Bullying isn’t anything new. Once shrugged off as a childhood rite of passage, there is a renewed sense of urgency surrounding the torment that has resulted in a rash of “bullycides” — young people who are literally bullied to death and chose suicide over another day of torment — and a declaration by public health officials that bullying has reached “epidemic” proportions.
Many anti-bullying campaigns are focused on middle and high school students, but that puts the focus on corrective rather than preventive measures, according to Susan Raisch, a Staten Island mother of four adult children who wrote a book about bullying and founded Tangled Ball, a website that connects parents with resources to combat bullying and cyberbullying.
Research shows that bullying behavior can begin in kids as young as 4, so parents need to start talking to their children about it before they go to school. They’re like sponges at that age, and parents have enormous power to actively teach their children confidence, kindness and resilience — in other words, leadership skills needed to navigate bullying, as well as life, Raisch said.
And as important as talking is, listening is at least as or more important, and that’s where some parents come up short without realizing it, Raisch said. Experts all agree that children should tell a trusted adult if they’re being bullied, and they need reassurance their parents are actively listening.
“Most of us are well meaning but to be trusted, we need skills on teaching empathy, communication, online safety and the big one — listening,” she said, emphasizing that requires the adult the fully engage with the child instead of multi-tasking during the conversation.
Patch caught up with Raisch as part of our year-long national reporting project on bullying and cyberbullying. The federal government estimates about 160,000 kids stay home every day to avoid being bullied, and about one in three U.S. students say they’ve been bullied at school. Many fewer have been cyberbullied, according to the nonprofit PACER Center, which runs the National Bullying Prevention Center.
Raisch became interested in the topic after the 1999 Columbine massacre, when two teenagers in Littleton, Colorado, killed 13 people and wounded 20 others before killing themselves. A publicist for ABC News at the time, Raisch said news outlets’ coverage of the tragedy didn’t grasp “the heart of what happened.”
As she and her 16-year-old son watched the horrible event unfold in real-time on television, he surmised the two teens “were probably bullied,” Raisch said. She had never heard him use the word before, and was surprised when other kids her son’s age concluded the same.
“It wasn’t bullying at the core, but mental illness,” Raisch said. “But whether that was the case or not, kids thought bullying was an issue.”
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Eight years ago, Raisch dug deeper into the topic. She attended anti-bullying conferences, talked with experts and wrote Superheroes Wear Mom Jeans: The Tangled Ball Guide to Anti-Bullying for Parents of Young Children. She offers advice for parents via Harvard and Yale universities, the Committee for Children, the PACER Center, Understood.org, the International Bullying Prevention Association and others.
Tangled Ball is a metaphor for the messy, knotted-up emotions associated with bullying. Her particular piece “string” is talking about bullying with young children before they start school and in early elementary school years.
Her best advice to parents: Keep it simple.
“It’s all about skill-building, for the parent and the child, which has a wonderful flip side — teaching leadership skills that will be good for the child for the rest of their life,” Raisch told Patch. “It’s not about talking about bullying. Kids don’t even understand that word. It’s talking about not being mean, about respecting others, and teaching them to be very direct about how they want to be treated.”
Those conversations should include deliberate strategies.
“Notice their behavior and compliment them when they’re doing the right thing — ‘I noticed you were nice to your little brother, and I was proud of that’; ‘in school, I heard you shared your pencil, that’s a wonderful thing to do,’ ” Raisch said. “Then if they need a course correction, you might say: ‘I notice you didn’t allow Tommy to be in the circle when you were playing.’ “
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Not all kids will be direct about why Tommy was excluded, but if a child’s response is that he just doesn’t like Tommy, go a little deeper with something like:
“You don’t have to like everybody in your class, but you have to be kind to everyone in your class. If someone did something to you that would hurt your feelings, you would feel bad. You don’t want another child to feel bad.”
Read on for more of Patch’s conversation with Raisch.
Patch: In many families, both parents work or households are headed by single parents who may work more than one job. Their children may spend more time at day care than with their parents. How can parents work those conversations into their frantic lives?
Raisch: Everybody is busy, but it goes back to making it a priority. You don’t have to have separate conversations. You roll into your parenting these concepts of making sure respect is No. 1. I think that as parents, we need to learn how to communicate ourselves and teach the child communication skills.
If you’re encouraging your child to talk even if you’re busy, you have to learn to listen. Often, a lot of parents say one of the biggest challenges is the cellphone — a child is trying to talk to them and realizes they’re staring at a phone and answering a text. When a child starts talking, it’s time to put the cellphone down.
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At my favorite cafe, I notice when moms bring in young kids after dropping the older ones off at school. You can see by their body language they’re excited to be with parents, but unfortunately as the mom slips into the habit of checking her phone, the excitement turns into dismay and they may start acting up to get attention.
As kids grow, they’re not going to tell you they’re being bullied if you’re not fully listening. No child should feel alone, and that they have to take on bullying on their own.
Patch: What can parents do if they know something is bothering their kids, but they shut down and won’t talk?
Raisch: There are two types of listening. Sometimes we have to start the conversation. If you notice a change in body language, eating habits, sleeping or that they’re a little more reluctant to go to school, you have to listen to that behavior. Some communication is vocal, some not.
Listen to the answer and repeat it back so they know you heard that.
Dr. Barbara Greenberg, author of “Teenage As a Second Language, A Parent’s Guide to Becoming Bilingual,” points out that kids sometimes don’t like the direct question and that it makes them uncomfortable. For younger kids, ask them, “How was recess?” You may be able to pick up on problems. “Any drama at school today?” Teenagers are far more comfortable talking about it in an indirect way.
Those moments when you first see a child after school or when you get home from work are precious, and often when you get the most information. A lot of kids will say “fine” and keep moving, but if it’s a consistent thing and they know you’re open to listening to everything about their day, they know they can count on you.
Driving with my kids was the world’s best way to listen. We were in an enclosed space, I was looking at the road and not uncomfortably at them. They were doing the same, and we could talk the whole thing out. I’d often suggest in the car that we turn off the phone and music. It was a nice time to get to the heart of things.
Patch: You note that parents walk a line between overreacting or under-reacting— talking to the parent of the student causing the problem or ignoring it — because either approach can discourage kids from talking to them about bullying, or anything else that’s going on in their lives. Why shouldn’t parents talk to the other kid’s parents?
Raisch: Kids still want a little bit of control. When they’re in school and having the situation, the parent isn’t there to witness it. They’re coming home to describe it. I understand that whole parenting feeling, “I have to protect my cub.” A child knows what the child bullying them is like and is afraid the parent might make it worse.
Parents need to answer all these questions before reacting: Did it happen once? Is it consistent? Does it make you feel unsafe? Assure them you heard them, repeat back to them what the child’s concern is and say, as a parent, you have to step in if your child feels unsafe. You have to learn how to communicate your thoughts — outline them calmly, ask for their assistance, and keep checking in.
Bullying often plays out not in the classroom, but the bathroom, the cafeteria, on the bus or where there isn’t a lot of adult supervision. If you determine there is supervision, very often, the teacher will say, “I did not see that exact situation, but if you ask the child if he told the teacher, the boy might say, “No, but she saw it.”
But there are a lot of kids who don’t tell their parents or a trusted adult. Kids think adults are really smart and assume the teacher saw it and didn’t do anything.
Patch: We’ve heard in emails from readers since we started this bullying series that schools don’t do enough to combat bullying. How much responsibility do schools have?
Raisch: Schools have a responsibility to handle bullying issues as a priority and with care. I applaud schools who ensure that the school staff has been trained to handle peer-to-peer mistreatment and who work alongside parents to resolve issues. There are many good and well-researched bullying prevention programs for schools.
Parents and school administrators should be able to create a strategy together to resolve an issue and to follow through and follow up. If that’s not happening, there’s a problem and depending on the severity, tough decisions have to made such as moving classrooms or schools.
Patch: Kids today are digital natives and haven’t known a time when technology wasn’t at their fingertips. Kids can’t escape cyberbullying the way they can schoolyard bullying — the online threat is always there, and often it is anonymous. What should parents do to protect their kids while still respecting their privacy?
Raisch: Online complicates it. I often ask parents who taught them to use social media. The answer is, nobody did and there was no mentorship, so how do we pull back? As a parent, I have to know more, have a strategy about how they get involved in technology from a young age and be a good role model for them.
There are more ways to exhibit mean behavior, and there is a cost to that — a lot of anger and people who don’t choose their words.
We have to be the role model on civility. If they watch us treat people with kindness, if they hear us speak understanding and thoughtful words, they are more apt to follow our lead.
When your kids are young, building in a sense of empathy is very important. Bring up examples of empathy — books and movies that show good role models, and talk about it all the time. If you see something harsh, talk about it right there. Ask opinions. And some great conversations can be based on bedtime stories.
Patch: Are there any common mistakes parents make when they’re talking to their kids about bullying?
Raisch: It’s very dangerous to label anyone. Language is important. To call anyone a bully is not the best way to go. Talk about the behavior, but maybe not the labels. This is all a moveable piece. A child can act like a bully one day, be the target the next, and the next day be bystander — which we like to turn into an “upstander.” Kids are always growing.
If you do a course correction with a behavior, they can grow up to be very respectful adult. If you are being mentored, you can grow out of it.
Patch: What if your child is in middle school and you’re just now realizing you should have been more tuned in when she was younger?
Raisch: Stay close. I don’t think any age is too late. Kids always want someone to be interested in them, regardless of whether they will give any indication they want you to be interested in them. Just always assume it’s the best to stay interested no matter what. No matter what, kids want to know they are important, they are loved and this, too, shall pass. Just showing interest, just showing up at what they’re interested in, is great.
Patch: What else would you like to say to parents?
Raisch: We are the experts on our own children, but often we need the help of other experts to get involved in schools to help contribute to your child’s school climate. We all can provide some positive impact if we get involved in a variety of ways. There’s no one way. It’s difficult for parents who work, but we can make sure we’re involved in some way.
We want our child to grow to have a positive impact. It all boils down to leadership, and if we believe it’s important to raise little leaders. Leadership is the anti-bully.
Throughout the year, Patch is looking at society’s roles and responsibilities in bullying and a child’s unthinkable decision to end their own life in hopes we might offer solutions that save lives.
Do you have a story to tell? Are you concerned about how your local schools handle bullies and their victims?
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Earlier In This Series
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