No time for passive parenting: Show your kids how to stand up to bullies
I work with kids across the social spectrum, and I know the harms of being passive. Here's what parents can do
I t’s September and the digital grapevine is abuzz trying to figure out who’s in which classroom this year. Parents all over the country have Google docs and white boards mapping class lists to try to figure out who is in our children’s classes—hoping they haven’t been assigned to a group, team, or classroom with “those” kids—the mean ones, the cliquey ones, the ones who dictate the terms of how the year will go. Kids know who they are, and so do parents. We all know but we don’t really stop the problem. We talk around it.
I work extensively with kids from across the social skills spectrum — kids who’ve been called bullies or bossy, kids who always seem to be victims, bystander kids who’ve learned to look the other way. I know the kids who are rude and unthinking who, after years of being miserable, have learned to go on the offense, making some other kid miserable first. The victims feel trapped and helpless. So do other kids who witness hurtful behavior and remain silent.
There are three misconceptions about social cruelty and bullying that I hear from parents all the time as a social skills coach and a mother. First, that “kids will be kids” and all kids “can be mean”—overlooking that the level of cruelty dealt out by some is markedly different and hurtful. Second, that we should wait to talk to the teachers, the school or the parent of a child who treats others this way, hoping time will resolve the problem. And finally, that parents of a child who bullies, as well as parents of children who are victims or silent bystanders, have little or no influence over their child’s behavior and there is nothing they can do. All of these things are untrue. The idea that kids will just figure it out on their own—that they need to do so—has a long, miserable and misguided history. When we believe CONTINUE READING: No time for passive parenting: Show your kids how to stand up to bullies | Salon.com
