Bullying

Bullying

There is so much being written about bullying in the media the past couple of weeks because of a few events that have caught the attention of the national media, and I would just like to weigh in on the commentary. So much of the advice being offered seems to me to be waiting until it is a little late.

PREVENTION is the only rational solution!

Granted, there may be some rare and isolated times when children might be bullied and at those times, the parents and family must take action! However... most of the potential damage of bullying can be PREVENTED!

I firmly believe that the solution to the "bullying epidemic" we seem to be witnessing nationwide is PREVENTION. We must take action before any bulling takes place.

This is a pretty simple concept to understand. It is very undeniable that it is much easier to teach a concept as simple as using "please" and "thank you" at the dinner table, to our own children, if every home that they visit and every child that they spend time with, teaches the same concept. It is kind of like learning language. Our children will speak the language that they are exposed to! If almost every other child that they come in contact with says "please" and "thank you," at the meal table, it is not even a little surprising that it would be pretty easy to teach that same behavior to our own children.

So, if we wish to teach our own children to respect others and to treat others in a dignified and respectful manner (the antithesis of bullying) then we need to create a network of families who teach that same attitude and that same behavior. It is simple to create an attitude of respect and dignity if we parents all, collectively, teach those concepts.

How do we get there?

Pretty simple... we parents must get together and talk with other parents. We must commit to teaching the concepts of respect and dignity in each of our homes. Once we do this it, becomes pretty simple to see that those will be the dominant attitudes and behaviors in our schools.

Not the school's responsibility.

It seems to me to be a real folly to put the responsibility for creating these attitudes and behaviors on the schools... simply because that just is too late! Those attitudes and behaviors should be taught in the homes long before the kids ever get to school. Waiting until the kids are at school to attempt to teach the attitude of respect for others is failure-based. We seem to be waiting for the negative behavior to manifest itself and then we are reacting to the negative behavior rather than taking the initiative and creating an atmosphere of respect and dignity BEFORE there is a problem!

Parenting with Dignity is a course that allows parents to get together for the discussions about what kinds of ideas will be taught in your community. to read how to set up your class please read this: http://parentingwithdignity.com/PWD/video_series/tape10f.htm

Dealing with Bullying

A Letter from a Distressed Mom

Dear Mr. Bledsoe,

I am the parent of a 3.5 year-old girl. I have worked hard to teach her the behaviors I value like being kind to others, sharing, showing empathy, being truthful. Unfortunately, I am falling down when it comes to a couple of areas and it is painful for me to watch. What can I teach my daughter to do when people (children her age or older) don't want to play, call her names, push, take things from her? We live on a military base overseas and I see this behavior again and again.

I try to remove her from it, but I do not know if that is the right thing to do in the end (sometimes I get rather angry but am at a loss over how to properly react). I generally make sure she tells the other children she does not like that, stop and then I don't know what to do...unless the behavior continues, then we retreat.

My daughter is usually so upset by these interludes that she cries. But she gets over it pretty quickly, I am having problems letting go and I don't know how to talk to her about it. Also, she has recently started making up tales when she has conflicts with kids she is playing with...running to mom for the answer. I cannot let that go on, but do not know how to handle it, I want her to be able to come to me but not with fibs or half-truths.

I was bullied and isolated as a child and do not intend for her to repeat history. She is so socially oriented though that I feel bad that she do not have many playmates (I am rather choosy for her and want parents/children with similar values) and she always wants to go play with other kids, even when an outcome has been negative. I am placing her in part-day care three days a week and realize that at some point she will have to learn good ways to solve her problems with peers and still feel good about herself and her peers without being bullied or otherwise victimized.

I do not feel I can adequately help her do this...any suggestions?

Sincerely,

Clueless Mom

An Answer

Dear Mom,

Congratulations! You are more than half way to solving the problem with your daughter… because you recognize the problem and you are seeking help in finding a solution. That is usually the most difficult part of the battle. Please do not ever refer to yourself again as “Clueless Mom”, you are the farthest thing from being clueless… you are seeking answers and you will find them. Remember that the ideas in YOUR head will rule your world. Start this process by saying good things about youyrself!

Now for some help:

1. Remember that your daughter is only three and a half! It is wonderful that you are teaching such great values and behaviors to your daughter but remember you are teaching some very complex ideas to her. It will take time. It took you a lifetime to learn these same behaviors and by your own statements you are still learning. Keep teaching but just remember that it is going to take time!

My gosh, there are many people who reach old age who have never mastered empathy and sharing. Keep teaching. Do not assume that she has learned anything until she demonstrates her understanding by using what you have taught her but be reasonable. It will take time to teach much of what you are setting out to teach.

2. The next bit of advice that I am going to offer to you is a bit more complicated but, believe me, it will reap great rewards for you and your daughter if you accept what I am going to offer to you next. Stay with me on this and read to the end before rejecting or accepting the idea I am going to offer to you now. Start a parenting class. That is right, I said start a parenting class! It is easy to do if you use our proven method using the DVD Parenting with Dignity Curriculum ( http://www.parentingwithdignity.com/order/buy_dvd.htm ). On our website we lay out the entire plan for starting and running your class: (http://parentingwithdignity.com/PWD/video_series/tape10f.htm ).

Now listen to the reasons that this will be a solution to your problems with your daughter. It is so much easier to teach your daughter concepts like compassion, empathy, respect, dignity, etc. if the children that your daughter plays with and goes to school with are taught similar concepts and behaviors! Please, do not get me wrong here, I am not suggesting that you start your class to point the finger of guilt at other people’s children or anything like that. What I am telling you is that teaching any concept to your child will be simpler if other children around her have been taught similar beliefs and actions! It is just that simple.

In order to start a Parenting with Dignity class, you do not need to be the teacher. For you, that is one great facet of our course; you do not have to be the teacher! The teacher is on the DVD’s. All you have to do is to get folks together to discuss the concepts presented in the course. You will find that the best thing you can do in your classes is to answer almost every question with the question, “I don’t know, what do the rest of you think?”

Now, think for a minute about your daughter’s situation in playing with other children. When she uses kindness, respect, dignity, empathy, and compassion with other children, the chances of her behavior being returned to her go up infinitely when the other children have been taught to recognize and exhibit similar behavior! It is really very simple.

Please consider this suggestion. If you are interested, please visit our website and take a look at the plan for starting a class. You will not have to do every one of the things suggested there but you will get lots of proven ideas that will help you to start a class. Believe me, you will learn right along with all of the others in the class that you start.

3. Next, I would suggest that you keep on teaching the sound values, morals, and ethics that you are teaching your daughter. Regardless of the surrounding behaviors she will grow to be able to make her own decisions about her own actions, independent of the other children’s sometimes, cruel and insensitive actions. Your daughter will affect change in many of those other children around her by her simple kind and empathetic actions. Teach your daughter to tell the other children what it is that she would like them to do. It is one thing for her to tell them what she does not like. It is an entirely different thing to teach her to explain some better actions to them.

Do not remove her from those situations unless you deem that she will be hurt, injured or damaged by what is happening. Start teaching her how to reasonably react to some of the cruel and insensitive actions of those other kids.

4. Use our Rule # 1 (http://parentingwithdignity.com/PWD/video_series/2-5rules.htm ) from our curriculum and make sure that you are very clear in your own mind what you expect your daughter to do in those situations and then teach those behaviors and actions to her. Remember that when teaching something like that to a young child, you are often best served by not trying to use words. Role play and demonstrate that desired actions to her. Have her practice with you where you role play the actions of the other children and your daughter uses the actions and concepts that you are teaching her.

5. Your daughter is still young but not too young for you to start teaching her how to choose friends for herself. ( Apply Rule #1 http://parentingwithdignity.com/PWD/video_series/2-5rules.htm ) It is fine that you are playing a major role in the process of choosing friends now, at age three and a half; but gradually she should be making more and more of those decisions.

Believe me she has better input that you do and she will soon be better able to choose her own friends for herself than you will! She is there with those kids when adults are not present. Often children learn that when the adults are not present they sometimes can behave very differently, and if your daughter is properly taught, she will know the true character of other children better than you do! If she is being taught how to evaluate character she will choose amazing friends.

Gradually let her choose her own friends and enter into discussions with her about how she is choosing them. Offer her some ideas about things that you look for in friends. Ask her to identify things that she looks for in friends. Gradually she will become a great “friend chooser!”

6. With regard to teaching your daughter to tell the truth, I would suggest to you that she must sense that you disapprove of some of the truths she tells you so she is manufacturing tales to tell you what she thinks you want to hear. She is seeking your approval and positive attention by telling tales. The key is to make sure that you send her daily messages of love (Rule 5 in Parenting with Dignity http://parentingwithdignity.com/PWD/video_series/5-6-Love_video.htm ) so that she does not feel that she needs to tell you anything to be loved. Your love should, in no way, be connected to anything that your daughter does. She needs to know that you love her in spite of everything else going on around her. Your love is not conditional and she needs to know that absolutely.

Certainly your daughter needs to learn to solve problems with her peers on her own. That being said, I wish to reiterate that the best thing you can do to help her to do that would be to start your own class with the parents in that child care agency. If you are not fully willing to meet and interact with the parents of the children that your daughter interacts with on a daily basis, then you must accept what their children do to and do with your daughter!

In closing just let me say that I am not counseling you to try to change the world to match your daughter’s mood swings, personality, or her little personal quirks. Nor am I attempting to say that you try to help her solve her problems by trying to change all of the outside world. You are 100% correct in teaching your daughter to live in the world that confronts her. I am just saying that you can, at the same time, be working to build a better world for all kids in your community by helping other parents to teach similar and wonderful values, morals, and ethics to their children just like you are teaching your daughter!

Teach your daughter to bloom where she is planted… but in addition, you can do some work in the garden too!

Good luck and please let me know if I can be of further assistance to you.

Bullying Is a Huge Problem!

If my volume of e-mail is any indication, BULLYING is one of the most pressing issues facing parents of school-age children, so please do not feel that you are alone in your worries if you are facing problems with bullying.

Bullying; A Critical Problem

I also want you to know that I view any bullying situation as a critical issue in the healthy development of any child!

Now what should you do if your child is facing a problem with bullying; either by doing some bullying, or by being bullied?

Bullying Cannot Be Solved in Just One Home!

It Takes a Community Effort

Asking your son or daughter to try to fix or stop this bullying behaviour would be futile; just about as futile as it would be for me to ask you, as one lone parent, to attempt to fix this huge problem!

Societal Problems NEED Societal Solutions

As I see it, this problem will never be fixed if each family attempts to make the change all alone! Asking you, as one parent, to do something, in your home, with your lone child would be foolish. Attempting to combat a huge societal problem like bullying would be as silly as Martin Luther King trying to do away with racial prejudice by talking to his son in his kitchen!

Do you see my point? Bullying is not a problem of just one child, or just one family. Even though your child may be a victim, we all must attack the big problem at it's source. Bullying is far bigger than you, your child or your family!

Bullying Is a Huge Problem Involving Many People!

This is a huge societal problem! It needs a societal solution! Now, don't think for a minute that I am telling you to throw up your hands in helplessness... because I am not!!

Here Is a Solution That Might really Work!

What I am telling you is that you need to get started in helping to CREATE THE COMMUNITY THAT IS RAISING YOUR CHILDREN! Do not accept what is going on! But, rather, change it by taking positive action! Just like we teach you in Rule #1 in our curriculum: figure out what you want your community to be like and start building it that way, with a group of families.

How might you do this? It's simple, get a copy of our Parenting with Dignity Curriculum and start a parenting class!

A Simple Concept

This is a very simple concept to understand. It is so much easier for you to teach the use of a simple word like "please" to your own children, if every home they visit uses that word in a similar way! Your child will use PLEASE because everyone else uses it!

By the same token, it is so much simpler to expect your child to make good choices with regard to drugs, if lots of other children do likewise!

It is so much simpler for you to expect your child to behave appropriately while on a date to the Prom, if he is dating a young lady who has been taught the same appropriate dating behavior!

Protecting Children from Bullying Can Be Simple

And... It is so much easier to protect your children from bullying if they are going to a school and interacting with other children who have also been taught to respect the rights and feelings of others!

This Sounds Difficult... But It Really Is Not!

"How do you get there?" you ask. Well, it is pretty simple... you must open a discussion with other parents! A parenting with Dignity Class does exactly that! Parenting with Dignity classes stimulate discussions about what you all wish to teach your children in your community! You must come to some agreement about what all of you are going to teach your children.

You cannot leave this to chance! Leaving it to chance is probably already resulting in Bullying! You must take positive action to create a positive community where children grow up respecting each other!

Please subscribe to this blog and I promise that I will do a series of future articles about how to set up and effectively run a Parenting with Dignity class.