Experts

Topic —  Parenting Solutions

Five Things to Do When It’s Your Child Who’s the Bully

July 25, 2011
Alyson Schafer

Pocket

If someone reports your child has been bullying, here is what to do.

1. Be open minded. Let the reporting party know you don’t tolerate bullying and that if your child has been the cause of any bullying, you will take swift action. Have him please tell you what he has seen or heard so that together you can correctly identify if it was indeed bullying versus an act of aggression or teasing. Bullying is defined by four cardinal trademarks:
   • imbalance of power;
   • intent to hurt or harm;
   • repeated negative behaviour with threats of further harm;
   • victim feels terror.

    

2. Do NOT punish your child. Re-read the four cardinal trademarks of bullying (above). When we punish our children, we are modeling bullying to them.

 

3. Take firm and friendly disciplinary action. Sit down with your child and share what you have learned about the bullying episode. Listen calmly to your child as he will no doubt try to negate the situation, put the blame on others, or minimize what he has done. Expect him to justify and rationalize his actions. Your job is to ultimately get him to understand the gravity of his actions, while keeping his dignity intact. Be sure to reinforce the idea that regardless of any excuses, he ultimately chooses his behaviour and he made a choice that was devastating to the other child. Now he needs to set that right. Reassure him he is not a bad person, but a person who acted badly and that this mistake must be fixed. Let him know you’ll help and remind him that you love him.

 

4. Work co-operatively with the children to help them come up with a way to correct the wrongs and heal the hurts. This may take some time and be inconvenient to parents and children alike, but restorative justice is important, and human healing requires time.

   • If your child broke property, he needs to replace it.
   • Restore a sense of trust and safety to the other child. If the other child is afraid of being near him, your child needs to stay away from certain areas. (i.e. Your child has to find a new place to eat his lunch at school or he is no longer permitted to ride the same bus and you now have to drive him.)
   • If he wants to write a letter or apologize in person, lovely. But don’t force an apology that will be disingenuous and further hurtful to the other child.
5. Improve your child’s ‘social interest’ . The bullying incident was a wakeup call that your child needs to develop a better sense of awareness of others and community, something known as ‘social interest’. He needs to be challenged to see life as something you give to, not get from. Help him seek opportunities for ‘do-gooding’ to others in his family, school and community. This will also help him see life from another person’s perspective and feel more embedded socially. Improved social caring will follow.

Topic —  Parenting Solutions

The Good Divorce

September 06, 2011
Alyson Schafer

Pocket

You may have decided to end your marriage, but with a young family, you still face years of co-parenting with your ex. There are ways of having a good divorce and raising happy children with minimal emotional upset. Here are some best practices to set you on the right path:

1. Let the kids come first. You may disagree on a lot, but at least try to agree that the children come first and the adults’ emotional baggage and private agendas come second.
2. Use collaborative law. Utilize the new collaborative law and mediation processes. Your separation will be more amicable. The legal bills really hurt the economic backbone of a family and your children will ultimately pay the price.
3. Get counseling. Even the best, conflict-free divorces benefit from having a professional help family members transition out of the nuclear family and into their new arrangements.  Grieving the life you had and working to create a new vision of the future will help everyone land more gently.
4. Act happy (even if you have to fake it). The most stressful problem for children is seeing their parents in conflict and feeling split loyalties. Kids love both their moms and dads, so if they see divisiveness, they don’t know where to place their affections. If they love Mom, it’s an act of going against Dad and vice versa. This is the hardest emotional bind for a child. Instead, show your children you both get along (or at least don’t hate one another). That means no bad-mouthing the other parent, no dirty looks, or asking the child to deliver snarky messages or spy on the other.
5. Agree to disagree. I promise you, it’s the actual fighting and conflict about minutiae (like how to handle homework, discipline differences, bedtimes, what the kids eat etc.) that hurts kids, not the staying up late, watching Call of Duty, and skipping assignments. Let the other parent do things their own way and support the idea that kids can handle two houses having two different styles and rules.
6. Decide what’s worth fighting for. If you agree you should not ‘sweat the small stuff’, but you wonder what is ‘small’, let me share what courts agree you should speak up about:
   • Safety – Abuse or neglect
   • Travel – Extensively being away, distant, remote or unreachable
   • Health – Refusing chemotherapy, blood transfusions, vaccinations, etc.
   • Education – Sending them away to boarding school/military school or other non-main stream settings
   • Religion – Excessive pressure or conversion to a known religious cult or extremist group

   
   Are you getting a sense of the scale now? So, fighting about trans fats in fast food isn’t the way to go. You’ll probably do more psychological damage to your toddler watching you bicker over it.