How to Bullyproof Your Child
Written By Melissa Fay Greene
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I was not bullied because of these external characteristics. I was targeted because of them. And there's a big difference. According to Kalman's research, I became a victim, a recipient of deliberate and ongoing verbal abuse and social exclusion, for one reason only: because I didn't know how to handle it.
The bad news first: School antibullying programs don't fix the problem.
These days, the primary way to combat bullying is through school-based antibullying programs. This approach sees bullying as a systemic problem, rather than as typical human behavior. Across the country, guest speakers, handouts, and posters declare schools to be "bully-free zones." Children are urged to report incidents of bullying to the school authorities.
Obviously, an adult should be summoned if physical violence, sexual or racial harassment, or criminal activity is involved. But social and verbal aggression, according to Kalman, don't merit the run-for-a-grown-up treatment. "Ratting out a classmate is guaranteed not to win you friends or respect and it certainly won't preserve you from bullying," Kalman says. On top of that, he says the happy glow engendered by antibullying assemblies evaporates quickly as kids discover that bullying continues. And, given the high self-esteem enjoyed by bullies, most don't recognize themselves as the bad guys portrayed in the poignant curricula.
Besides, there's no hard evidence that school programs diminish bullying. In 2005, researchers at the universities of Ottawa and London published a very dispiriting assessment: Most schoolwide programs "have yielded insignificant outcomes on measures of self-reported victimization and bullying, and only a small number have yielded positive outcomes."
In other words, they don't work — and Kalman accuses them of worse than failure. He charges antibullying programs with teaching children that they are entitled to a life in which no one upsets them, that they can't solve their own social problems, and that at the first sign of aggression they need to call an adult. As the director of an Atlanta private school confided to me: "Whole-school antibullying programs are most valuable in the reassurance they offer parents."
Now the good news: You can teach your child how to disarm a bully.
If antibullying programs can't stop the bullying, what can? Only the child — the target — himself. Or as Eleanor Roosevelt once said, "No one can make you feel inferior without your consent." Izzy Kalman puts it more concretely: "You get upset, you lose."
Back on the phone with Kalman, it's time for another round of bullying. "Let's play again," he says. "You start."
I jump right back into the fun. "This is such basic Psychology 101! You stole it all from B. F. Skinner!"
"Nice," he says. "You really know your psychology."
"And . . . and . . . you seem like a total fake!"
"Is that how I'm coming across to you?" he asks.
That stops me, but I recover. "Yes! And you probably don't even help kids!" I shout. "You just brag about it all the time!"
"Are you suggesting my time would be better spent if I worked more one-on-one with children rather than trying to share this approach with teachers and parents?"
"I . . . I . . . " I have run out of things to say.
"Who won this time?" Kalman asks.
"You did."
"Why?"
"Because you were so nice, I couldn't keep yelling at you."
"It felt foolish to keep insulting someone who stayed calm and friendly, didn't it?" he asks. I have to agree. It was fun to insult Izzy when he got upset. My cruelty was rewarded. But when he replied to me as a friend, the fun was gone and my bullying was extinguished.
A few days later, I tried Kalman's technique with my youngest son Yosef, who is 10. The teachable moment presented itself one afternoon when Yosef dragged in from the backyard sweaty and weepy. Older brother Daniel, 13, had once again teased and tormented him in front of other boys. Putting aside the question of how to deal with Daniel, I wanted to help Yosef see that he held the solution, not me. Kalman has lots of stories on his website (bullies2buddies.com; click on "free manuals"), so I modified one now. I reminded Yosef of our cat Waffle. "You know how she follows you around constantly, meowing at you until you give her a can of food — even though I've fed her already?" He nodded yes.
"And what do you do?"
"Sometimes I give her the food."
"If you never gave her food, ever, what would she do?"
"She'd follow me around the house meowing."
"For maybe the first day. Then what?"
He thought just a second, then said, "Meow at you?"
"Exactly! What if you didn't give her any food for a week, then she meowed at you and you fed her. What would happen?"
"She'd start meowing at me again, I guess."
"What happens when Daniel teases you?"
"It makes me cry."
"So it's kind of like you and Waffle. She meows, you give her food. Daniel teases you, you cry. You're giving him just what he wants, so he keeps doing it."
Yosef sat up, keenly interested. I used another metaphor of Kalman's. "You've given Daniel a remote control device to your brain. He has a magic remote control. If he pushes this button, he makes Yosef cry. If he pushes this button, he makes Yosef run into the house to tell Mom what happened. Do you want Daniel to have this much power over your brain?"
"No."
"Let's take the batteries out of his remote control." I pantomimed shaking out batteries and tossing them away. "Now when he teases you, is he pushing the button to make you cry?"
"No," Yosef said, emboldened.
"Don't cry when he pushes the button that says, 'Make Yosef cry.'"
Did the stories help? At the very least, Yosef understood a true dynamic of life, and he returned to the backyard determined to take matters into his own hands. I admit, it's hard for kids to conjure the poise and maturity to stay calm and friendly when being bullied, to be comfortable with who they are, and to learn to laugh at themselves. Yet that day when Yosef came crying to me, I felt like I'd given him a new tool that would work not only with Daniel, but with the world. Because what is the ultimate goal of empowering children to deflect bullying? To give them defensive moves for the rest of their lives. Adults are bullied too, by bosses, spouses, relatives, colleagues. Better to learn laughter, agreement, independence, and fancy footwork as a child than to trudge through life from one victimization to the next, longing for rescue.
