground and in pre-school. They don’t wait until fifth grade or junior high school.
In my experience, mean girls put down targeted kids for whatever reasons they can find – from poor, discounted, unfashionable clothes or the lack of the latest cell phones and bling, to race, religion, physical differences and hair color. Mean girls also form cliques that ostracize, exclude and cut-out their targets or scapegoats. Mean girl behavior cuts across all socio-economic categories – inner-city, rural, suburban and expensive, private schools. The movies, “Mean Girls” and “Camp Rock,” give some graphic examples.
Consequences for the targets can include stomach aches, throwing up and pulling hair out before school, as well as anxiety, nightmares, sleep walking and excessive crying. Even worse are self doubt, negative self-talk, self-hatred and loathing, loss of confidence and destruction of self-esteem. Too often, suicide and its effects on families and communities follow.
Childhood bullies and mean girls who aren’t stopped usually grow up to become bullying adult as spouses, parents, friends, and at work as co-workers and bosses. Similarly, targets who become victims unable to stop bullies usually grow to become adult victims as spouses, parents, friends, and at work as co-workers and bosses.
Of course, mean boys are just as bad as mean girls and mean dads are just as bad as mean moms.
In my experience, mean behavior is a natural tactic for many girls to try – children naturally try to take all the toys and to feel powerful and superior by putting down other girls. Even when they’re very young, some shift into forming mean girl cliques.
Let’s point the finger at the source: With children this young, the problem is their parents. Mean girls have parents who fail their responsibility to channel their daughters into better ways of acting. The four-fold problem is:
Mean moms who ignore mean girl behavior at home, on the playground and in preschool. These moms have many opportunities to step in and teach their daughters how to do better in age-appropriate ways, but they don’t. I think of these as absentee moms, whatever their reasons – whether they’re simply uncaring or not paying attention or don’t want to deal with it or not physically present. Nannies can be even less responsible, especially if their employers don’t want to hear about it.
Mean moms who set a bad example by acting mean to their extended families, to their children and to helpless servers in all forms – waiters, checkout clerks, nannies, maids, etc. Mean girls imitate what they see and hear from their mean moms, not pious platitudes or empty commands thrown at them.
Mean moms who encourage mean girl behavior. They enjoy watching their daughters be popular, superior and controlling. They may think it’s cute and a sign of leadership potential, but whatever they think, they train their daughters to be mean.
Mean moms who protect and defend their mean daughters when they get feedback about mean behavior. Of course, one-in-a-million children will be sneaky enough to be mean only when their parents aren’t looking. Sneaky, mean girls can bully targets by acting as if the target did something to hurt their feelings and get their protective moms to get the target in trouble. Or mean girls will simply threaten a target by saying they’ll get their moms to get the target in trouble. Mean moms collude and often encourage this behavior. Draco Malfoy in the Harry Potter series is an example of a mean boy protected by his mean father.
Suppose you’re the parent of a child who’s bullied by a mean girl, what can you do? If you’re convinced that your daughter was not a provocateur who tried to get the other girl to react and get in trouble, should you talk to the mean girls, their moms, teachers and principals?
Know your daughter; will she assert and defend herself? Since she might not talk about the meanness, you have to watch carefully on the playground and look for signs after school. Mean girls are bullies who try to assert themselves over less assertive and less aggressive children. Don’t ask your daughter to suffer or “rise above” because a mean girl and mean mom don’t know any better or have difficulties in their lives.
You might encourage your pre-school or kindergarten daughter to stand up for herself, but you should give plenty of encouragement and specific direction. Even though your daughter is young, champion her inner strength, courage and perseverance. She might be a target but she doesn’t have to become a victim. Never believe mean girls’ opinions and don’t give in to their demands.
Intervene rapidly when your daughter seems unable to defend herself. Don’t let the behavior continue. Say something strongly and firmly to the mean girl. Girls who were merely experimenting with a mean behavioral tactic will stop and not repeat it. That’s a test of the girl – nice girls stop when you set a behavioral standard but mean girls don’t. Mean girls think they’re smarter than you and that they have their own mothers’ protection.
If the mean girl doesn’t stop, test the mean girl’s mom one time. Calmly detail the behavior and listen carefully for the response. Is the mom appalled at her daughter’s behavior or does the mom blow it off or explain it away? Just as in sports and childhood, your daughter might have been provocateur and then looked innocent when another girl retaliated. So it’s natural for the other girl’s mother to try to discover the whole context and behavior before the incident. But does the other mom immediately get defensive and angry, and twist the facts in order to blame your daughter? Does she insist that her daughter is never wrong? Is the mean girl’s mom too busy with her own life to educate her daughter or has she turned her child over to a nanny who won’t correct the child?
If these attempts change the girl’s behavior, you weren’t dealing with a hard-core mean girl and a mean mom. But mean girls and mean moms aren’t stopped by the easy tactics. Now you have to cut off after school activities including parties, despite the ramifications. Also, get the pre-school teachers and principals involved. Some will be helpful; they’ll keep it confidential, they’ll monitor to get their own evidence and then they’ll intervene. They’ll get the mean girl out of your daughter’s class, they’ll break-up the clique, they’ll stop the behavior at school and they’ll have proactive programs to talk about mean girl behavior. Depending on the age of the girls, they’ll teach witnesses what to do. Unfortunately, unhelpful, uncaring, lazy, cowardly teachers and principals will look the other way or condone or even encourage mean girl behavior. They’ll put you off with excuses. Don’t let this happen. Remember, principals fear publicity and law suits.
Teach your children what’s right and also how to defend themselves. Don’t convert your daughter into a victim. Don’t sacrifice your child on the altar of your ignorance, fear or sympathetic heart. Protect and defend your child even though there may be a high cost socially.
Many types of family bullying are obvious, whether it’s physical or verbal harassment, nastiness or abuse, and targets or witnesses usually jump in to stop it. The typical perpetrators are mothers and fathers bullying each other or the kids, sibling bullies, bullying step-parents or kids sneakily bullying a step-parent in order to drive a wedge between a biological parent and their new partner.
But many people allow extended family members to abuse their children or their spouses, especially at the holidays, because they’re afraid that protest will split the family into warring factions that will never be healed. They’re afraid they’ll be blamed for destroying family unity or they accept a social code that proclaims some image of “family” as the most important value.
Except in a few, rare situations, that’s a big mistake.
A rare exception might be an aged, senile and demented, or a dying family member whose behavior is tolerated temporarily while the children are protected from the abuse.
But a more typical example of what shouldn’t be tolerated was a grandpa who had a vicious tongue, especially when he drank. He angrily told the grandchildren they were weak, selfish and dumb. He ripped them down for every fault – too smart, too stupid; too fat, too skinny; too short, too tall; too pretty, too ugly; too demanding, too shy. He also focused on fatal character flaws; born lazy, born failure, born evil, born unwanted.
For good measure, he verbally assaulted his own children and their spouses – except for the favorite ones. He even did this around the Thanksgiving and Christmas tables when the parents and their spouses were present. He was always righteous and right.
I assume you’ve asked him to stop or given him dirty looks, but that only seemed to encourage him to attack you and your children more. Or he apologized, but didn’t stop for even minute. When you arrived late and tried to leave early, he attacked your family even more. He blamed you for disrupting the family. The rest of the adults also said that it’s your fault you aren’t kind and family oriented enough to put up with him.
What else can you do?
I think you have to step back and look at the big picture – a view of culture, society and what’s important in life. Only then can you decide what fights are important enough to fight and only then will you have the strength, courage and perseverance to act effectively.
Compare two views: one in which blood family is all important.
We are supposed to do anything for family and put up with anything from family because we need family in order to survive or because family is the greatest good. This view says that if you put anything above family, especially your individual conscience or needs, you’ll destroy the foundations of civilized life and expose yourself in times of need. In this view, we are supposed to sacrifice ourselves and our children to our biological family – by blood or by marriage.
We can see the benefits of this view. When you’re old and sick, who else will take care of you but kith and kin? In this view, the moral basis of civilization is the bond of blood and marriage. Violate that relationship, bring disunity into the family by standing up for your individual views and you jeopardize everything important and traditional.
In my experience, this view is usually linked to the view that men and inherited traditions should rule. Boys are supposed to torment girls because that teaches them how to become men. Girls are supposed to submit because that’s their appointed role – sanctioned by religion and culture. If men are vicious to women and children, if old people are vicious to the young, that’s tolerated.
Contrast this view with an alternative in which behavior is more important than blood.
Your individual conscience and rules of acceptable behavior are more important than traditions that enable brutality and pain generation after generation. What’s most important in this view is that you strive to create an environment with people who fill your heart with joy – a family of your heart and spirit.
If you choose the first view, you’ll never be able to stop bullying and abuse. Your children will see who has the power and who bears the pain. They’ll model the family dynamics they saw during the holidays. You’ve abdicated the very individual conscience and power that you need to protect yourself and your children. You’ll wallow in ineffective whining and complaining, hoping that someone else will solve your problem.
The best you can hope for outside the family, when your children face bullies who have practiced being bullies or being bullied at home, is that school authorities will do what’s right and protect your children from bullies. But how can you expect more courage from them than you have? Or why shouldn’t they accept the culture which tolerates bullying and abuse, just like you have?
Are you the biological child in the family or merely a spouse?
Is your spouse willing to be as strong as you?
Who’s the perpetrator – a grandparent, another adult or spouse, a cousin, a more distant relative?
Do you see the perpetrator every year or once a decade?
Do other adults acknowledge the abuse also?
Expert coaching and good books and CDs like “Bullies Below the Radar: How to Wise Up, Stand Up and Stay Up” and “How to Stop Bullies in Their Tracks” will help you make the necessary inner shifts and also develop a stepwise action plan that fits your family situation and newly developed comfort zone. For example, see the case studies of Kathy, Jake and Ralph.
Keep in mind that while you hope the perpetrator will change his or her behavior, your goal is really to have an island with people who make every occasion joyous. You must be prepared to go all the way to withdrawing from family events or to starting a fight that will split the family into two camps. But at least you’ll be in a camp in which you feel comfortable spending the holidays.
Be prepared to be pleasantly surprised. Sometimes when one person speaks up, many others join in and the combined weight of opinion forces an acceptable change. Sometimes if you say you’ll withdraw, you’ll be seen as the most difficult person in the room and the rest of the family will make the abuser change or ostracize him or her.
How come none of the witnesses were willing to come forward, knowing that the principal and teachers would protect them?
A possible answer to these questions might be that there was never any bad behavior on the school bus. But that would be surprising. What was your experience on the school bus? Ask your friends.
Jones, of Lake Mary, Florida, and his wife claim that their daughter, who has cerebral palsy, had been called names and pushed around. They also claim that they had complained to Seminole County school administrators in the past, but nothing had been done to help their daughter. Jones told deputies that boys placed an open condom on his daughter's head, smacked her on the back of her head, twisted her ear and shouted rude comments at her.
The response of the school administrators is the usual, “We didn’t know; they never contacted us.” They focused on Mr. Jones’s over-reaction instead of on the alleged bullying on the bus. “Changing the focus” is a typical tactic of bullies and people trying to gloss over their failure to respond effectively.
We don’t know the facts. School bus tapes haven’t been scanned. Complaints to the school officials by the Joneses haven’t been documented.
However, I’m suggesting that in too many cases, school administrators are not proactive in creating an environment in which:
Every kid knows that bullying is wrong and won’t be tolerated.
Adults are monitoring areas in which most bullying occurs.
I’d be more likely to believe the school principal if he or she stood next to Mr. Jones on nationwide television and said things like, “Yes, Mr. Jones over-reacted, but we won’t tolerate bullying anywhere at school, we’re reviewing tapes to see if there was bullying, we’re questioning the driver, we’re instituting a strong program to educate all teachers, staff and kids that we won’t tolerate bullying. We’ll get the facts in this specific case.”
I disagree with the supposed experts who say that parents shouldn’t intervene, even if the targeted children can’t protect themselves, for example, because the number of bullies is overwhelming or because the child has cerebral palsy and can’t protect herself, like Mr. Jones’ daughter.
I think we simply have to know how to intervene more skillfully so that, when necessary, we know how to force inactive, lazy or reluctant principals to act. For example, if the Joneses had been more skillful in documenting their complaints to the school, if they really did, there would be a clear paper trail of every interaction with the school administrators, including administrators’ signatures on minutes of every conversation and the Joneses would have copies. Individualized coaching is crucial to developing this skill.
More important than psychologists’ claims that “when [parents] jump in and [intervene], it helps the kids actually feel worse because they feel less control, they feel like they can't handle themselves and they feel defenseless without the bodyguard there,” is that when children actually are overwhelmed or helpless, they know that they’re protected by responsible adults. They can learn to protect themselves better as they grow more independent.
Mr. Jones’ daughter was helpless to defend herself. The stress, anxiety and fear are greater because she wasn’t protected.
Let’s focus on the real problem; bullying on the bus, near the lockers, on the playgrounds, in the bathrooms, in the hallways, in the cafeteria and everywhere else bullies feel safe to attack their targets.
Principals didn’t stop school bullies and now there are more school bullying-caused suicides. In all of the cases I’ll describe, there were differences in the bullies’ methods of harassing and abusing their targets. But what was the same was that the parents complained and the responsible school teachers and principals didn’t protect the children in their care. Also the same was the principals’ or school district administrators’ defense: “We didn’t know.”
To me, especially after the parents of the targets complained, that’s an admission of incompetence, delinquency and neglect. The other kids at school knew who bullies were and where, when and how it occurred; why don’t the college-educated, supposedly intelligent and responsible adults know?
I know that the first culprits are the bullies themselves and their parents. But I want to shine two lights:
I know that the first culprits are the bullies themselves and their parents. But I want to shine two lights:
Second, on the skills parents need learn in order to force inactive, conflict-avoidant, lazy, cowardly or uncaring principals to protect their children.
Notice the similarities in all these cases:
In Texas, a straight “A” eighth-grader, Asher Brown, took his life 18 months after his parents claim to have reported on-going bullying by four other students. Despite the evidence of repeated conversations offered by the parents, the school district spokeswomen, Kelli Durham, whose husband, Alan Durham, is assistant principal, claims that they never knew and never had evidence. Nothing was done to stop the bullies or remove them.
However, numerous comments from other parents and students on the web site of KRIV-TV Channel 26, which also reported a story about Brown's death, stated that the boy had been bullied by classmates for several years and claimed Cy-Fair ISD in Texas does nothing to stop such harassment.
A 13-year old, Texas eighth grader, Jon Carmichael, took his own life because of repeated bullying. Teachers and students in the school district had already undergone anti-bullying training after a similar suicide last year. Nevertheless, nothing was done about this case of repeated abuse. One of the admitted bullies, Chris Montelongo, said, "I can guarantee you it was most of the school who messed with Jon." But none of the responsible adults noticed and intervened.
An 11-year old Oklahoma boy, Ty Smalley, committed suicide after being bullied repeatedly for about two years. Despite the parents contact with the school, teachers, counselors and the principal never saw anything and never stopped the bullying. The parents were told things like, “Boys will be boys” and “It would be looked into.” According to Ty’s father, Kirk, the school never documented any of these conversations so they can now claim that they never knew.
The event that precipitated Ty’s suicide was when he finally retaliated against the bully he was suspended for three days while the bully, previously identified to the teachers, was suspended for only one day.
An eight-year old in a Texas Elementary school tried to commit suicide, but survived his leap off the balcony of a school building. He had been repeatedly harassed but school officials had done nothing. His mother said that teachers kept telling her they'd “handle it” when she complained about the bullying over the past seven months. The last straw for the 8-year-old was when he was told to leave his classroom after two other boys pulled down his pants in front of the class.
The principal, Linda Bellard, said teachers never informed her of the harassment until the boy's suicide attempt, although the child's mother had visited the school seven times since September to complain about the problem.
Each of these cases will wind their way through courts, settlements will be reached in some, some school administrators will get off because there aren’t specific enough laws that require them to act and we’ll probably never know the whole truth because we weren’t there.
As a parent whose responsibility is to ensure the physical safety, and the mental, emotional and spiritual well-being of your child, you need to know how to get appropriate action from principals and teachers who will resist acting strongly and swiftly to stop bullies. Your child’s self-confidence, self-esteem and life depend on your skill.
Complain to teachers, counselors and principals. But it’s never enough to complain or even to keep a record of your visit and conversation.
Give the responsible adults one chance. Do they remove the bully? Do they continue to monitor the bully and his or her friends for further retaliation? Or do they remove your child? Do they excuse the bully’s behavior as, “Kids will be kids?” Do they say that the bully has a right to be educated in classes of his or her choice?
Use “The Lucius Malfoy” test. Is your child’s principal standing up to the bullying parents of the school bully? Or will he or she cower in front of bullying parents who say their child does no wrong or who threaten to sue the school if anything happens to their little darling?
If your principal fails theses test you must bring pressure to bear - immediately. Remember that principals fear three things more than anything else: loss of job, publicity and law suits.
Get a lawyer and media publicity. Learn what constitutes evidence and documentation. Record all communication. Communicate in writing and have proof that school officials received the letters you write.
Bullying is rarely an isolated event. Unite with other parents whose children are bullied. Get witnesses who will put their evidence in writing.
Have support for the long-haul. Find people who’ll keep your spirits up through repeated set-backs. Find experts to help you plan tactics at each step of the way.
Have great appreciation for principals who simply won’t tolerate bullying – who will have strong, proactive programs to train their staff and who will act swiftly and firmly in response to complaints. Training is never enough: strong and courageous people are required to make these programs effective.
Have realistic expectations; don’t assume that principals, teachers, counselors and district administrators will be active in stopping bullies. Expect bullies’ parents to thwart your efforts. Expect most uninvolved people to look away. If nothing bad happens to bullies, expect other kids to pile on.
