Bullying

Learn how to prepare your child to deal with being bullied so that they won't feel trapped anymore.

Timestamps: 

01:37 Why children don't they tell their parents they are bullied.

03:06 Stopping bullying isn't the point. It's about loving and teaching your child and knowing HOW to do that.

04:55 The humiliation of being bullied.

09:47 Don't tolerate any bullying ever.

10:18 Bullied children feel excluded, alone, worthless, small, and helpless.

14:39 Things you can teach your child to do to stop rewarding the bully.

16:18 Role play with your child to practice hearing the insults with the mindset that he doesn't care what other people say when those people are empty and afraid.

19:26 Help your child make light of the insult, practicing with him at home.

21:26 Practice escalating the consequences with your child.

23:28 Practice telling the bully, "you appear to be somebody who gets bullied at home."

24:38 Practice quoting the law.

26:00 What to do when shoved or physically threatened.

29:00 All the sessions of role-playing are worth it!

Transcript:

A father wrote to me — we'll call him John — and he said that his son Louis was being bullied by some bigger and older boys at school, and he didn't know what to do about it.  

Bullying is exceptionally common. So it's a subject that everybody needs to be familiar with. You’re very likely to the parent of a bully or somebody who's being bullied, because when children don't feel happy, they take it out on the kids around them. That's what bullying is.  

Why A Lot of Bullying Stays a Secret 

Now, the first thing to note is that Louis, the child, felt safe enough with his father to tell him what had been happening. Most parents don't know that their children are even being bullied. The surveys that indicate the percentage of children who are being bullied are vastly understated, because if you ask a kid, they're afraid to tell you the truth. They’re afraid they're going to get in trouble. You ask the parent — the child hasn't told the parent, so the incident is not known. But it's way bigger than people think. 

Louis felt safe enough to tell his father because John, his father, had been learning to loveandteach Louis. That's why it's called love and then teach. We love them and love them and love them, and teach them and teach them some, and then occasionally use consequences. And because Louis felt loved by John, he came to him with a problem. When your child comes to you unsolicited with a problem, it's like winning the lottery. 

The majority of children, especially boys, don't immediately share these personal experiences with parents, because they feel like, well, if they're being bullied, then that means that they are weak. See the self-fulfilling condition? A child bullies them because, well, they probably are weak. And then because they're bullied, that proves that they’re weak and so they feel weak and they act weak, and they’re bullied more. Terrible cycle.

They don't talk about it, because it makes them feel weak. They're ashamed that they can't handle it alone and need help, which is often one of the taunts of the bully, “Ah, you need help with everything.” This is really hard for kids to talk about, and they're fearful that their parents won't understand their fears and pain. 

Children will almost never come to you and say, “I'm being bullied.” They won't say that. They'll describe how they're being treated badly. They're already embarrassed, it's already difficult, and we tend to just dismiss it. “Ah, you know, just stand up to those kids.” If they could, they already would have. That's a lot of reasons that I just described for somebody not to talk about how they were bullied, which is why it stays a secret.

Why You Need to Give Them a Reason to Talk About Bullying 

So we have to give them reason to talk about it. Why? So that we can stop the bullying? Well, for sure, bullying does need to stop. But that's actually not the most important goal, because if it were, we could accomplish that by simply putting every bully in jail, or take them out back behind the jail and shoot them in the head. We’d stop bullying. Stopping bullying isn't the point. It's about loving and teaching John's son, and knowing how to do that, and knowing — YOU knowing — how to love and teach your son or daughter.

Schools teach that there shouldn't be bullying. But that only took them a few thousand years to catch onto. Really? Before, when I was a kid, there was no discussion like this. There were no newspaper articles. There were no articles on the internet, primarily because there was no internet.

But now it's all over the place. Cyberbullying, “Got to stop bullying.” I'm sure there's a movement that has a hashtag about bullying, but I just don't happen to know it. Posters declare at school that there should be no bullying. Everybody knows this: Don't bully. It's like saying “Rotten apples are bad to eat.” Or “Don't eat fungus off your cheese.” Everybody knows this. 

But who teaches kids what to do when they are bullied? Now, it turns out, there are a few rare schools that do this. But they’re very rare.  And virtually no parents. So Dad asked Louis how he was bullied, and the list was not unusual. So listen to this. He was just pushed in the hall. He was walking along in the hall, you know, where the lockers are, and the bigger kid just pushes him against the lockers. It makes a lot of noise. Everybody laughs.  

Humiliation is the Problem with Bullying 

The child is rarely injured, and so we just tend to dismiss it, accept it. See, now we have a child who was just physically and emotionally humiliated. It made a loud noise against the lockers. The entire hallway full of people looked at him and laughed at him, and now he feels so tiny and wants to crawl into a gopher hole.

That is the problem with bullying, not being pushed into a locker. Kids, as they get bigger, they become often clumsy and because they don't know what to do with their increasing size, and they might stumble into a locker, anyway. That's not the problem. It doesn't hurt them. It's the humiliation. 

It's when they're out on the ball field, instead of somebody kicking him the ball in either soccer — what is the Europeans call football, American football — they throw the ball lightly, but where the kid can’t see it, and hit the kid in the head. Now, does it ever knock them unconscious? A ball. That would be pretty rare, but it's the same public humiliation. You are a little piece of garbage. That's what the ball hitting the kid in the head says to everybody who sees it, and you deserve to be treated poorly.  

Oh boy, this just kills kids. It's been demonstrated, and we'll talk about it or already did in the parenting training, at least one in four kids who are missing from school on a given day, who of course have excuses for going to a doctor's appointment, or they were sick or blah, blah, whatever, at least one in four, didn't go to school because they were terrified of going to school one, even one more day. They couldn't stand the thought, because they're bullied. That's how bad it is. Children who are bullied are just made to feel horrible, often for the rest of their lives. 

Bullying at School 

Being hit by a ball, pushed in the hall, shoved from behind, which often results in you hitting your face on the floor, laughed at by groups of kids as they walked by him at his locker. Sounds like a little thing. Nope, it's humiliating again. Teased in class. Another kid raises his hand and get the wrong answer, and they ignore that kid.  

But, for some reason, Louis, whether he looks shy, because he wears glasses, because he's from another country, because he has an accent, because he lisps, because he's too tall, too short, too fat, too — whatever, anything.  Bullies are just looking for a target. Other people don't get an answer, nothing happens. Louis misses an answer, and the bully or both — usually, the bully has a little team of people around him that kind of support him and elevate him to the position of local Mafia Don, because they don't want to get bullied. They support him and they all bully this kid.  

Louis said he would get mimicked and mocked for many things that he’d say. When he gives an answer in class, and if it’s the wrong answer, then the other kids walk around going “errr” and mimicking his answer, quoting him and trying to sound like him. He said that he was called by the other boys “gay boy.”  

Now, it's very confusing to some people, but at this point, and when I was a kid, it was common for boys to be called “gay,” not because they were homosexual, which is what “gay” means now, and it's not so much a homophobic slur in this case. It’s simply a phrase that the boys knew would bother Louis. They weren’t saying he was gay. They just knew it bothered him to be called gay, so they called him that. If it had bothered him to be called “broccoli,” they would have called him that.  

Bullying Cannot Be Tolerated in Any Degree

I told Dad that these behaviors cannot be tolerated in any degree. Ever. Every parent needs to hear that. Bullying can’t be tolerated ever, to any degree. None. You don't decrease bullying. You don't decrease the frequency of it. It has to disappear. Why not? Why can't it exist to lesser degrees, I mean, a little bullying has got to be good for you.  

No. Because Louis, like any child being bullied, then feels excluded and alone. Every bullied child will tell you that, which feels like being cast out of the only world that he knows. He feels lost and adrift. It's worth noting that — then we talked about this before, one out of four kids missing school in any given day, it's because they feel bullied.  

Kids who are bullied feel worthless. Without being able to articulate this feeling, Louis somehow feels like, that if he were a genuinely worthwhile person — he’s got nobody to talk to about this —because he feels worthless, he has concluded that if he were genuinely worthwhile, he would not be taunted and demeaned. The fact that kids make him feel worthless proves that he is. See? That may not be entirely logical to you. When people are afraid, they're not entirely logical.  

Third, people who are bullied feel small and helpless, no matter what he does. The bullying continues or it gets worse. It's the definition of helpless. The victim of a bully is helpless, or he wouldn't be picked on by the bully. Nobody likes feeling helpless and trapped. Nobody. You don't. Your children don't.  

Choices in Responding to Bullying Behaviors 

Now, let's get specific about some bullying behaviors. You're going to walk away from here going, “Cool. I got something I can do.” I strongly emphasize that I'm not going to tell you exactly what to say or do in every circumstance. That would be a huge book, and you’d have to add to the book every few days as new circumstances arose. The number of possible situations is uncountable, and the circumstances change from moment to moment in any given interaction.  

But I can talk about some specifics which illustrate the principles I may teach, and some generalities that will help you and Louis — I’m talking to John now, the father who wrote me — to prepare for the next time there is bullying. As I do these, I often tend to go back and forth between addressing the person who wrote me and you, everybody who's listening. And if you can't keep track of which one it is, just assume it’s you.  

Let's imagine that Louis, or your son or daughter if you're listening or listening or watching this, imagine that Louis tells you that a boy at school, to use his example, called him a “gay boy” in some way. In other words, he publicly demeaned him, mocked him, humiliated him. There are so many ways for Louis to respond. And as you go over some of the possibilities, one of the huge benefits of going over how to respond isn't the response. It’s simply that Louis realizes there are choices.

Remember, one of the big effects of being bullied is to feel helpless. Now he's going to learn, “You mean, I have choices? There are things I can do?” He won't feel helpless, nor worthless, because you're paying attention to him. Right now, he only has one choice. He feels bad about himself. That’s it. That's kind of limited and well, kind of needless. He feels worthless, helpless, and hopeless. Terrible combination. He feels trapped. That's all no good.  

What are some ways he can respond? Now, not all of these will work. Sometimes, all of them will work. Sometimes, one with them but work. Remember, I'm just giving you examples. Bullies do things because they get something out of it. Well, all of us do. People don't smoke because they don't get any effect. People don't use drugs because they don't get any effect. They don’t have sex because they don’t get. . . We do things to give us some reward. Same with bullies. 

Wearing Ear Buds or Ear Plugs

Louis walks into class before class starts, or he's out on the school ground, and he puts earbuds in his ears. Now, I know, some schools wouldn't allow that, but it's something to consider. And if you talk to the teacher or the principal ahead of time, they might consider it. It's just one of the choices of something that he might try. If a teacher won't allow it, then let the teacher say so.  

When we were little, we didn't have earbuds and what we would do when the bully spoke is this (Greg covers his ears). And I discovered more times than not, the bully would go away, because the bully wants to be heard. If you indicate that you can't hear him, then the bully goes away. You're saying, I'm not interested in what you're saying.  

Bullies only continue their behavior because they get something from it. Without a reward, they stop the behavior. The way we described it in the parenting training is if you no longer throw fish to a seal, they don't climb up on a box and clap their flippers together and balance a ball on the tip of their nose, because you're not rewarding them. We have to stop rewarding the bully. 

That’s one way. He could put earplugs in his ears. Foam earplugs are widely available, and they often come in bright colors, like purple, for the purpose of other people realizing that someone has ear plugs in and therefore can't hear. It communicates the same message as earbuds. Again, you might have to check with the school to see if those are permissible.  

Role-playing Takes the Sting Out of Bullying 

Another solution. Louis practices hearing a variety of insults from you. He gives you the verbiage, and you be the bully and you insult him. This practice helps take the sting out of such words and phrases.  

I once taught a group of people who came from different ethnicities, and I asked them to tell me what the different racial slurs were that they would hear and the slurs that they really, really hated. I spent an entire class calling them those names. I wouldn’t recommend you do on your own unless you're in the position of being a teacher in a class. By the end of the class, they realized they were being controlled by words that were ridiculous. They don't mean anything, unless they allow them to. People have called me every manner of thing there is in my lifetime. And when I don't care, the word has no power.  

And that's what you're going to help Louis see. If you call him something, if you call him “gay boy,” and he goes, “This is about the foolishness of the bully. This isn't about me, and it doesn't say anything awful about me.” He's going to quit caring. You explain to him that people are unkind like that only because they don't feel loved, and picking on him gives them a feeling of power. If he ignores them, it's no fun for them anymore. 

 And they tend to stop, just like this class of ethnic people that I taught. There was one kid on the front row, who I called a particularly offensive word. You wouldn't use it in public. Can't even use it in print or you'll have eight people come down on you with tons of bricks. And I just kept calling him the offensive word. And he finally started laughing. He said, “You’ve freed to me. You’ve saved me from that word.” Now, the people in the class were very uncomfortable as I used those words. So was he. He got over it, because he could see it doesn't mean anything unless he makes it mean something. Unless he believes that he's bad because he's a whatever? Pick the word. Pick a racial slur. Pick anything, “gay boy.”  

So, your son Louis practices hearing the insults from you, with the mindset that he simply doesn't care what other people say when they are empty and afraid. It turns into a game. In fact, there might be some times during the day that he makes a mistake, and you look right at him and you say, “Gay boy.” Really. If you've been practicing with him, he'll get to the point where he will laugh, and he might call you some name in return. Victory. No kidding. 

Making Light of the Bullying  

Another thing you can do. You can help Louis make light of the insult, again, practicing with him at home. So when he is called a gay boy by you at home, and then you help him practice for doing this at school, he might say, as though he were saying it to the boy who was saying “gay boy” to him, “You sound like you're looking for something. Were you looking for a gay experience? Would you like to have one right here at school?” You need to help him practice with the tone, because if he says this right, everyone in the class will then laugh at the bully. 

Now, it is not my intent to make the bully feel bad, but the bully won't do it again. Bullies pick on the weak just like groups of wolves go after the weak animal in the pack, they will follow a pack of buffalo for miles and miles, because they know that great big male fifteen-hundred-pound buffalo they can't take him. But if they wait for the weak one, they can pull that one down.   

That's what you're going to do for Louis. He said, “So, so were you looking for a gay experienced here at school? I mean, is that something you want me to help you with?” People will laugh at the bully. Or you sound jealous. This is to the bully. “Are you telling everybody that you wish you were gay?” Again, this isn’t about being gay. It's about the term “gay boy.” That's going to stop the mocking. Bullies don't like being mocked in return. They don't like people having clever answers, and they tend to move off to easier prey, just like wolves do.

Addressing the Consequences of the Bullying  

Another possibility. Louis describes clearly, confidently, and directly to the bully what the consequences will be if the bully continues with verbal insults, in this case, “gay boy.” Here are some examples. These are examples of Louis speaking to the bully, quote, “You can call me whatever you want, but the price will go up each time you do it,” end quote. Now, that by itself, by itself won't stop the bullying, but boy, he'll have the bully’s attention, because the bully has been picking on Louis because there’s been no price.  

Now, Louis is telling him, the price is going to go up. And he's going to be a little more cautious. This, of course, begs an explanation, which follows. If the bully continues, you teach Louis how to escalate the consequences.  Louis might say, “I could talk to the teacher next, now, and the principal, and then whoever it takes, including your parents, including the police. Your choice. Or you could stop now.”  

Now, I can tell you, having watched this as a young boy in school, many times the bully will make light of that. “Oh yeah, run to the teacher, run to the principal.” Help Louis practice what to say. Louis just says, “You heard what I said. If you keep this up, the consequences will get worse. Your choice.” They're looking for easy prey. And Louis is simply announcing, I'm not the weak one in the hunt anymore. Now, does that mean yeah, the boys going to go and find somebody else? Yes. And we're not directing the bully to go do that, but you're not the parent of everybody else. You're the parent of Louis.  

Another thing you could say, “You appear” — this is especially effective if he says this to the bully in the company of other people. Bullies usually bully kids in the presence of other people so they can feel powerful. Louis to bully, “You appear to be somebody who gets bullied at home, possibly beaten or yelled at or humiliated. So it seems unlikely that your parents would like to deal with your behaving badly at school. Talking to them is probably what's going to come next. I don't think you're going to like that,” end quote. 

That's what Louis says to the boy. This can be very frightening to a bully, especially if Louis knows that the bully likely is treated badly at home, which embarrasses him. Louis needs to know if there's a very high likelihood that this bully is being bullied. What he’s doing is getting a sense of less helplessness, because at home he does feel helpless and treated badly.  

Another thing Louis could say to the boy, it turns out that, quote, “Recent legislation has established,” and you're going to have to help Louis do this, because this is fancy language, but the fancier it is, the more frightening it is for the bully. It turns out that “The laws” could be one way you could say it, “recent legislation” if he's older. “Laws have said that using homophobic slurs like “gay boy” is actually against the law. Specifically, it is a hate crime.” 

If Louis — all you have to do is look it up on Google — if he can name the actual statute. So if he says, “It's against Statue 25.3 Subparagraph B,” that's just going to scare the bully to death. I've seen this done. It really works. So Louis continues to the bully, “If you'd like, we can go straight to the police, and we can talk about your violating the statute.”  

There are very few bullies who will continue bullying past Louis saying all that. I promise you I was a boy. I was there, and I can help parents do this. Bullies stop. They’re looking for easy prey and for fun, and if Louis isn’t fun and he isn't easy prey, it's going to stop. 

Respond Immediately to Physical Bullying 

Now, what if a bully pushes or hits Louis? Calling him “gay boy” is one thing. Pushing or hitting him is another thing. That changes everything. There's no talking then, because I used to work in emergency rooms for six years, and I've seen kids who are simply pushed from behind and fell down and hit the corner of something and were lacerated, lost their vision, broke a leg, tore open a blood vessel in their throat and died. When a big kid pushes a little kid, he has no idea how much stronger he is than the little kid, and it can kill them. And it has. I've been there in the emergency room and seen it.  

So he gets pushed, everything changes. Louis has to get direct and utterly inflexible. Either write this down or show it to him so that he's comfortable doing this. If he’s shoved or hit or physically threatened, we do something immediately. Any such actions are called, in most legal jurisdictions, assault.  

If I did that to you as an adult, pushed you from behind, then pushed you down, you would call the police, and they would put pretty little bracelets on my wrists behind me and push me in the back of a squad car. Assault is a crime, and the school can be held liable for allowing such behavior. You call the school and describe that you're going to call the police, the school's going to become infinitely more interested.  

What might Louis say on such an occasion? When someone hits him or pushes him? Here are some — just examples. One would be, quote, “I don't like what you just did, pushing me.” We're going to assume that he didn't push him hard enough to hurt him, just pushed him into the lockers, for example. “And you will never do it again. We're not having a discussion. You will never do it. You can, of course, do that, but the price is going to get higher and higher. In fact, if you do it one more time, I will go to the authorities or to the police, or may just choose to call the police from my cell phone right here and now.” Bullies don’t continue past “I'm going to call the police.”  

Or he might say to him, “You just committed a crime.” And then, again, he cites Section 25 of the criminal code or whatever it is. “And we'll call the police and we’ll see what the penalties of that crime are. This requires great confidence on the part of Louis. That's why you're going to be practicing this with him. He will have to look the offender directly in the eye and speak with no hesitation.  

If need be, you can call the police. You can go to the school office and say I want to call the police. If he goes to the school office and demands to call the police that he's been physically hit, the school’s actually — it’s illegal for the school to stop him. You need to tell Louis all this stuff.  

The Bullying Will Stop 

It's going to stop if you teach Louis what to do. That's what I'm telling you. You can stop this. When a parent tells me they have a child that’s being repeatedly bullied, I'm going, “Well, then, you need to learn how to stop it, because you can.” The details, again, are not what matters. 

What matters is that Louis doesn't feel trapped anymore. That he has choices here that will specifically decrease the chances of his being bullied. It will likely require a bunch of sessions between you and Louis of role playing and practice before Louis gets to the place where he can respond in a strong and confident way. But wow, is it worth it! And you can teach him.