Now we pick up at point two about dealing with bulling issues:
2. Developing open and ongoing communication with your child – communication is crucial for a good relationship with your child. What I am referring to here is telling your child how they can come to you if something inappropriate pops up on their phone or laptop while they are using it. Your child needs to know it is safe for them to tell you when these things happen.
Remember that bullying is a process of shaming, and so your child will likely be embarrassed when it happens. When they see that or accidentally see inappropriate material online, they need to know that they can come to you and be safe.
3. Sibling safety, a bullying-free zone – Set a standard in your home that teasing and insulting one another will not be tolerated. Kids can be remarkably resilient, but when they are teased both at home and school it becomes too much for them to handle. Children desperately need to know that their parents and siblings love them deeply and are on their team. Insults and name-calling have no place in a family.
The concept of the family as a team also guides your children for how to care for one another whenever they are away from home. A team cares for one another. A team encourages and spurs one another forward. Team members put each other first. In this way, we teach our children what an appropriate level of responsibility for one another is.
But what do I do if my child is already being bullied?
The points above are never too late to implement into your home. If you have found out that your child is being bullied, take these two steps as a part of deciding what is best to do.
1. Remove the shame – Bullying is, at its core, shaming another person in order to gain control. The assumption for a child is that if you were more popular or better at sports you would not have been bullied. This simply is not true.
Therefore as a parent you remove the shame from your child. Show your child respect by listening to all that they tell you about what happened. Listen first, and hold the talking for after they are finished.
Once your child is finished, remind them that it is not their fault that they were bullied. Praise your child for who they are, and speak identity into them. Be specific on this. Remind your child who they are. And especially if your child is resistant to this type of praise, find creative ways to speak this truth to them over the next several days.
2. Evaluate the decision as a team – What do we as parents do? Do we step in, or talk to a teacher or coach? How do we handle the situation? While there are many factors to consider, it is important to keep your child in the conversation with you and your spouse. This is directly linked to removing the shame. By making your child a part of the decision-making process, you are giving your child a voice when he or she feels voiceless.
Whenever possible, make a unanimous decision about what to do. Make sure everyone is on the same page and knows what is going to be said or done. Be open to your child’s feedback, and set a date that the three of you will talk again in the near future to follow-up. This allows for adjustments to be made and gives your child another chance to naturally share about what is going on.
Josh Berger can be reached and scheduled with for training, teaching, or counseling at Alethia Counseling 903 561 8955.
Bully: n. a person who uses strength or power to harm or intimidate those who are weaker.
To bully is to abuse power…this is literally the definition.
But you say…”Bullying is, at its core, shaming another person in order to gain control.”
Really?
So, if you expose a person for being corrupt, this is bullying? How are we, then, supposed to deal with those who are abusive?
It’s “bullying” for pointing out abhorrent behavior?
Am I missing something?
Really?
First, notice that this was not authored by me, but I think the key here is about gaining control through shame. So, no, exposing someone for being corrupt would not be bullying, even by this definition, unless you were doing so merely to gain control over them.
Ok, but gaining leverage in a power struggle is not bullying…this can be a simple negotiation tactic…this is not even the definition and it’s confusing the term.
A person might be simply fighting for equality in an unfair situation.
“Bullying” is to abuse power.
Here’s the definition of bullying:
(verb) to use superior strength or influence to intimidate (someone), typically to force him or her to do what one wants.
A person HAS to be in a position of power ALREADY, to start with, to be a bully.
Given this is the base of your blog entry, it seems mix “manipulation” or “emotional abuse” with “bullying”…These are not always the same thing, you can have have 2 parties who are not in power, who are just quarreling, positioning for power…Once one party IS IN POWER, then they may or may not bully the other party…but this isn’t shame based. They can use simple positioning and hide behind legal walls or corporate policy or appeals to authority (because God said so).
In the end “Bullying” is not to “gain power” it’s to discourage people from challenging power…it’s to break them…and to keep them fearful.
Honestly, Aaron, I think you are creating too narrow a definition of bullying… of course tactics used in negotiation can be bullying. I also think it is dangerous to use the motivation of the person acting as the measurement of bullying. Rarely does the bully think of what they are doing as bullying. I would also say, incidentally that emotional abuse is certainly a form of bullying.
It is not one or the other, it is both.