INTRODUCTION
The way we currently think about, measure, and understand aggressive behavior is problematic.
Three reasons why our approach to bullying is bad for everyone:
#1: We're using ineffective and damaging language to describe the situations that arise between kids.
#2: In our desire to protect kids from emotional pain, we have expanded the definition to almost any behavior that has the potential to make a child feel bad.
#3: With the expanded definition of bullying, we expect kids to behave, and to learn from their behavior, in ways that are often well beyond their developmental capacities.
CHAPTER 1: The Problems with Bully Language
#1: Only one side of the story
When children are seen as bullies, there is little that they can say to successfully defend their actions or to shift the onlooker's perspective.
#2: It makes things easier, not better
Bully and victim labels deny us the opportunity to contemplate the shades of gray, and to instruct our children to do the same.
#3: Ignore context, lose compassion
Context provides explanations, not excuses.
#4: The us vs. them mentality
It's much easier to address the situation with labels than to do the work necessary to understand what's going on.
#5: The presumption of guilt
Bully language--using bully and victim labels--allows us to use "guilty until proven innocent." Bullies are often not given rights because they have been labeled bullies.
#6: The string of pearls effect
When a child is labeled a bully, this has the effect of coloring everyone's view of that child's past and future behavior. This then takes on more weight and import than the current behavior merits and is like an albatross around the child's neck. The question remains, When does a bully stop being a bully?
#7: When you use labels, you lose parents
When children are labeled as bullies, their parents become alienated. Devising helpful strategies isn't the rationale behind Bully Language. Bully Language is about assigning blame and creating the illusion of simple solutions. Bully Language focuses on the problem rather than a solution.
#8: Makes children the enemy
#9: It pits children against each other
Having to go to school with people who have been labeled a bully makes the prospect of having a functional coexistence harder. To say a child is a bully is to cast his/her character in stone, and we have no control over someone else's character.
Once we see ourselves as victims we have even more difficulty than usual moving on from our painful experiences. When kids believe they are victims, they also believe that their bad feelings are justified--that they have a right to hold onto them long after the events that caused them have passed.
#10: It creates a fixed mindset instead of a growth mindset (Carol Dweck's work!)
The fixed mindset is quick to attack character as the problem, not circumstance, and thus there is a feeling of less hope about resolving conflicts. Labels promote a fixed view of a given situation, and the players therein, and suggest to children that their actions are inseparable from their characters. Labels such as bully, victim, and bystander contribute to fixed mindsets.
Bully Language is not the most effective way to help children learn from their mistakes, deal with their feelings, or develop new behavior. We need to remember that children are young people whose brains are not yet fully developed and potential has not yet to be realized.
So, when does a bully stop being a bully?
When he or she stops being called a bully.
CHAPTER 2: The Definition of Bullying Inhibits ResilienceThe commonly accepted definition of bullying promotes victimhood, not resilience, and this is terribly problematic considering that resilience is an essential ingredient for success in life.
The original definition of bullying was very specific, and it hinged upon the notion of coercion. Bullying now includes such behaviors as "making mean or rude gestures," "spitting," spreading rumors," and "leaving someone out on purpose."
Who gets to determine when bulling has occurred?
The explosion we're seeing in bulling is due to our expanded definition of it, not to a shift in behavior, and this fact alone should serve to calm us all down.
Once critical thinking is abandoned, and feelings become the primary guide, we're in trouble as a culture.
Columbine: The Turning Point
It turns out Columbine had nothing to do with bullying. The boys did what they did for complex reasons, bullying not being one of them.
Resilience--The psychological ability to bounce back, overcome adversity, and deal with the many challenges of life. To develop resilience we have to be tested. It's how we deal with a hardship that both strengthens and demonstrates our resilience. Just as wind is a critical element for trees to become strong, obstacles are the wind for us.
Victimhood and resilience are antithetical. To be a "bully survivor" is to remain tied to the painful experience and to be defined by it. This is not resilience.
Helicopter Parenting and the New Definition of Bullying
The new definition of bullying says much more about today's parenting than it does about childhood aggression. Parents are different today. They want to hover. Bullying got added to their job description. It's important to note that kids don't have more problems; it's just that parents hear more about the problems.
Helicopter parents send the message that their children shouldn't problem-solve on their own, they should seek help immediately when they feel distressed, and that their self-esteem will be crushed if they have to jump over some social hurdles. The focus is on pain.
Pain, Pain Go Away
The definition of bullying has ballooned for one primary reason: many of us want to prevent children from feeling pain.
Once a situation is labeled as bullying, the issue of resilience no longer matters, and this is problematic.
When children's feelings become fact, this doesn't leave them with any problem-solving tools.
Sticks and Stones
The new version of this saying is Sticks and stones can break my bones and words can really hurt me accepts an insult rather than reject it as the original version did. Eleanor Roosevelt said, "No one can make you feel inferior without your consent."
CHAPTER 3: Zero Tolerance Sets Kids Up to Fail
Zero Tolerance is a fixed mindset solution to a fixed mindset problem. Children aggression isn't so clearly cut.
Zero Tolerance doesn't acknowledge that kids are different at every stage of their growth.
When in comes to managing aggressive impulses, every child will fail at some point because every child makes mistakes along the way when dealing with frustration or anger--every one of them, not just the "bad" kids. None of us develop a skill without a lot of messing up mightily along the way. Zero Tolerance doesn't allow for this.
It is harder to focus our efforts on what children need to learn and how we can teach them than to institute policies and laws in hopes that they will do the work--but they don't.
Policies and legislation presume that a punishment will change a child--often in a day. Mistakes don't indicate that children aren't making an effort or that they aren't headed in the right direction. Of course, children need to be held accountable for their behavior, but mistakes are an essential part of the learning.
Zero Tolerance does not value resilience, it values victimhood. Children learn that power lies in their ability to embrace their pain, not in moving through challenges.
Intent:
A child's capacity for intent is very different than an adult's. It is both foolish and unproductive to create adult consequences for childhood misbehavior. With Zero Tolerance problems are defined in an ironclad way and solutions are not suited to fit the situation.
Bystander:
You are a bystander, and you are as guilty as a bully, Even if you are five, or eight, or 12 years old, you're guilty? Yes, this is what being a bystander now means to our children. This is a heavy burden to put on children.
RESOURCE: Izzy Kalman, author of Bullies to Buddies.
CHAPTER 4: Helping Children: The GRIT Approach
Question #1: When I am faced with a problem involving childhood aggression, do I approach the situation with a growth mindset?
Question #2: Am I responding or reacting to this situation?
Question #3: How should I intervene?
Question #4: What do I need to teach and what do the children need to learn?
GRIT is a frame of mind. GRIT is ultimately about resilience. They need to see the adults around them exhibiting this grit.
G: Growth Mindset (Carol Dweck's work)
Negative labels never serve children, and especially not when learning is the goal.
Most important tenet of a growth mindset: change--in ourselves, others, and circumstances--is possible. Therefore, we must using Bully rhetoric. We have to get beyond labels and look instead at behavior. With a growth mindset, the focus is on behavior and not on character.
To develop resilience, children need to understand that effort does matter. They need accurate feedback, whether it is negative or positive.
R: Responding versus Reacting
Responding is about being thoughtful, cool-headed, and patient. In other words, do what will turn the heat down.
Children make lots of mistakes as their brains develop, and many of these mistakes are what we now call bullying.
As adults we have the ability to step back use parts of our brain that children can't because they aren't developed, yet. Kids need us to use our Adult Brain--impulse control and empathy--when dealing with their mistakes or inappropriate behavior.
Before acting, we need to ask ourselves: Are my actions coming from my Adult Brain?
When we react, we do so immediately. When we respond, we employ our Three Second Delay which gives us time to put our Adult Brain in gear.
I: Interventions
Our primary responsibility is to keep children physically and emotionally safe. Interventions need to begin where the risk of harm is the greatest.
Discipline: Clarity--children are clear about expectations and know adults are in charge, Consequences--they serve as both punishment AND instruction that fit the individual child, Consistency, and Change--child's age and maturity are factors that affect the discipline approach
If we focus on solutions rather than problems, we will be hopeful.
Final thoughts about interventions:
- They're children--They deserve the benefit of the doubt
- Whatever they did, the behavior/incident in question isn't the whole picture
- Whatever we do or say to a child, will have a huge impact
- We may or may not be the appropriate person to intervene
- Seek advice and support
FINAL THOUGHT: If we can place our emphasis on resilience rather than on success and happiness, we will do a better job of ensuring that our children will experience success and happiness.
