Stop School Bullying: It's a Pattern, not an Incident

Kenneth Weishuhn, a 14-year-old high school sophomore in Paullina, Iowa, died of self-inflicted wounds after months of relentless bullying.  Articles in Cedar Falls, Iowa, the Washington Post and the Huffington Post have described the town’s outcry. It’s true; Kenneth tried to minimize the bullying so it didn’t become worse.  And he got some relief when the gang of bullies turned some of its attention on a pregnant student.  And the school did hold an assembly after he reported the bullying.

After his suicide, school officials tried to cover themselves in the usual way.  “Dan Moore, the superintendent of the South O’Brien Community School District, said administrators knew of only one incident regarding Kenneth and that he believes they dealt with it well.  ‘I feel the school did address the issue that they were aware of when it came to their attention,’ Moore said. ‘Obviously, we had no idea that we’d have an end result like this, or what was going on outside of here.’”

There’s much more hidden below the surface of the principal's and Mr. Moore's lack of an effective response; especially the real fault that the administrators are trying to cover up.

Let's understand clearly.  Mr. Moore thinks they addressed the bullying and abuse well because he did some processes, procedures and techniques, even though the harassment and bullying didn't stop and, in fact, got worse.  And Mr. Moore thinks that performing some processes relieve him of responsibility.

What’s hidden here?

1. The school principal, teachers and district administrator put all the responsibility for knowing about bullying on the reports they receive from students.  They take no responsibility for knowing what’s going on under their noses.  Every kid in school knows who the relentless bullies are and who leads the cliques and gangs.  But they don’t tell.
2. The school principal, teachers and district administrator haven’t created an environment, a culture, in which at least some of the many witnesses come forward, instead of remaining as bystanders. Why didn't the witnesses come forward?  They know that nothing serious will happen to the bullies, but they’ll be exposing themselves to retaliation.  They don’t want to become the next victims of bullying.  What was the principal’s "stop school bullying program" at the start of the year, before there were any incidents?  Were parents involved in the program?
3. Despite their years of education, their advanced degrees and their special training on how to stop school bullies, the school principal, teachers and district administrator treated bullying as an “incident,” not as a pattern.  Yet everyone knows that school harassment, bullying and abuse are rarely an isolated incident.  These behaviors may start as an incident perpetrated by one kid instead of by a gang, but when nothing happens to the bully, bullies become bolder and more overt.  When there are still no serious consequences, other bullies join in and bullying becomes a pervasive pattern.  Pretty soon, other kids pile on.  Bullying expands from emotional and physical abuse into cyberbullying – on and off campus.  When relentless bullies get away with their worst behavioral impulses – taunting, teasing, harassment, physical, mental and emotional abuse – other kids let their worst impulses out.

Kids know who has the power.  If the responsible adults turn the other cheek and bury their heads in the sand, kids know that the bullies are in charge.  Behavior sinks to the lowest level.  The culture becomes the "Lord of the Flies" on the playground, in the bathrooms and in the hallways.

When Kenneth Weishuhn reported what was happening, he faced an accomplish-nothing principal and district administrator who weren’t proactive in protecting him but, instead, would excuse and justify themselves by saying that they did the minimum required - even if it didn't work.

Would you want to pay those people’s salaries?  Would you want your child at those schools?  Maybe, but only if your kid was the leader of the bullies.

For some examples, see the case studies in “How to Stop Bullies in Their Tracks” and “Parenting Bully-Proof Kids,” available fastest from this web site.

Since all tactics depend on the situation, expert coaching by phone or Skype helps.  We can design a plan that fits you and your situation.  And build your will and skill to carry it out effectively.

To Stop Workplace Bullying, Don't Turn the Other Cheek

Many of us have been taught to ignore putdowns.  It’s considered morally superior to rise above them. That’s a big mistake.  Respond quickly when someone attacks you.

For example, Sybil continually put down her peer, Henry, in private and public.  Each demeaning comment might have been mere insensitivity.  But taken together they represented a hostile pattern.

To read the rest of this article from the Philadelphia Business Journal, see: When insulted by a co-worker, don’t turn the other cheek http://www.bizjournals.com/philadelphia/stories/2008/08/11/smallb3.html

Sybil harassed and abused Henry in meetings, in front of the bosses and in the hallways.  Henry tried to defend himself against her negativity with facts, logic and excuses. But he never mentioned the obvious hostility in her attacks.  His arguments didn’t stop her. He felt defeated and gave into despair.

Their coworkers called Sybil “The Queen of Mean” and tiptoed around her because they were afraid of her retaliation.  With her vicious tongue, she controlled the office.

Henry obsessed on her demeaning comments.  He continually complained to co-workers, family and friends.  Then, he’d be angry at himself for getting enraged.  He wished he could let Sybil’s cracks roll off his back.  He didn’t know how to make her stop bullying.

I convinced Henry he was taking the wrong approach.  He shouldn’t ignore Sybil’s assaults.  By allowing her to continue whacking him verbally, his confidence, self-esteem and credibility were undermined.  His staff saw him as likeable but weak.

Henry had some common, self-imposed rules that keep him from acting:

• “It’s just the way she is.  I should forgive her.  Since I can’t change her, I can’t do anything.”
• “The nicest, most reasonable people should tolerate bad behavior, rather than ask the most difficult, hostile person to change.”
• “If I’m nice and reasonable, people will respect me and change.”
• “If I’m angry, if I can’t think of the perfect, polite way of acting, I shouldn’t do anything.”

Henry believed in the Golden Rule.  His psychological explanations for Sybil’s narcissistic behavior also kept him from acting.  He decided she was simply jealous of him and thought he should forgive her.

I disagree: Just because someone was a victim when they were young or feels hurt now, doesn’t give them a free pass to hurt other people.

The first changes Henry made were internal:

• When he stopped taking the attacks personally, he stopped obsessing and began planning effective responses.
• He acknowledged that he should have responded rapidly to Sybil’s initial attacks. The more he allowed them to pass by unchallenged, the more bold she became.
• He committed to protecting himself.  He’d had enough and it was time to say, “No!” And he promised himself that if his first tactics didn’t succeed, he wouldn’t go back on his commitment. He’d simply try different tactics.

So what did Henry do?  He tried an escalating set of responses, increasing in firmness at each new step.  When he got far enough up the staircase of firmness, Sybil finally showed him what was enough.  She stopped.  The rest of their team now saw Henry as strong and smart.  Their respect for him increased

Don’t be a Henry and ignore insults outwardly, while they tear you up inside.  Don’t be a conflict avoidant manager. Immediately, counter any attacks from the Sybils in your life.  Use Henry’s method of escalating firmness to stop bullies.

Learn what you can do to eliminate the high cost of low attitudes, behavior and performance.

All tactics are situational.  Expert coaching and consulting can help you create and implement a plan that fits you and your organization.

Can Venting Help Stop Bullies?

Venting, like catharsis, seems so natural: we all blow off steam sometimes.  And when we finish, we usually heave a great sigh of relief. But to me, the real questions are, “What’s the point of venting?” and “Can it help stop bullies?

I think of venting as a process, or part of a process, not as a result in and of itself.

Tens of thousands of years ago, we might have vented our fear and anger through physical action.  Get rid of the adrenaline, calm down and decide what to do.  But we still had to be careful and keep ourselves in check enough while we’re venting to see the signs of saber-toothed tigers or giant bears or we wouldn’t be around to vent again.

Or we might have used a big club to whack an opponent and then face the consequences of that rash act.

Nowadays, we can still use some techniques like physical effort to release steam and calm us down.  For example, working off adrenaline by banging a ball or running or boxing.  In addition, a wise woman once said that whenever she got angry, she vacuumed her house.  That way, when she finished being angry, she’d have a clean house and she could focus on what to do next.

Some people use anger and venting to give themselves enough energy to stop harassment and bullying.  In that case, it does help us stop bullies.  A classic example might be Ralphie Parker in the movie, “The Christmas Story.”  In that case, he channeled his anger effectively and vented while he was beating up the bully.  But usually, when we act from anger we’re not strategic; we do dumb things that make the situation worse.

But the point of venting is always:

• To cross over in to a calm zone where we can think calmly, clearly and strategically.
• Then have enough energy, power, strength, courage, determination, perseverance and resilience to act effectively over time and despite temporary set-backs.

Therefore we must challenge ourselves to stop repeated replaying and re-venting over the same incidents and injustices.  Repeated venting without effective action becomes narcissistic whining and complaining, which becomes boring and self-destructive.

Such repetition drives our good friends away.  I think it was Annie Liebovitz who said, “Spilling your guts is about as attractive as it sounds.”

Such repetition also puts us on one of the paths to self-destruction – through violence turned outward or through hatred turned inward into negative self-talk, self-abuse, self-bullying, loss of confidence and self-esteem, and increased chances of depression and suicide.  And after they’ve ranted, many people use perfectionistic standards to make themselves feel ashamed and guilty, which only makes them weaker.

We most also be wary of hanging out with people who vent repeatedly.  Yes, injustice might have been done, but we still have to move on effectively in life – either fight the injustice effectively or go in a different direction successfully.

I’ve met too many people who have filled their lives and many hours of psychoanalysis in endless probing and catharsis.  They seem to assume that if only they vent enough, finally they’ll come to rest in peace on the other side.  Too often they end up knowing everything about some sides of themselves, but never having changed their behavior, fixed the situation or created wonderful lives.  A life of verbal and righteous indignation is not a very fruitful life.

I’m more focused on overtly using techniques for moving to the other side and rapidly taking effective action.

For some examples, see the case studies in “How to Stop Bullies in Their Tracks,” and “Parenting Bully-Proof Kids,” available fastest from this web site.

Since all tactics depend on the situation, expert coaching by phone or Skype helps.  We can design a plan that fits you and your situation.  And build your will and skill to carry it out effectively.

Stop Angry Obsessing; Start Acting Effectively

Cindy was up again at 2 AM, infuriated at her mother and her older sister.  They were so mean and cruel.  What they’d said and done hurt so much.  It was like she was a child again, subjected to their verbal beatings.  The more she thought of what they had done, the angrier she became.  She couldn’t stop her racing mind from obsessing on what they’d said. She linked the episode yesterday afternoon to the thousands of times she’d felt the same pain and frustration.  She wanted to beat them, even kill them, or never see them again.  But they were her family and she thought she couldn’t talk back or leave them.  She felt frustrated and stuck.

As the rage took her over, guilt and shame started growing.  How could she feel that hateful about her family?  Maybe they really were trying to help her?  The more she tried to get back to sleep, the more she jumped back and forth between rage and guilt.  She hadn’t seemed to make any progress in becoming a better, more spiritual person.

Cindy is stuck in “The Emotional Motivation Cycle.” The episode yesterday was like the key that started her emotional motivational engine.  And the more she thought about it, the faster ands hotter the engine went.

This cycle can be triggered by external events like Cindy’s mother and sister attacking her, or by thoughts and memories of previous episodes of harassment, blame or put-downs.  Once triggered the cycle repeats and builds in intensity and speed until we are taken over by it.  At 2 AM, in a half-sleep state we are most vulnerable to simply watching it run, as if on its own, and take over our minds and bodies.

Stages of typical cycles are:

1. Hurt, Pain --> Frustration --> Anger --> Self-Bullying (Blame, shame guilt) --> Frustration -->
2. Fear --> Run, Freeze --> Self-Bullying (Blame, shame guilt) --> Frustration --> Anger, Fear -->

Of course, the crucial question for each of us is, “What are the repeating stages in our cycle?”  We probably know exactly which thoughts, memories and words will follow in which sequence because we’ve done it to ourselves so many times.

Notice the stage in which we indulge in self-bullying: negative self-talk, blame, shame and guilt; loss of confidence and self-esteem; even suicidal thoughts.

What’s the Purpose of the Cycle? The purpose of the cycle is not really to make us feel angry and bad, even though it inevitably does.  The purpose is to motivate ourselves to make effective action.  Feeling is a tool; make us feel bad enough and we’ll finally break out of the iceberg that traps us and do something so they can’t hurt us again.

The purpose might seem to be to change the behavior of the bullies, but I think a better way of thinking about it is that its purpose is to goad us so that we simply won’t have bullies and their harassment, abuse, nastiness and bullying on our “Isle of Song.”

We may or may not be able to change their behavior.  We must accept that they have free will and they may not stop their toxic behavior.  All we can do is have effective consequences for their behavior and not put ourselves in harm’s way.  If they won’t change, we can’t allow them on our Isle of Song.  We won’t accept their control of us even or especially when they’re righteous.  We won’t be slaves, scapegoats or whipping boys/girls.

The major downsides to the Emotional Motivation Cycle method of self-motivation are that:

1. It can make us too depressed to act.  We make ourselves feel like we did when we were children; all our strength, energy, adult wisdom, determination and skill are sucked out of us, and we feel helpless and hopeless again, like we did when we were children.
2. If we wait until we’re enraged, we’ll explode and do something ineffective that we’ll regret.  We’ll go too far and then repeat the cycle with emphasis on the self-flagellation.  Or our oppressors will change the subject and use our over-reaction to attack us on a different front.

Two responses, often championed in self-help literature, do not work:

1. Stop thinking about it.  However, ignoring the insistent call of our spirit is not effective, and who would want it to be?  Our spirit wants us to do something effective; to stop bullying on our Isle of Song.  Nothing less will satisfy our spirit.  Why should we settle for less?
2. Become more spiritual, understanding, forgiving – act like the Golden Rule requires.  The assumption here is that our unconditional love and perfection will convert bullies and they’ll stop abusing us.  Or we’ll get into heaven faster. That’s simply not true for real-world bullies.  Our spirit knows that also; that’s why it won’t stop bringing us back to the problem.

Instead, I recommend:

1. At 2 AM, wake up so we can be mentally, emotionally and spiritually strong, not weak.  Get out of bed, eat a little chocolate, shower if you need and plan what to do to act effectively.
2. Connect with our spirit’s call and pledge to answer it.
3. Connect with our spirit’s strength, courage and determination.
4. Then we can coach that inner voice to help us by giving us the necessary strength, courage and determination, and by helping create an effective plan.

But what if the bullies won’t like us or will think badly of us? Who cares what jerks and sociopaths think – just stop them from abusing and harming us?  We don’t owe toxic parents or relatives anything, even if they fed us when we were children.  Good behavior is the price for admission to our Isle; blood, especially bad blood, doesn’t get them on our Isle.  Maybe we can even measure our success by how unhappy they are?

Often, the desire to protect our children from obvious, blatant rotten behavior motivates us to break the cycle and stop the abuse.

We can train ourselves to respond to our spirit when the situation is merely an irritation or frustration.  We can develop good habits that function naturally, automatically, easily.  The more we start listening to our inner voice, the more we’ll respond effectively in the moment of an assault or at the first self-hating thought.

You’ll find many examples of these responses in “How to Stop Bullies in Their Tracks,” available fastest from this web site.

Since all tactics depend on the situation, expert coaching by phone or Skype helps.  We can design a plan that fits you and your situation.  And build your will and skill to carry it out effectively.

Can Fear and Anger Help Stop Bullies?

Some people think that fear and anger are always bad.  Some people think that fear and anger can’t help stop bullies. I disagree.

When used and directed appropriately, fear and anger can help us stop bullies in all areas of life – abusive, violent, demeaning spouses; sneaky, manipulative, toxic parents or adult children; taunting, teasing, harassing, predatory school bullies; dangerous and deadly gangs; bullying bosses or coworkers; or even our worry and anxiety about something general and more amorphous like a poor economy and no savings, no insurance and a huge mortgage payments for a house beyond our means.

Fear

• Fear is a normal feeling we have in order to warn ourselves of danger.  It's our way of telling ourselves to get ready, mobilize ourselves and take precautions - there might be a saber-toothed tiger lurking down the trail.
• In these situations, the purpose of fear is to alert and energize us to make our best and most thoughtful responses to the danger.
• If we let fear grow so big that we’re panicked into fight, flight or freeze, or into our favorite childhood response, we won’t respond effectively.  We'll go overboard.  We'll start begging or we'll run and hide.  And then we’ll bully ourselves with negative self-talk, guilt, shame, perfectionism, remorse and recriminations because we over-reacted and made a mess of things.
• Our childhood responses were useful when we were growing up.  After all, we did survive; we did live to become adults.  But those over-the-top responses are no longer effective enough; they’re the down-side of allowing our fear to overwhelm us before we respond.
• The key to success is to act when our warning fear is small so we can engage our brain in planning how to respond.

Anger

• Anger is simply our effort to mobilize ourselves, to get us in gear to respond, to give us enough strength and power to act effectively.  Most people need some amount of anger when they’re small children in order to get the big people to listen.  Anger is simply motivational energy.
• But if we let anger build up too much we’ll blow up and kill someone.  Just like the case for fear, our childhood responses were useful when we were growing up.  After all, we did survive; we did live to become adults.  But those over-the-top responses are no longer effective enough; they’re the down-side of allowing our anger to overwhelm us before we respond.
• The key to success is to act when our energizing anger is small so we can engage our brain in planning how to respond.
• If we start acting when our anger is merely irritation or frustration, we can engage our brains to develop smart, effective action.  If we wait too long, we’ll make ourselves much too angry; we’ll turn to rage.  We’ll explode and create a bigger mess.  Or we’ll repress ourselves totally and live with those terrible consequences, such as depression and low confidence and self-esteem.

Maybe a good analogy is that if doing nothing is like going zero mph and blowing up is going 100 mph, we need to train ourselves to start acting at 10-40 mph, and to learn skills in that range so we can act effectively.  When we were children, most people didn’t get enough practice of how to act in that range.  As adults, many people still haven’t learned how to act effectively in that range.

Of course, if we respond early and effectively to our hesitation, irritation and frustration in stopping bullies, we can respond more effectively.  Fear and anger are simply warnings (like smoke detectors) and fuel for our engines so we can get to where we want to be.  There’s nothing inherently wrong with those signals or with that fuel.  As long as we act before we’re at their mercy.

Of course, our tactics will be different when we stop bullies in different situations.  But once our energy, courage, determination and power are hooked up to our brains, we have a much better chance of success than if we’re overcome by fear or anger.

We can even learn to respond effectively to the worry, fear and anger that are common at 2 AM when our “Monkey Minds” jump around uncontrollably.

What if our fear or anger seems to become overwhelming instantly and we feel out of control?  Actually, you’ll find it’s not instantaneous; it just seems that way because we’ve practiced soften. For some techniques to overcome worry, fear and anger, see the case studies in “How to Stop Bullies in Their Tracks” and “Bullies Below the Radar: How to Wise Up, Stand Up and Stay Up,” available fastest from this web site.

Expert coaching by phone or Skype helps.  We can design a plan that fits you and your situation.  And build your will and skill to carry it out effectively.

Can You Resolve Feelings With a Bullying Father Before He Dies?

Joan’s father had bullied and abused her all her life.  He’d yelled, scolded, chastised, taunted and emotionally terrorized her.  He’d been manipulative, sneaky and lying.  He never admitted anything was his fault.  He’d always blamed on her; everything was her fault.  He still treats her the same way.  He’s a narcissistic, control freak. Joan could never understand why he treated her that way.  She hadn’t deserved it.  She knew he’d had a terrible childhood, but she didn’t deserve to be the one he took it out on.

Now, he’s in his late 80s and Joan could see that he was sinking rapidly.

On the one hand, Joan was angry and vindictive.  On the other hand, she felt guilty and ashamed of her dislike and hatred of him.

How can she resolve things with him before he dies?

Sporadically, through the years after she’d left home and made her own life, she’d tried talking with him about how he treats her but he’d always rejected her attempts, calling her weak and bad.  He never admitted he’d done any of the things she said.  That led to the usual angry rant about her failings and what she owed him.  And a demand that he’ll never talk about that again.

Sometimes she never wants to see him any more.  But he’s her father; how can she feel that way?  Think of what she owes him.

How can she resolve things with him before he dies?

Of course, she’s going to try once more.  And maybe a miracle will happen.  But my experience is that any change would be extremely rare.  I’ve see most people recover from near-death experience and be unchanged.  They immediately cover themselves with their old costume of abuse and bullying.

I’ve seen a sexually manipulative perpetrator on his death bed try to grope his daughter, just like he did when he molested her for years when she was young.

It doesn’t matter if Joan looks at her father as a sociopath or a poor, abused soul who never could overcome his rotten childhood.  Her sympathy, compassion, forgiveness, unconditional love or understanding likely won’t change him.

The real question for Joan is what she means by “resolution” and where she really wants to get internally.

If, by resolution:

• She means that they’ll have a heart-felt talk, and she’ll say her say again but this time he’ll admit to all he did and apologize and ask for her forgiveness, she’s probably going to be disappointed.  No matter how much she begs, bribes or tries to appease him, likely he won’t change.  He’ll still insist he never did anything bad to her and it’s all her fault.  Also, he’ll never tell everyone to whom he bad-mouthed her, that she was actually a good daughter and he was simply mean and nasty.  So the task for her is to accept that she can’t change him and to find a mental place in which to keep him that doesn’t stimulate any self-bullying by blame, shame or guilt – just like he’d do to her again if he had the opportunity.
• She means that she can come to like him and they’ll part friends, she’ll be disappointed again.  They’re not friends.  We can’t be friends with someone who has beaten us, mentally, emotionally or spiritually, no matter how hard we try.  A survival part of us doesn’t want us to get close enough so they can abuse us once more.  The task for her is to let the anger and hatred motivate her to get distance, no matter what he thinks of her or accuses her of.
• She means that she wants to forgive herself for continuing to exaggerate his good side and to have hope he’d change so she continually put herself and her family in harm’s way trying to prove that she was worthy of love, respect and good treatment, she can have that because that’s in her control.  Her task is to find an inner place to put him so that instead of feeling overwhelmed and beaten, or angry and vindictive when she thinks of him, she’ll feel strong, courageous and determined to stop any other bullies and to create an Isle of Song for herself and her family.

His behavior tells her about him.  It doesn’t tell her anything about her and what she deserves.  Instead, she needs to take power over her life.

Should she stay at his bedside while he passes?  If she wants to be with him at the end in order to assuage any guilt she may have for missing a last possible chance for resolution, then she should be there as long as she won’t let him hurt her feelings any more; as long as she doesn’t expect anything more than he’s always been.

Should she have her children visit him at the end?  Again that depends on what she wants from the interactions.  If he’s been manipulative and rotten to her children, or bad-mouthed her to them, then I wouldn’t let them be subjected to that again.  In age and stage appropriate ways, she can talk to them now and as they grow.

For contrasting outcomes in dealing with abusive, bullying parents, see the case studies of Carrie, Kathy, Doug, Jake and Ralph in “How to Stop Bullies in Their Tracks,” available fastest from this web site. Expert coaching by phone or Skype helps.  We can design a plan that fits you and your situation.  And build your will and skill to carry it out effectively.

Stop Bullies: Make Some People Uncomfortable, Upset, Angry

Many children are raised with a set of rules such as: “Don’t make anyone uncomfortable.  Don’t hurt people’s feelings.  Don’t upset anyone.  Don’t be disagreeable.  Don’t argue.  Be polite.  Be nice.  Follow the Golden Rule.  Make everyone like you.”  But those are not effective rules for adults in the real-world. Of course, we know why we teach children those values.  Who wants to raise hostile, nasty, argumentative, vicious, abusive bullies?

I’m not encouraging bullies to be nastier.  I’m talking with nice, decent adults who are being harassed, tormented, controlled, abused and bullied, and yet who hesitate to speak up or to protect and defend themselves effectively because they don’t want to break those childhood rules.

Mary is a typical example.  She held her tongue in public when her toxic mother abused her.  She held her tongue when relatives criticized, mocked and demeaned her.  She held her tongue when friends told her what she should do to be the good friend they wanted.

She held her tongue but she built up huge resentment that eventually exploded.

With friends and a few relatives, either she’d get in a fight so she could be righteously angry, blame them and never talk to them again or she’d nurse a cold fury until she felt justified in simply cutting them off completely without explanation.

With her parents, she’d explode and tell them off.  Then she’d feel guilty for being so mean and she’d come back groveling and apologizing.  Nevertheless, she still felt she was the one who’d been wronged and she resented the price her toxic parents made her pay for forgiving her outburst.

With strangers, she sat quietly and never shared what she thought or what she was interested in.  She didn’t want to make them uncomfortable and she was afraid of hurting their feelings or raising a subject that would be contentious.  Most people thought she wasn’t very bright.

Mary was also a master of self-bullying. She’d flagellate herself with self-doubt and self-questioning.  She’d obsess on every slight taken or given and always end up blaming herself.  And she’d judge herself as guilty, no matter what they’d done to her.  She was never perfect.  Her anxiety, stress and negative self-talk led to sleeplessness, loss of confidence and self-esteem, and to depression.

Mary had two underlying and interlocking problems:

1. The set of rules that made “not upsetting people” her most important value, no matter what.
2. Having only all-or-none responses of holding back totally or exploding.  In a sense, she could remain at zero mph or she could go 100 mph, but she didn’t know how to go 30-60 mph.

The solution to the first problem required that Mary examine, as an adult, the rules she’d accepted all-or-none when she was a child.  Children do think in black-or-white but adults have more experience and wisdom.  Mary could see the kernel of value in her old rules, even though her parents had used them to control her all her life.

But as an adult, she could see where those rules were insufficient and what changes were necessary:

• She felt the pain of all the times she’d made those rules the most important ones instead of protecting herself.  She could now see situations in which speaking up or pushing back verbally in order to defend herself were more important values.
• She could see the difference between people sharing their tastes and opinions, versus having an angry exchange with someone trying to convert her to their “absolutely right” way of seeing things.
• She could also see which subjects she simply didn’t want to discuss with which people.
• One of the most compelling moments was when she saw which people she did want to disagree with, whether or not they were uncomfortable or had hurt feelings, because to be “nice” to them would have violated her most important values.  In fact, she reached a point where making a few people, like her toxic mother, uncomfortable or angry was a sign that Mary was on the right track.

She changed her old, out-dated and ineffective beliefs to new, effective ones, encapsulated in the phrase, “Not hurting people’s feelings is a much lower priority than protecting myself or being myself.  I’ll speak what I think and say what I want in the nicest, firmest way and if they don’t like it, it’s their problem.  That way I’ll test whether I want to allow them to be on my Isle of Song.”

That simple change gave her a rush of peace, freedom and energy.  She felt powerful enough to create the life she wanted, which was more important that not making anyone uncomfortable.  She now had the will and determination to learn how to be skillful in protecting herself.

How she learned to respond clearly, simply, kindly and firmly from 30-60 mph will be the subject of another article.

Expert coaching by phone or Skype helps.  We can design a plan that fits you and your situation.  And build your will and skill to carry it out effectively.

Stop Bullies: Support Good Behavior, not Bad Blood

Many people wrote and called for coaching after last week’s post, “Stop Bullies Who Demand their Way.”  Although their circumstances varied, their fundamental hesitation was the same: “How can I defend the behavioral standards I want if that means angry confrontations with my blood relationships?” Some common situations were:

• A bullying spouse.
• A bullying teenager.
• Sometimes parents or other biological relatives, sometimes in-laws and sometimes step-parents, who are nasty, demanding, degrading, brutal and abusive.
• Relatives, sometime biological, sometimes in-laws and sometimes step-parents, who reject, demean and even hit the callers’ children.  These tyrannical, sarcastic relatives call the kids losers, compare them unfavorably to siblings, cousins and ancestors who turned out bad (“You’re just like so-and-so”) and demean and degrade the kids relentlessly.

All the callers recognized that continued, long-term exposure to those bullies would destroy their own and their children’s self-confidence and self-esteem.  They could see how the bullying was causing sleepless nights, anxiety, nail-biting, discouragement, negative self-talk and even depression.  Their children’s school work suffered.  They could see their children either being beaten into submission or adopting bullying as their own strategy for success.  So why didn’t the adults act?

Some were afraid of the economic consequences of resisting spouses, parents or grandparents with money.  Some were afraid the bullying would increase.

However, most were afraid that if they objected to such treatment of themselves or of their children, they would split the family into warring groups or have the whole family turn against them.  Most were embedded in cultures that reinforced the idea that “family is family” and “blood is the most important thing.”  Most thought it was morally wrong to say “No” to elders or relatives.

They had tried everything they could think of: understanding, reasoning, sweet-talk, begging, bribery, appeasement, the Golden Rule and threats but nothing had been effective in changing the bullying behavior.

So they were stuck, knowing they were tolerating bullies and behavior that was harming them and their children.

Their hope was that I could provide a magic technique to convert those adult bullies into nice, sweet, kindly relatives; the loving, caring, concerned relatives they thought they’d have.

But they had already tried all the “magic wand” techniques and discovered that those family bullies wouldn’t change.  After all, from the bullies’ perspective, why should they change?  They’d gotten away with being abusive, demanding bullies for years; they got their way so why change?  They were beyond appeals to conscience or to considering the feelings they were hurting.

I’ve seen bullies like that have near-death experiences due to cancer or accidents, and still resist changing.  They’ve mastered brutality as a strategy to get what they want from life.  By now, it’s all they know.

In my long experience, each successful client had to face a difficult choice and make a different one then they had before.

They had to support good behavior instead of bad blood.

They had to change their inner questions from, “How can I fit in?” or “How can I do what I’m supposed to?” to a question of “What behavior will I allow toward my children or in my space, no matter who the perpetrator is?”

They had to insist on good behavior toward themselves and their children, even if that meant challenging the previously rotten family dynamic.  They had to become models of the actions they were preaching to their children.

The first step in creating a bully-free personal space is always for us to rally our spirits; to become strong, brave, determined and persevering.  Endurance endures.  Then we can make effective plans, take skillful steps and get the help we need.

We can begin a little soft, but bullies inevitably force us to become firm.  Sometimes that meant denying the perpetrators access to their children.  Sometimes that means leaving when the bullying starts.  Sometimes that means standing alone and being a scapegoat.  But often, when we insist on good behavior, many members of the family will also step up to the higher standards; they’ve simply been waiting for someone to take the lead.

In all cases, we have to fight the culture we’re embedded in.  Plans have to be developed that fit the specific situations we’re in: are spouses on the same page, how bad is the economic dependence, how far away do we live?

But in all cases, we must hold out to ourselves and our children a better culture, in which people behave with caring, kindness and respect to each other.

We have to overcome our fears that we’ll be alone; fears that in the end, the only people who stand by us are family, so we have to pay the high price it costs to maintain relationships.  However, we’ll discover that by clearing brutality out of our space, we’ll open up space for people we want to be with.

Review the case studies of Carrie, Jean, Doug, Kathy, Jake and Ralph facing different family bullies in “How to Stop Bullies in Their Tracks,” available fastest from this web site.  Many times, when faced by our firmness, family bullies will give in.  For more personalized coaching call me at 877-8Bullies (877-828-5543).

Stop School Bullies: Organize This Summer

If you worry that your child will be bullied in school next school year, but you don’t know what to do until bullying happens again in September, you’re missing a golden opportunity this summer.  Summer is the best time to organize in order to protect your children on day-one. Seven tips for what you can do this summer:

1. Don’t wait until there’s an incident or a history of incidents.
2. Organize parents to pressure legislators, district administrators and principals. This step is a crucial one.  A small group of parents supporting an anti-bullying program and pressuring district officials and principals can make a huge difference.  You don’t need all parents; you only need a small, core group to start with.
3. Make sure your district administrators and school principals have clear and strongly worded policies and programs to stop school bullies. Make sure they have emergencies procedures to institute swift and effective investigation and action.  Does the program start on day one?  What initial assemblies will be held with students? How will they be involved in on-going programs?  What training will teachers and all staff get to help them recognize and stop sneaky bullies?  How will hot-spots be monitored – buses, bathrooms, lockers, hallways, cafeterias, playgrounds?  What support will teachers and staff get to protect them from angry, bullying parents?  How will they deal with the first boundary pushers so that the message of zero-tolerance gets out?
4. Get police involved. Do they have a special unit to stop bullying, especially cyberbullying?  Do they speak at school assemblies?  Are they fearless in dealing with bullying parents of school bullies?
5. Stimulate media to publicize stories about the effects of bullying. Find reporters and producers who were bullied or have kids in school now; especially kids who have been targeted.  Help them find experts to interview.
6. Learn what constitutes evidence and how to document it. Learn how to support proactive principals.  Learn what you will need to do to motivate lazy, uncaring, colluding or cowardly principals.  Do you know what media and legal pressure will stimulate your principal to act?  Talk to a lawyer now so you’re prepared.
7. Publicize the policy and program before school starts. Organize parent-principal-teacher assemblies to gain buy-in to the school’s program and processes.  Encourage parents to educate their children about not bullying and about what to do when they witness bullying.

Don’t waste your time with nit-picky detractors and critics who have nothing better to offer.

Look at the price to all kids at a school where bullying is tolerated or condoned, or the friends of bullies are allowed to pile on to victims by threatening and abusing them or by cyberbullying.  We all know the consequences of not stopping bullies and of allowing them continued contact with their targets, the bullying and violence will increase.

At schools that have a do-nothing principal or in which principals blame the victim and avoid the bully, kids’ inner strength, courage, determination, perseverance, resilience are threatened.  You have to be the one to demand that principals keep your children safe while officials try to ignore you or thwart your attempts.

Principals who avoid the issue make the targeted children feel helpless and that their situation is hopeless.  It starts them down the path to being victims for life.  It destroys self-confidence and self-esteem.  It stimulates anxiety, stress, guilt, negativity and self-mutilation.  It starts children toward isolation, depression and suicide.

Organize this summer so your children will be protected from school bullies on day-one.

Remember, all tactics depend on the situation – the people and the circumstances.  So we must plan tactics appropriate to us and to the situation.

Rather than buy a packaged anti-bullying program that ends up buried in a storeroom, stimulate school and district officials to create their own, based on what will be effective for your specific school situation.  Expert consulting and coaching are necessary to implement an effective program.

Being Judgmental: Do You Need More or Less? – Quick Quiz

Being judgmental has gotten a bad name and for good reasons. Our whole world has experienced the horror wrought by people who felt superior and righteous in destroying other people they thought were inferior or even non-human.  Also, in our personal lives, we’ve experienced the damage done by arrogant, righteous spouses, parents, relatives and others who always knew best and felt entitled to taunt, tease, harass, bully and abuse us or to cast us out.

However, it’s a mistake to use these examples of righteous people with poor judgment as proof that:

1. The process of making judgments is bad.  It’s not.  It’s necessary.
2. We should accept all perspectives and ways of living in the world as equal or as equally valid.  They’re not.

But that’s all abstract.  The real questions are whether we need to be more or less judgmental and which of our judgments are worth keeping and how.  Take the quick quiz.

Before you take the quick quiz, see “Being Judgmental” as having four parts:

1. Discerning; making judgments, estimating what the consequences of some action will be, deciding what we like and what we don’t like.
2. Deciding which ways of behaving are acceptable in our personal space.
3. Making these boundaries in our personal lives stick.
4. Getting righteous, indignant or angry when people do what we think is wrong or dumb, or when they don’t do what we think is right or good or best.

Understanding this process, we can now take the quick quiz to help us decide whether you’re being bullied and whether to be more or less judgmental and in which areas of our lives:

1. Do you ignore early warning signs and get stuck in situations that are painful?  Do you distrust your own judgment?
2. Do other people often tell you what’s right or what you should do?  Do you need to act more on your own judgment and listen less to other people?
3. Do you feel like other people or one other person runs your life or decides what you can or cannot do?  Do you accept harassment and bullying?
4. Does someone else have more control over your time, money, friends or activities?  Do you try to understand, compromise or give in but they don’t?  Are you anxious, stressed or afraid of what they might do?
5. Do you need to get angry before you act?  Do you often feel guilty or ashamed afterward?
6. Do people ignore, laugh, argue or avoid what you want when you insist that they act in certain ways in your personal space?  ?
7. Do people trample over your boundaries?  Do they get away with not changing?  Do you let them stay in your life?  Do they wear you down?  Is life an endless struggle?

If you answered “yes” to most of these questions – if you feel bossed and controlled, if you get taken advantage of, if you’re the one who almost always gives in or tries to make peace, if you rarely get your way, if you have to justify everything you do or ask permission before you can do anything – then you’re not protecting yourself enough, you’re not being judgmental enough and you’re not acting based on what you know in your heart-of-hearts to be true.

If you answered “yes,” to most of these questions, you need to act firmly, courageously, strongly and skillfully on your own judgments.  You need to build your confidence and self-esteem.  You need to take power over your own actions, whether the other person likes it or not.

Many people ask, “But how do I know if I’m right or fair or normal in what I want?  How can I demand what I want when I’m not sure I deserve it or if I might be selfish?”

That way of thinking leads us no where.  That way of thinking puts us under the control of someone else who thinks they know better than we do.  There’s no chance for happiness down that path – only submission.

The path that has a chance of yielding happiness and joy and fulfillment is the path of being discerning, of having more and better judgments, and of making our judgments stick in our lives.

Getting angry, righteous and indignant are motivation strategies.  We typically generate those feelings to get ourselves angry enough to act.  The problem with that method of motivation is contained in “The Emotional Motivation Cycle” (See “Bullies Below the Radar: How to Wise Up, Stand Up and Stay Up).  This method usually isn’t effective long-term.

Instead, a better method is shown in “How to Stop Bullies in Their Tracks.”  Trust the signals from our guts when they’re just at the level of irritation or frustration, and use the effective five-step process.  When we act based on that level of emotion, we’ll make better plans and carry them out more effectively.

That doesn’t tell us how to accomplish what we need; that doesn’t tell us how to get free from oppression we’ve previously accepted, but that tells us that we must.  All plans and tactics must be designed to fit us and our specific situation.  That’s why we need expert coaching and, maybe, legal advice.  But now we know the direction we must set in our lives.

Sexting: Learning the Hard Way

In a series of articles in the New York Times, “Poisoned Web,” Jan Hoffman details a sexting case gone viral in Lacey, Washington.  What can you do for your son or daughter so they don’t get sucked into the black hole of a sexting catastrophe that could ruin their whole lives?

In this particular case, a middle-school girl sent a full-frontal nude photo of herself, including her face, to her new middle-school boyfriend.  He forwarded the picture to a second middle-school girl he thought was a friend of the first one.  The second girl, an ex-friend with a grudge, forwarded the picture to the long list of contacts on her phone with the caption, “Ho Alert!  If you think this girl is a whore, then text this to all your friends.”  The photo rapidly went viral.

A lot of the analysis about the situation is nothing new:

• Why do girls send nude photos of themselves to boyfriends they have or hope to have?  The same reasons girls always have.
• Why do guys prize and show these pictures as evidence of what studs they are?  The same reasons guys always have.
• Why do friends of the guys or mean girls forward the pictures?  The same reasons that names used to get written on bathroom or phone booth walls.  The same reasons that girls have always cut down their competition and enemies.  Bullies, bullying, harassment and abusive behavior have always been with us.
• Who or what is to blame?  The same culprits get vilified: thoughtless, foolish boys and girls, teenagers, school officials, society, double-standards and technology.

Does technology make sexting worse?  Yes, of course.  Technology makes it seductively easy to forward pictures and comments.  Also, technology makes the information global and permanent.  Kids can’t move to another school or even another city in order to get away from the consequences of what they and others did.

In the past, many reputations and lives were ruined by foolish moments.  Kids and adults have always been able to exercise righteous or mean or vicious inclinations, but it’s so much easier now.

What are the consequences to those caught up in sexting?  The girl who sends her picture may be the subject of vicious attacks all her life.  Her inner strength, courage, determination, perseverance and resilience will be tested.  She may feel helpless and that her situation is hopeless.  She may go down the path to being a victim for life.  Her self-confidence and self-esteem may be destroyed.  Anxiety, stress, guilt, negativity and self-mutilation may be stimulated.  She can move toward isolation, depression and suicide.

The boy, the second girl and everyone else who forwards the picture have to face their own stupidity or meanness.  And they may have to face their role in a suicide.  An act of a moment can destroy a life.  Also, they may have to face prison.  We hope this will help them do better the rest of their lives.  Humans have always learned some lessons the hard way.

Do today’s kids face overwhelming pressure?  Many people make excuses for the foolish or nasty kids; as if the external pressures are overwhelming.  For example, the article quotes, “'You can’t expect teenagers not to do something they see happening all around them,’ said Susannah Stern, an associate professor at the University of San Diego who writes about adolescence and technology.”  This line of thought focuses on reducing all pressure and temptation.

But pressure was just as great throughout history as it is now – depending on the particular time in each society.

What’s the solution?

• I favor laws to criminalize the forwarding of child pornography – even if forwarded by minors.  That’s our society’s way of saying, “This is dumb and wrong and serious.  We agree that we don’t allow this.  And there will penalties so think long and hard before you do this.”  If we don’t say this, we’ll be enabling the bullies.
• I would require all schools have assemblies and programs in which students and parents are required to participate.  Law enforcement must be involved to present examples of what can happen to the kids who send pictures of themselves and to the ones who forward those pictures.  This will increase awareness of the dangers of kids succumbing to pressure to do something foolish like sending pictures of themselves and of the penalties for kids who forward pornography.
• Parents have the major responsibility to preach, teach and police their children’s use of internet and wireless devices.  This is our ounce of prevention.  As the father of the girl who sent her nude picture said, “I could say it was everyone else’s fault, but I had a piece of it, too. I learned a big lesson about my lack of involvement in her use of the phone and texting.  I trusted her too much.”

These steps will decrease the number of kids involved in sexting.  But we’ll never stop 100 percent of kids’ foolish or mean or vicious actions.  But that can’t be our intention.  Our goal is to educate kids whose awareness of the potential consequences of their actions will awaken in them the ability to do better.

Our goal can’t be to educate or convert psychopaths or people who want to make a living off child pornography.  Educational approaches aren’t effective with these people.

I do expect most kids to be able to learn to be stronger, to develop better character and to be able to resist the temptations of our popular culture.  There’s nothing new in the temptations and pressure the kids face.  The only new thing is the ease and permanence that technology offers.  I focus not on making society easy and safe, but on developing individual values, character, heart and spirit.

Remember, all tactics depend on the situation – the people and the circumstances.  So we must design plans that are appropriate to preventing our individual children from sending pictures or forwarding them, and to minimizing the disaster if they act foolishly.

If your children are the targets of cyberbullies or sexting, you need to take charge.  With expert coaching and consulting, we can become strong and skilled enough to overcome the effects of seeming to have your child’s life ruined by a foolish act in middle-school.

“How to Stop Bullies in Their Tracks” and “Parenting Bully-Proof Kids,” have many examples of children and adults commanding themselves and then stopping bullies.  For more personalized coaching call me at 877-8Bullies (877-828-5543).

An Effective School Anti-Bullying Program

Jenny Castor, Denver ABC-TV station KMGH-TV, video journalist reports on a program to stop school bullies that is actually effective, “Students Learn Anti-Bullying Skills Starting In Kindergarten.”  The accompanying video shows training to help “Young Students Exercise Ways To Defuse Mean Encounter With Potential Bully.” The driving forces behind the program at Most Precious Blood Catholic School are the principal, Colleen McManamon and assistant principal, Roxie Mountain-Weed.  While the program is based on standard offerings, they and their teachers and staff are the difference that makes the difference.

Notice these features in what they do:

• The program is fun for the kids.
• The kids learn how to keep their sense of confidence, strength and self-esteem while they practice responses to sarcasm, taunting, teasing, put-downs and harassment.
• Kids learn how to help each other resist and report bullying.  Witnesses really witness; they don’t become bystanders.
• Parents must be involved.  For example, there are mother daughter evenings to overcome the “Mean Mom; Mean Daughter” syndrome.

The training and participation side of the program decreases bullying by a huge amount.  A critical factor, usually not mentioned, is that both Colleen and Roxie and their staff stop bullies in their tracks immediately and get their parents involved.  I’ve met Colleen and Roxie; they’re wonderful, joyous and formidable.  Unlike what happens at others schools mentioned in the Channel 7 “Stop Bullying” series, in this successful program, targets are not made into victims while the bullies are ignored and enabled.

Don’t waste your time with nit-picky detractors and critics who have nothing better to offer.  Some people will say that they can only do this because Most Precious Blood is a private school or that the program takes too much money or that other school principals and staff don’t have the time.  Nonsense.

Look at the price to all kids at a school where bullying is tolerated or condoned, or the friends of bullies are allowed to pile on to victims by threatening and abusing them or by cyberbullying.  We all know the consequences of not stopping bullies and of allowing them continued contact with their targets, the bullying and violence will increase.

At schools that have a do-nothing principal or in which principals blame the victim; avoid the bully,” kids’ inner strength, courage, determination, perseverance, resilience are threatened.  You have to be the one to demand that principals keep your children safe while officials try to ignore you or thwart your attempts.

Principals who avoid the issue make the targeted children feel helpless and that their situation is hopeless.  It starts them down the path to being victims for life.  It destroys self-confidence and self-esteem.  It stimulates anxiety, stress, guilt, negativity and self-mutilation.  It starts children toward isolation, depression and suicide.

Of course, even when principals are cowards or are reluctant to protect your children, you can still protect them yourself.

Remember, all tactics depend on the situation – the people and the circumstances.  So we must plan tactics that are appropriate to us and to the situation.

If your children are the targets of bullies and school officials who aren’t protecting them, you need to take charge.  With expert coaching and consulting, we can become strong and skilled enough to overcome principals and other officials who won’t do what’s right.

“How to Stop Bullies in Their Tracks” and “Parenting Bully-Proof Kids,” have many examples of children and adults commanding themselves and then stopping bullies.  For more personalized coaching call me at 877-8Bullies (877-828-5543).

Schools Blame Victim, Avoid Bully

Theresa Marchetta, Investigative Reporter for Denver ABC-TV station, KMGH-TV reports in an article and video on a two more incidents in different Denver area schools in which principals made the bullied girls (aged 7 and 12) do all the changing while nothing happened to the bullies.  They were clear cases of, “Blame the victim, avoid the bully.” This, parents’ say, despite the clear policies the school districts involved already have to protect their kids

Clearly, even if there are laws (which there often aren’t), even if there are policies (which there often aren’t), even if there are handbooks (which there often aren’t); that’s not enough.  Obviously, it takes more than pieces of paper to stop bullying.

Even if the necessary paperwork is in place, it takes principals who are willing to act swiftly and decisively in order to stop teasing, taunting, harassment, cyberbullying, emotional and physical bullying and abuse.

Of course, that means that principals must be willing to stop difficult children and often resist their bullying fathers and mothers who threaten to sue the principal and school district administrators.  Principals know where bullying kids learned to bully.

Of course, principals will tend to turn on the targets who they think will be more malleable and less prone to sue.

The first obvious solution is new principals who are upright and courageous, and who will rally all children and parents to help stop bullies.

The second obvious solution is to require principals and district administrators to stop bullies or be fired.  That will give them the impetus to stand up for what they know is right.

We all know the consequences of allowing bullies to get away with maybe a lecture (if even that) and then allowing them continued contact with their targets, the bullying and violence will increase.

The approach of the two principals makes the targeted children feel helpless and that their situation is hopeless.  It starts them down the path to being victims for life.  It destroys self-confidence and self-esteem.  It stimulates anxiety, stress, guilt, negativity and self-mutilation.  It starts children toward isolation, depression and suicide.

Whatever their reasons, excuses and justifications, would you want to pay those principals to be responsible for your children’s safety?  I wouldn’t.

Colorado Senate is currently considering a bill to start fighting bullying.  According to District 30 House Representative Kevin Priola, “School should be a safe place where kids can go and excel and learn to do reading, writing and math and not have to worry about fear of intimidation.”

Wheat Ridge Rep. Sue Schafer said, “Most importantly, there is research showing that when there is a high level of safety, the CSAP scores go up. Conversely, low safety, CSAP scores go down. This bill is going to raise the awareness of our school boards and our administrators that this has become a serious problem and our bill asks or encourages every school district to do a climate survey.”

The bill doesn’t go far enough or fast enough for the parents of the two girls, who need effective action from their principals right now.

Personally, they’ll have to work hard to keep their daughters’ spirits up.

If your children are the targets of bullies and school officials who aren’t protecting them, you need to take charge.  With expert coaching and consulting, we can become strong and skilled enough to overcome principals and other officials who won’t do what’s right.  We can plan tactics that are appropriate to us and to the situation.

“How to Stop Bullies in Their Tracks” and “Parenting Bully-Proof Kids,” have many examples of children and adults commanding themselves and then stopping bullies.  For more personalized coaching call me at 877-8Bullies (877-828-5543).

Are Relentless School Bullies Stopped by Mediation?

I’ve often seen principals, guidance counselors, teachers and district administrators recommend mediation even for relentless school bullies and their targets, even after the bully has taunted, teased, harassed and abused the target for months and the school officials haven’t changed the bully’s behavior by asking, encouraging, begging and bribing the bully. In these situations, the principals finally give up and throw the burden back on the defenseless targets by saying that the kids have to work things out on their own.  In these circumstances, this recommendation is a cowardly abdication of adult responsibility and authority, and it’s totally wrong.

Of course mediation and the weight of peer opinion and condemnation can be effective in some cases.  For example, in situations in which two kids got into it with one time, it’s possible to bring them together and build a bridge of civility and even respect.

But in recommending one-to-one mediation when the school officials have already failed, the officials have taken the third step in converting your targeted child into a victim:

1. The first step was in not protecting the target, in not removing the bully, in not having consequences for the bully and his family the next time the bullying occurred, in not kicking the bully out of school.
2. The second step in converting targets into victims is usually taken in cases where the principal, teachers, counselors and school district administrators have been unable to rehabilitate the bully through asking, teaching, begging and bribing the bully.  They make the target pay the price by removing him from the classroom or by simply looking the other way when the bully acts and then stonewalling and lying to the target’s parents.  They hope the target will be less stubborn than the bully and will agree to suffer in silence.  However, when the bully realizes that he has power, he usually increases his violence because no adult is making him stop bullying and other kids are afraid of him because he can get away with doing what he wants.
3. The third step that uncaring, lazy, weak, inept or cowardly principals take is when they blame the target.  They say, “You must be doing something wrong because the bully’s still picking on you.  Therefore, if you get together and apologize and promise to do whatever the bully wants, he won’t have a good reason to abuse you.  If you can’t make him change, it’s your fault.”  They call that “Mediation.”  That kind of mediation assumes that the target did something wrong, that the bully has good reason to be angry and abusive, and that the bully will stop when the target grovels.  That form of mediation completely ignores the truth that relentless bullies are predators. For whatever reasons – their own pain, their drive for power and position – they will keep bullying until they’re actually stopped.

This approach makes the targeted children feel helpless and that their situation is hopeless.  They’ll be victims for life.  It destroys self-confidence and self-esteem.  It stimulates anxiety, stress, guilt, negativity and self-mutilation.  It starts children down the path toward isolation, depression and suicide. Parents, when principals have gone on weeks and months making excuses why they allow the bullying to continue, they’re telling you that you’re on your own.

• They won’t stop the bully; they’ll look the other way.  They’ll let your child sink or swim on his own in the shark-infested waters of the playground, cafeteria, lockers, hallways, bathroom or bus.
• They don’t care about your child’s feelings or problems.  They either care about the bully’s feelings more or they simply don’t want to deal with a difficult problem.  Don’t let your child entertain self-doubt or negativity.  Don’t give in to stress, anxiety, hopelessness or depression.  Don’t go down that path to helplessness and suicide.  Keep your child’s confidence and self-esteem high.  You and your child can stay strong and courageous; you can stop the bully.
• Encourage your child to maintain his inner strength and move up a staircase of increasing firmness to try to get the bully to look for easier prey.  All tactics depend on the situation, but there are some general guidelines.
  • At the bottom of the staircase we try peaceful, friendly methods.  We ignore it, we say ouch, we ask the bully to stop, we try to deflect it with jokes, we avoid contact.  If that stops the bully, your child wasn’t really dealing with a relentless bully.  If the bully doesn’t stop, if the violence continues, we need to teach our children to push back verbally.
  • If verbal methods don’t stop the bully and the school officials won’t stop the bullying, especially with younger kids, when it’s one-to-one and the kids are the same size, your child must be prepared to beat up the bully, if possible.  Prepare your child with martial arts training.  Of course you must be aware that the older a bully is, the more likely he is to be carrying a weapon.  I’m going to this level because you’ve already failed using every peaceful means you can.
  • I’m assuming that the principal and district administrators have not stopped the bullying while you’ve been talking to them and your child has slowly gone up the staircase.  Of course, when your child hits back those cowardly principals will attack your child because, they’ll say, “We don’t condone violence,” even though they permitted the bully to be violent for months.  And usually, they permitted his friends to pile on by attacking your child verbally and physically or through cyberbullying.  They’ll suspend your child for fighting back.  Arrange for your child to be prepared and happy.  Go to Disney World as if you won the Super Bowl.  If the bullying stops because your child is ready to fight again, it’s worth the trip.
• Since you won’t have legal redress – principals can’t be fired if they don’t stop bullies – your only alternative is plenty of bad publicity.  You’ll need a lawyer and the ear of sympathetic reporters.  Get your documentation together and make it public; minutes of all the meetings with the principal, emails and letters received by the principal expressing your concerns for your child’s safety and containing the minutes of the meetings.  Look for a reporter or station manager who was bullied and not protected when he or she was a child.  They might champion your cause.
• The most important consideration is your child.  Eventually, you want your child to get a good education.  You must increase his strength, courage, character and will.  You want him grow up to look back at the bully and the authorities who didn’t protect him as insignificant.  They were speed bumps in his life that he’s overcome and doesn’t even think about now because his life is so wonderful.  That may mean that you remove your child from the care of school officials who don’t care about his physical, mental and emotional well-being and safety.

By the time the principal suggests mediation, you know you’ve given them too much time and trust.  You’ve been in an adversarial relationship and you didn’t recognize it.  Now you know.  Act wisely and tactically.

If your children are the targets of bullies and school officials who aren’t protecting them, you need to take charge.  With expert coaching and consulting, we can become strong and skilled enough to overcome principals and other officials who won’t do what’s right.  We can plan tactics that are appropriate to us and to the situation.

“How to Stop Bullies in Their Tracks” and “Parenting Bully-Proof Kids,” have many examples of children and adults commanding themselves and then stopping bullies.  For more personalized coaching call me at 877-8Bullies (877-828-5543).

Will Colorado's Anti-Bullying Bill Stop School Bullies?

The Colorado House of Representatives is considering a bill to stop school bullying (House Bill 1254).  In an effort by some legislators “to be proactive…so we don’t have a sensational suicide in [Colorado],” the core of the bill will:

• Create a committee to study the problem.
• Set up an agency to solicit funds for training of teachers on how to combat bullying (when funds are available from public and private sources).
• Require use of uniforms to “encourage school pride and unity and promote uniformity of dress.”
• Set up a voluntary statewide survey of schoolchildren about bullying in their schools.
• Bar teachers or school administrators from punishing students who report bullying.

The program would continue until July 1, 2016, at which point its effectiveness would be reviewed.

To be kind, this is nice but falls far short of what’s needed to protect children and prevent more suicides.

To be honest, this means nothing.  But it allows legislators to say they’re doing something to stop bullies and bullying.

Notice there is:

• No requirement that principals, teachers, counselors and district administrators are required to have proactive programs designed to stop harassment, taunting, teasing, bullying or abuse.
• No requirements for school officials to be responsible for working with law enforcement officers to stop cyberbullying.
• No consequences or legal penalties for school officials who don’t stop bullies or who actively protect bullies or who remove victims from classes and activities while still allowing bullies and their friends complete access to their targets.

If you don’t think that principals and other school officials ignore bullying, then read about the many suicides that have occurred in the past year.  In almost every case, the parents say that they talked to principals many times over 6-12 months, but the principals now claim that they didn’t know what was happening.  Also, consider why they need a law to “Bar teachers or school administrators from punishing students who report bullying.”

Even worse are people who pretend that present laws are enough or that it’s too hard for school officials.  For example:

• “Jane Urschel, executive director of the Colorado Association of School Boards, said the bill would not only be burdensome for schools who will have to form and adopt a new bullying policy, but it also asks them to address an issue they are already acutely aware of.  This bill would put mandates on districts that they can’t afford.  The school districts are not ignoring this issue and want every child to be safe.  Schools already have a handle on this.”
• “Rep. Robert Ramirez, R-Westminster, has already said he is skeptical of the need for it. ‘I have a huge problem with legislating personal behavior.  Bullying is something that is already addressed by schools as incidents occur. A state law isn’t going to change anything.’”

I’d point out that:

• School officials do not have a handle on this.  In answer to Ms. Urschel and Representative Ramirez, the problem is that there are no laws that require principals to stop bullies.  That’s why there are so many cases in Colorado in which bullying is tolerated, which means condoned.  For example, see the investigative report by Theresa Marchetta of KMGH-TV (ABC affiliate in Colorado).  Without laws, principals can do nothing to stop bullies and be safe from personal consequences.  In addition, with no additional funding, many schools in Colorado with principals who want to prevent bullying manage to do so.  I live in Colorado and have grandchildren in some of those schools.
• When there are no laws or there are no penalties for breaking laws, people do what they want with impunity.  Can you imagine how effective laws against robbery and murder would be if there were no penalties?  How effective would child labor laws or laws to prevent unsafe working conditions be with no penalties?
• Individual school and district officials are now the ultimate and only judges.  With no laws or penalties, they are the final court of appeals.  Parents of children who are being relentlessly bullied cannot force officials to protect their children.  The only recourse for parents is adverse publicity.
• We know what will change the whole system.  It’s not suicides.  It’s when principals, teachers, counselors and school district administrators are fired for not protecting our children.  It’s when law suits are successful against officials who are being paid to be responsible for protecting children but fail in that primary duty.  Suddenly, all the excuses and foot dragging will be gone.  A few principals will quit and I’ll applaud.  The rest will magically discover reasons why and how they can make programs that stop bullying.  In other contexts it’s called “skin in the game.”  Right now, school officials don’t have any skin in the game.

I’d think that Ms. Urschel and Representative Ramirez were actually interested in stopping bullying if they came forward with strong, realistic, effective proposals of their own, complete with penalties, instead of merely being critics.

The problem is not lack of money of lack of an effective system.  The problem is that we don’t have good enough people responsible for the safety of our children.

According to the Colorado Trust Bullying Initiative, of students surveyed in 2008: * 57 percent reported verbal bullying * 33 percent reported physical bullying * 10 percent reported online bullying

We need laws that criminalize the behavior of bullies and of principals, counselors, teachers and school district administrators who put our children at risk by not stopping bullies.  And then we need people with courage who are willing to act.

If your children are the targets of bullies and school officials who aren’t protecting them, you need to take charge.  With expert coaching and consulting, we can become strong and skilled enough to overcome principals and other officials who won’t do what’s right.  We can plan tactics that are appropriate to us and to the situation.

“How to Stop Bullies in Their Tracks” and “Parenting Bully-Proof Kids,” have many examples of children and adults commanding themselves and then stopping bullies.  For more personalized coaching call me at 877-8Bullies (877-828-5543).

Stop Sneaky Bullies' Agenda Control

In his article in the New York Times, Erik Eckholm, points out that, “Alarmed by evidence that gay and lesbian students are common victims of schoolyard bullies, many school districts are bolstering their antiharassment rules with early lessons in tolerance.” The article continues, “Rick DeMato, pastor of Liberty Baptist Church, [who] opposes the curriculum changes in the school district in Helena, Mont. [has led] angry parents and religious critics…[to] charge that liberals and gay rights groups are using the antibullying banner to pursue a hidden ‘homosexual agenda,’ implicitly endorsing, for example, same sex marriage.”

What does this have to do with the devious tactics of sneaky, stealth bullies?

Stealth bullies win when they can change the subject to fit their agendas; when they can distract you from your subject and make the focus of discussion be something they want to discuss and over which they think they can win.

For example, suppose you complain about your date or spouse’s public or private sarcasm, put-downs and nasty, mocking humor.  If he’s a stealthy, manipulative bully, he might change the subject by saying that you’re hypersensitive and you over-react, or that you hurt his feelings by complaining.  If he can get you to focus on whether you’re hypersensitive or have no sense of humor or on making him feel better, then he wins and you lose.  You’ll never get him to stop making those remarks.

Or suppose you’re angry that he hit you.  If he’s a stealthy predator, he might complain that you didn’t communicate that in a supportive way or that you over-reacted or that you started it and you provoked him or that he felt put-down by your anger, which reminded him of his childhood.  And that’s the only thing he wants to talk about.  If he can get you to focus on your poor communication or his hurt feelings and past trauma, he wins and you lose.  He’ll never have to talk about your pain when he hit you and, since he has a good excuse for hitting you (his past trauma), he doesn’t have to change.

Notice the general rule: whoever controls the focus of the discussion will win.  Teenagers are also adept at doing this to their parents.

Therefore, you must take charge of the agenda.  Make him focus first on his sarcastic put-downs or on his hitting you.  And you have to be satisfied by the result before you’ll discuss his agenda.  If he doesn’t satisfy you, don’t go on to his agenda.  Go as far away as you can.

What does this have to do with the anti-bullying policies and programs we started with?

The initial agenda in those schools is stopping harassment, bullying and abuse of kids or adults.  The reason given by the bullies to justify their verbal, emotional and physical attacks was that their targets were gay or lesbian.  I pay more attention to the actions than to the excuses and justifications.  The agenda is stopping the bullying and violence.  The agenda is stopping the negativity, pain, anxiety and depression bullying causes.  The agenda is stopping the targets’ loss of self-confidence and self-esteem, and the increasing number of bullying-caused suicides.

Some people want to make the agenda be a torturous and emotionally-charged discussion of whether schools can be allowed to promote a pro-gay and pro-lesbian agenda.  And whether parents or educators control what’s taught in schools.

If those stealthy bullies can get you into those discussions, you’ll never stop school bullying.  They won’t have to stop their children from bullying and abusing other kids.  They feel that bullying and violence should be condoned or at least tolerated because the bullies have good reasons to torment their targets.  Since, they think, being gay or lesbian is a sin, if one of the targets becomes a victim and commits suicide, the world is a better place.

So keep the focus where it should be: anti-bullying programs that stop bullies.  When I’m called in to help schools develop effective programs, I always challenge dissenters to come up with a better program to stop bullies before we talk about areas that would distract us from the main agenda.

And in your personal and work life, take charge of the agenda and keep the focus on the subject that matters; stopping bullies in their tracks – whatever their reasons, excuses or justifications.

Guilt: Bad, Good; Unhealthy, Healthy; Useless, Effective

When is guilt bad; when is guilt good?  When is it a normal, healthy emotion and when is it harmful?  Most people try to answer these questions the wrong way.  And they forgot to consider how bullies try to use our guilt to harass and abuse us.  Most people analyze whether the guilt we feel in a particular situation is right, is what we should feel because we’re behaving or behaved badly, is normal because the average person should or would feel guilty for acting the same way. But let’s stand the approach on its head.

Let’s not judge the actions and situation by some external standards of right or wrong.  Instead, let’s look at guilt as if it’s a force for motivation, as if the purpose of guilt is to get us to do differently or better, as if we keep replaying the guilty feelings until we act to make things better, until we live up to our own standards.

When I think this way, the picture is much clearer.

• For most people, “bad, unhealthy, useless” guilt then becomes a major form of “self-bullying” that’s a waste of time.  We’re not proud of ourselves.  We run ourselves down, beat ourselves up, feel ashamed and harm ourselves.  Or we cover up the guilt, declare ourselves innocent and blame the other person.  We become righteous and indignant; it’s not our fault.  Or we wallow publicly in guilt, looking for sympathy.  But we don’t do better.  We keep repeating the actions we feel guilty about.  Wallowing in guilt, perfectionism and continued self-bullying increases stress and leads to loss of confidence, low self-esteem and depression.  And, eventually, we may even get a thrill from self flagellation.  We’ll resent people who take the fun out of our misery.
• “Good, healthy, effective” guilt leads us to do something productive.  We stop procrastinating, get over addictions, act better toward people, set boundaries we need, live up to our highest standards and make amends.  Some examples: we apologize for being nasty to our kids, spouse or partner and don’t do it again; we do the difficult chores at home or work that we’ve been avoiding; we give more generously to those in need; we pay our share; we return the stuff we’ve borrowed; we stop making sarcastic and catty remarks about our friends’ clothes, habits children and struggles to lose weight.  We know many specific situations in our own lives.
• What if people don’t feel guilt when they should?  Looking with this perspective, we can see them as not motivated to change and as being aboveboard at it.  I can trust that they don’t have the standards I do.  Good.  Now I know that I have to protect myself against them.  Many bullies act ashamed and contrite.  They promise to change and they bring candy, flowers and sweet words.  I look at the behavior.  If they don’t change, I wish them well in their therapy and rehabilitation, but I won’t go on that roller coaster ride with them.  The pain is too much.  From them, I have to protect the island my kids and I live on.  I vote them off our island, no matter what the relationship and their suffering, promises and claims that I owe them so much that I should allow them to abuse and brutalize me.
• How do bullies use our guilt?  Predators are always on the attack.  They try to get us to question the purity of our motives and past behavior.  Stealth bullies are especially effective at this.  Once we start questioning ourselves, our imperfections, self-doubt, negative self-talk, self-hatred and self-loathing will keep us stuck; weak and easy prey.  We won’t have the strength, courage and perseverance to stop them.  Before bullies would admit they need to change, they want us to waste our time trying to be perfect according to their standards.  For example, see the case studies of Carrie, Kathy and Ralph responding to guilt-tripping bullies in different situations in “How to Stop Bullies in Their Tracks.”
• Guilt is over-rated as a motivating force.  When we’re kids, we all try guilt to get us to do what we don’t want to.  Then we become afraid that if we stop whipping ourselves, we’ll become lazy, immoral and unfeeling slugs and failures.  But as adults, we can transition to motivation strategies that depend on the desire to do what’s good and right, and makes us joyful.

Joining our highest standards to our passion creates a different one of us, gives us a different motivating force and creates a different world for us.  Yes, that’s a big change.  But it’s a change we’ve hungered for.

How different our worlds would be if we stood up for ourselves, our families and what’s right because we are passionate in service to our best and strongest, not ashamed and guilty of what we did wrong?

Stop School Bullies: Use Laws, People, Programs

In their article in the New York Times, “There’s Only One Way to Stop a Bully,” Susan Engel and Marlene Sandstrom focus on the educational aspects of programs designed to stop school bullying.  Let’s look at the whole picture and especially at the piece that’s usually missing from ineffective school programs:

• Laws: Over 40 states have passed laws to specify school bullying behaviors and to make them illegal.  That’s a necessary step.  Good laws give legal leverage to principals, school district administrators and teachers who try to stop school bullies.  Good laws can also force reluctant school principals to implement and enforce effective programs to protect the targets of bullies.
• Programs: Laws, by themselves, will not stop bullying.  Also, expensive, off-the-shell anti-bullying programs won’t stop bullies as long as the programs remain in their binders and are used merely as window dressing to show the appearance of compliance.  Furthermore, programs that are focused on rehabilitating or therapeutizing bullies are ineffective.  Since the only consequence for bullies in these programs is lengthy lectures, they have no reason to change their behavior and they victimize their targets more brutally.  Real bullies are adept at manipulating the system and do-gooders who run it.  Effective programs are designed for specific schools and school districts by participation between a consultant, principal and teachers that broaden to include staff, parents and students.

• Effective Programs: The motivating force behind these programs is proactive, responsible adults who don’t wait until a flagrant case is brought to them or they are surprised by a suicide.  Effective programs educate teachers and all staff to observe, intervene and report bullying situations.  These programs educate all staff, children and parents about behavior that’s acceptable, how that behavior will be rewarded and how to stop behavior that absolutely won’t be tolerated.

Effective programs have clear procedures and consequences at every step of the way.  Ineffective programs move much too slowly; they protect the rights of bullies to have a lengthy process of rehabilitation while they give bullies continued access to their targets.  Effective programs begin with protecting the victims; they move swiftly to remove bullies even if that interferes with the bully’s educational opportunities.  These programs begin the first day of school and are reinforced weekly.

• People: Everyone must be involved in backing an effective program.  Irresponsible adults pretend that they don’t know who the bullies are or where it occurs or they think that the Golden Rule will change the hearts of real bullies.  Responsible adults will have a strong commitment to making their environment safe.  The children must be taught what is expected of them and how to respond if they’re bullied or if they witness bullying.  Kids must also have a way of finding help with temporary urges to act like a bully.

A critical group is parents.  Principals need core groups of parents to support efforts to stop bullies, despite threats from bullying parents.  Also, parents can lead the efforts to communicate and to set the tone of acceptable behavior with other parents.  Vigilance and involvement are necessary to maintain the standards.

• How to recognize real bullies.  If you think of all students as fitting on some version of a Bell curve, you’ll see that some kids won’t ever bully while most are in the middle group – they’ll accept the prevailing tone and behave in ways that are praised or tolerated.  That’s where education and a tone of no-bullying can influence their behavior.

But no matter how much they are indoctrinated, they’ll try bullying when they’re having a bad day or a bad year in their personal lives.  If they’re not stopped, they’ll be encouraged to continue and they’ll even act worse.  If cliques get formed to pick on scapegoats, these middle-ground kids will be tempted to join or at least to look the other way.  If the individuals in the cliques are stopped and punished, kids in that middle group will tend to remove themselves from the cliques and to fit into the prevailing tone of civilized behavior.

None of the kids in those two groups are what I call real bullies.  Real bullies are at the end of the curve.  They come into school with bullying as their main tactic to get what they want and to assert themselves.  They are predators who won’t change because of lectures and indoctrination.  They must be stopped or they’ll set the tone of acceptable behavior and draw other kids into bullying and abuse.

• The missing and critical elements: Stop bullies; remove them; deal with their bullying parents.  The “one way” Engel and Sandstrom focus on, like most experts in this field, is to educate bullies and encourage other students to befriend and involve the bullies in inclusive activities.  They stress expressions like “be good to one another,” “be kind,” “cooperate,” “relationship,” “friendship” and “bullies require our help more than punishment.  These are important for everyone to hear and they can set the tone for the kids in the first two groups but they’re not enough to stop real-world bullies.

The missing elements that are critical to stop predators are swift and firm responses of adults to remove and isolate bullies, and to let parents of bullies know what is going on and what behavior will not be tolerated.  Principals, teachers and staff set the tone by their actions, not their words.  They show what behavior will be accepted and what won’t.  Too often, principals won’t be straight forward, clear and firm with the parents of bullies.  Too often, principals take the path of least resistance because they’re afraid of bullying parents who threaten law suits.

Good programs also teach children how to “defend” and “stand up” for each other.  Good programs make children feel safe in becoming active witnesses instead of remaining passive bystanders or reluctant collaborators.

Stopping bullies is the first and necessary step to gain leverage to teach bullies that their old tactics won’t get them what they want.  It’s more important than knowing if bullies are seeking love or power, or have low self-esteem, or simply don’t know better.  When bullies discover that their old tactics no longer work, they’re more willing to learn new tactics to make their way in the world.

Real bullies are very strategic in their behavior; they harass, bully and abuse kids who the other kids won’t protect.  Or, like little scientists, they’ll bully a kid once and keep score of that kid’s response.  If the targeted kid is ineffective in stopping a bully, bullies will take that as an invitation to do whatever they want with impunity.  They’ll continue to increase the frequency and severity of the abuse until they’re stopped.

All kids know whether the adults will protect them or if they’re on their own in a jungle in which power, not right, rules.  Just as all students know who the bullies are and what areas of school are unsafe, examples of the consequences meted out to bullies will spread instantly.

Stop Abusive, Bullying, Toxic False-Friends

There are toxic people in every environment – toxic lovers, husbands, wives, parents, children, relatives, bosses and coworkers.  Many people let bullying friends continue abusing them because they want to maintain the friendship.  They won’t disagree with or hurt the feelings of the false-friend even if he or she’s a righteous, narcissistic control-freak. However, if you don’t stop these bossy, self-centered bullies, they’ll increase your anxiety and stress, harass you and make your life miserable, take over your life and eventually turn other friends against you.

Joan had a problem with her friend Shelly.  Shelly was sure that she knew what’s right about everything and was intent on straightening out Jane.  She told Jane that Jane was a failure because of numerous character flaws; that’s why Jane’s children were not as successful as Shelly’s.  She said that if Jane didn’t do things the way Shelly told her, Jane’s part-time business would fail and Jane would be a failure her whole life.

Shelly corrected Jane about every detail; how Jane dressed, what she ate, who she talked to, what she read and where she went to church.  She also knew how Jane should behave to prove she was a true friend to Shelly.  If Jane didn’t change, Shelly either cried or got very indignant and angry.

Shelly was always convinced she was absolutely right and perceptive enough to recognize Jane’s hidden fears.  Faced with Shelly’s certainty and a few accurate remarks by her, Jane was thrown into self-questioning and self-doubt.  She agonized that maybe Shelly was right.  It was hard to argue against Shelly’s righteousness and total conviction.  As soon as Jane started, Shelly got angry and rebutted every one of Jane’s objections with reasonable sounding answers.  Or Shelly changed the subject and verbally attacked Jane.  Jane could never convince Shelly that she was wrong or that she was a self-righteous bully.

Also, selfish Shelly was the center of attention.  Most of their conversation was about Shelly’s emotional melodrama.  Only at the very end did Shelly pause to tell Jane where she was wrong.

The few times Jane has brought up a problem of Shelly’s, Shelly attacked Jane, claiming that Jane was jealous of Shelly or that Jane once did what she didn’t want Shelly to do.

After every conversation with Shelly, Jane felt discouraged, depressed and defeated.  She was afraid that if she told Shelly what she really felt, she’d lose her best friend.

Every situation is different; every situation has complications that limit possible solutions.  Solutions to each situation will have to be designed specifically for the people involved.  For example, in Jane’s case, she was afraid that if she argued or disagreed with Shelly, Shelly would sabotage Jane to all their friends. However, there is a general rule: The longer you accept the righteous put-downs and control by a bullying, abusive false-friend, the more your confidence and self-esteem will be battered.  You must gather the will and determination to act.  You must learn skills of planning and successfully executing effective tactics.

The key to Jane’s breaking free was to see that Shelly was an abusive bully, not a true friend.  Jane realized that true friends don’t act the way Shelly did.  That realization gave Jane the will – the determination, perseverance and grit – to be honest with Shelly.  Jane realized that the friendship she might lose was one that hurt, even though Shelly called it “best friends.”  Jane also prepared herself and her other friends for what Shelly was likely to do in retaliation.

Jane didn’t argue, debate or try to prove to Shelly that she was a bully.  Jane simply stated how people had to act in order to be her friend and to be in her personal space.  Shelly was shocked that Jane finally found the backbone.  Of course, Shelly was convinced that Jane was wrong.  Shelly tried to turn their friends against Jane, but Jane’s preparation paid off.  The friends had had similar experiences with Shelly.

For another example, in “How to Stop Bullies in Their Tracks,” see how Tammy stopped a false-friend who tried to force food down Tammy’s throat even though Tammy was trying to diet.

Toxic, righteous, controlling, bullying, abusive false-friends usually don’t change.  The relief and freedom you feel when you clear them out of your environment tells you that it was worth the effort.  You’ve reclaimed your spirit and your life.

Twilight: New Moon Star, Taylor Lautner, Stopped School Bullies

Rolling Stone reports how “Twilight: New Moon” star Taylor Lautner stopped school bullies.  Taylor told Rolling Stone, “I was never extremely confident.  Because I was an actor, when I was in school there was a little bullying going on.  Not physical bullying but people making fun of what I do.  But Taylor says the bullies didn’t stop him from taking on the role of Jacob in Twilight: New Moon, which transformed him into a Hollywood heartthrob.” How did Taylor stop the bullies and do what he wanted to do?

There are two critical steps to keep bullies from wounding or scarring you, or from stopping your dreams in life:

1. Developing a mind-set that’s strong enough to help you thrive.  You don’t accept what bullies say as true or meaningful or predictive of your future.  You don’t let bullies get to you.  You develop mental and emotional toughness and grit.  You don’t let their views or words decrease your self-esteem or self-confidence.  You’re not harassed or abused inwardly by their negativity.  You don’t become an emotional victim.  You see them for the jerks they are.  You set your mind and heart on the future you want to create.  You keep a spark of hope and resolution alive.  You know you’ll get away from jerks like that when you grow up.  You find heroes that inspire your emotional strength, courage and endurance.
2. Developing real-world tactics that are effective for you.  You have complete choice depending on the situation and the styles you want to try.  You don’t use the nine tactics that fail to stop relentless bullies.  Instead, you might respond with snappy come-backs of your own.  You might form your own clique of people who think you’re fine and worth being friends with.  Depending on the type of bullying, you might get your parents and the principal and teachers involved.  You might beat them up.  I know that lots of people will cringe at that.  But it works.  Ask people who were successful against bullying.

Taylor commented only the first step.  He said: “I just had to tell myself I can't let this get to me. This is what love to do. And I'm going to continue to do it.”  That was good enough.

Notice the difference between his mental and emotional strength, and his resilience, and the kids who are wounded and scarred all their lives by taunting, or who commit suicide.

Sometimes a mentor, model or coach is crucial.  It could be a wise parent, an athletic coach or a practical, life coach who keeps your spirits strong.

Think of the wonderful interaction that helped Michael Oher, as described in “The Blind Side.”  Even though the movie downplays his knowledge of football (he had studied the game since he was 10), notice the support of Michael by people who believed in him and were skilled enough to nurture his will and fighting spirit.

We may not be as handsome as Taylor, but that’s irrelevant.  We can be as mentally and emotionally strong in resisting the stupid opinions, harassment and abuse by vicious bullies.