In the comments for Monday’s book giveaway post (if you haven’t entered, you should!) I asked readers to share their biggest parental worry. I was a little surprised at how many people expressed a fear of bullying and mean girl behavior.
I suppose that goes along with it being so painful for parents to contemplate their children being hurt—physically or emotionally.
What I have noticed as my kids were growing up is that you can’t control other kids—that is to say that mean girls and bullies are not going anywhere—your child will cross paths with not-nice kids at one or more points in their lives.
What you can hopefully impact is how your kids feel about themselves and how they react to bullying. And what I have observed and experienced is that the more self-confident a kid is, the less likely they are to be a victim.
Danger Boy’s primary vocal tic that is part of his Tourette’s Syndrome is stuttering. Today, at 17, he is luckily experiencing greatly reduced tics as a result of having gone through puberty and being effectively medicated. Starting in kindergarten and until he was diagnosed and given treatment in fourth grade his stuttering was quite pronounced. The medication helped quite a bit, but he still has periods of disfluency.
He was teased about his stuttering twice. Once in elementary school and once in high school. I remember, when he was in kindergarten, talking to the speech therapist about how we should deal with teasing. I assumed, as many people do, that any kid with a mock-able trait would be teased. The speech therapist shocked me by saying she would be surprised if he ever had to deal with teasing. Her view was that he had a confident demeanor and that confidence would prevent him from becoming a target. She was right.
Social Butterfly has just recently been involved in drama with a certified Mean Girl. You know someone is a Mean Girl when all their power comes from their “friends” fearing them. But the thing is, SB just plain doesn’t play that game. She is not afraid of anyone and the one thing a Mean Girl is afraid of is someone that’s not afraid of her. It throws them off their game and they would rather walk away and save face than risk losing their status.
The current round in a an on-off battle with this girl went to SB in a big way because she stood her ground without being confrontational and because after years of watching this girl attempt to manipulate and control others, people are catching on to the fact they don’t have to capitulate to her demands.
The thing about teaching confidence though, is that it is not always easy to do. In our family’s case all four of my kids are very self-confident, as am I. I’m going to venture a guess that part of it is genetic. The other part though, I think, comes from parents having faith in their kid’s abilities from the time they are very young—teaching them they can hold their own cup, they can tie their own shoes, they can ride the two-wheeler, they can make their own sandwich, they can walk to their friend’s house, they can do their own homework . . . you get the picture.
I’m not saying this works for all kids, and I’m in no way saying that if you’re child is bullied it is his or her fault, I’m just saying that for this very real worry that parents have—bullying and mean girls—part of the solution is to help them become self-confident people who are validated from within rather than without. And this process starts when they are very young.
Also, self-confidence without empathy is a recipe for disaster in its own right, but that’s a post for another day!
Thoughts? Advice? Anecdotes? I love it when we learn from each other.
