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).

Stop Bullies: Will Knowing Why Bullies Keep Abusing Us Help Us Stop Them?

One of the questions I’m most often asked is, “Why Do Bullies Keep Abusing Us?” I hear that from:

• Kids who want to stop bullies and cvber bullies at school.
• Adults who want to stop bullying in their love lives or in relationships with their siblings, parents and friends.
• Adults who don’t understand why their teenagers are so demanding, nasty and surly.
• Adults who want to stop bullying at work by managers and co-workers.

That question is usually asked in the context of, “I’m a nice person; I don’t deserve to be treated that way.  Why is that person so nasty to me?”

The apparent perplexity behind the question comes from the idea that we’re supposed to get what we put out, not only in interactions with those we love, who also love us, but also in interactions with everyone in the world.  As if, if we’re nice we’re supposed to be treated nicely in return.  These people forget that bullies have different agendas and methods.

The hidden fears behind the question are:

1. “Maybe I have done something to deserve being harassed and abused; maybe it really is my fault.”  Of course, people thinking this way are usually riddled by self-doubt and negative self-talk.  Their hidden hope is, “If I knew what I’d done wrong, I could apologize, do what the bully wants, and then they’d treat me nicely.”  Their hidden anger comes from deep knowledge, “I didn’t do anything wrong; how dare that bully treat me that way!”
2. “If the world is so unfair, it’s out of my control.”  Of course, people thinking this way are afraid that they’re not strong enough to thrive in a world that’s dangerous, unpredictable and uncontrollable.  Their hidden hope is that they could control the world if only they learned the magic secrets.  Their hidden anger comes from the sense that, “I didn’t ask for this kind of world; I’m entitled to something better and more rational.”

Before I answer “Why do bullies keep abusing us,” let’s understand what bullying is about in a way that helps us stop bullies in their tracks.  Distinguish between two questions:

1. Why do children try bullying tactics?
2. Why do they keep bullying as they grow up?

The way I look at it, babies and children naturally take or demand what they want; they naturally try bullying tactics.  That’s necessary for their survival – babies must make us feed and change them whether we want to or not.  Children’s survival-level job is to figure out how to get us to give them what they want.

Impulses to bully come up all the time, in all of us.  It feels good to be a strong and powerful and simply take what we want.  Unless kids are taught how to feel good or how to get what they want by other methods, they’ll continue bullying.

Parents train children how to get what they want; which means how to bully, manipulate, harass or abuse people, or how to negotiate with us to give them what they want.  We train them to keep using bullying tactics or to try other methods.

There are three general reasons why children grow up and continue using bullying techniques.

1. Bullying is what they see – they see one or both parents bullying successfully or it’s the only tactic they know.  Their parents and family don’t teach them not to bully and also don’t teach them better ways to get what they want.
2. They keep bullying because bullying succeeds – well-meaning parents, principals and teachers don’t say “No” and they don’t stop the bullying.  Sometimes, we may let bullies succeed while we’re negotiating with them or because we’re too tired and worn down to be strong.  You’ve seen parents teach children to get cookies, candy or toys by yelling loud enough, throwing hysterical fits or simply taking it from a younger or smaller kid.
3. There’s a small group of sociopaths and psychopaths who won’t be teachable in any reasonable length of time, if ever.

Many people say that “Children become bullies because they have low self-esteem.  To make themselves feel better, they bully people who are weaker.”  This is usually followed by the hope that, “If I understand why bullies bully, I’ll be able to teach bullies why bullying is wrong, and then they’ll stop bullying.”  These people typically allow bullies to continue abusing their targets, while they educate, beg, bribe, appease or therapeutize bullies.

Instead, take the focus away from psychotherapy of bullies and focus on stopping bullying first.  Teach your kids to protect themselves from kids who haven’t learned impulse control or to use other means to navigate in the world.  After you stop the bullying, then you can spend all the time you want rehabilitating individual bullies.  As you well know, rehabilitating bullies can take a long time; let’s protect target children and adults right now. Educating bullies begins with stopping them.  Their main motivation for learning new tactics is when the old methods no longer succeed.

So why do bullies keep abusing us: Because they’re not stopped by the responsible adults.  Also, the responsible adults don’t train the targets and bystanders how to stop the bullies.  In addition, principals, teachers and parents often punish the targets for taking matters into their own hands, tongues or fists.

The secret to stopping bullies is to stop them.  Be as firm as you need – bullies will show you what you must do to stop them.

Stop Relentless Bullies and Psychopaths Who Take Advantage of Your Politeness

We all recognize as bullies, brutes (male or female) at work or in our love and family lives who hit people or threaten physical violence.  But more bullies get away with their harassment, bullying and abuse by taking advantage of their victims’ rules about politeness. In her article in the Miami Herald, “It's time to get our behavior under control,” Robin Sarantos uses television’s “House” as an example of rude, inconsiderate, arrogant, discourteous, entitled behavior.  He eats other people’s food, searches his boss’ desk, reads a coworkers email, yells at and blames his coworkers.  And we’re supposed to think he’s funny because he’s a wonderful doctor.

But would you enjoy working with someone like him, who goes into your desk, listens to your private calls, says demeaning things about you, curses, cheats, stabs you in the back and spreads gossip and rumors?  Would you enjoy dating or being best friends with someone like that?

Do you enjoy the family members who come for the holidays or family occasions with their vicious, nasty, jealous tongues?  Do you enjoy exposing yourself to greedy, sarcastic or loud mouthed relatives?

What kind of loving relationship could you have with someone who puts you down, exposes your secrets, harasses you or makes cutting remarks with a smile and a laugh – pretending he’s just having a little fun or claiming that you’re too sensitive or can’t take a joke?

Often, when confronted by their smiling viciousness, we’re confused by the double message and think, “Maybe they don’t know how much what they said hurts,” or “If I say something, it’ll sound whiny or nasty.”  Many of us, when we’re surprised, shocked, baffled and stunned, revert to one of the three primitive human responses: We freeze.  And then it’s too late to protest.  Fear not, those bullies will always give you more chances.

Don’t be blinded by romantic feelings of love, or by family duty, or by your fear of a powerful person at work. Politeness doesn’t stop relentless bullies or psychopaths.  Relentless bullies don’t take your hesitation, politeness and passivity as a kindly invitation to respond with civility.  They take your lack of resistance as an invitation to bully you more.  They’re like jackals that sense easy prey.  The problem is not that they’re ignorant of social conventions: They know exactly what they’re doing: Pushing you around and getting away with it.

How do we know the difference between a relentless, abusive bully and a well-meaning person who stepped on our toes by accident?  It’s easy: Look for a pattern.

Well-meaning people who accidently said something hurtful, feel bad, apologize sincerely, make amends and promise not to do that again.  And they don’t do it again.  The last step is the key one: They don’t repeat the behavior.

Bullies will minimize what they did, or justify their actions by blaming on some fault of ours, or go through many of the steps of apologizing.  But they don’t make real amends and they don’t stop.  When bullies whack us and buy us candy or flowers, they’re simply bribing us to be available the next time they want to whack us.

The initial steps in resisting are easy.  We must react.  We may say “Ouch” or we may ask them nicely to stop.  If they’re well-meaning people, they’ll apologize and they won’t behave that way again.  If they’re bullies, we’ll have to do the more difficult work of being more firm and forceful.  Sometimes we can embarrass them to stop the bullying, but with relentless bullies we have to find real consequences that stop them.

If we ignore or minimize, if we beg or bribe them, if we appeal to their civility and manners, we’re asking to be whacked again.

These smiling bullies and control freaks actually produce more bullying incidents than the overt bullies who use violence.  Stop them or live like a frightened deer while they abuse your mind, heart and spirit.

Whose Fault was the Columbine High School Massacre?

Whose fault was the killings at Columbine High School?  And how can we help our children resist bullies, not become bullies themselves and thrive after horrible killings? Next week will be the tenth anniversary of the massacre at Columbine High School.  A recent book by Peter Langman, "Why Kids Kill: Inside the Minds of School Shooters," analyzes the killers in this and other shootings.  Already the media is gearing up for an analytic retrospective.  There will be an orgy of hand-wringing and finger-pointing.

Seven of the most common targets of blame are:

1. It was the bullies’ fault.  Had they not pushed Harris and Klebolt over the edge, the boys would have remained good citizens.
2. It was the fault of the parents of the bullies.  They didn’t stop their children from abusing Harris and Klebolt.
3. It was the school’s fault.  Had the principal stopped the bullying of Harris and Klebolt, they would not have turned into killers.
4. It was the fault of the parents of the killers.  Had they raised their kids better, they wouldn’t have become killers.  Had they seen what their children had become, they would have had them incarcerated or committed.
5. It was the fault of Harris and Klebolt.  They were psychopathic, psychotic killers who twisted and resisted every attempt to help or to stop them.
6. It was the fault of a society that is violent and corrupt.  Had the teenagers’ minds not been filled with violent images, they would have been peaceful.
7. It was the fault of a society that has lost its connection with God.  If our society was more God-fearing, the boys would have grown up with good morals and not have turned into killers.

Typically, we approach problems with the scientific method: determine what went wrong, fix the bad part and the system will run effectively.  That method works well on purely physical material – billiard balls, cars, sending spaceships to the moon – but it is totally misleading when applied to the living world, especially to humans.  I’m not the first to say this.  Blaise Pascal said it 400 years ago.  He was right.

Looking to blame and then fix one part of human life is the wrong way to go.  It leads us to think that we can isolate one or a few causes and fix them.  It leads us to think we can easily fix the school system or our society and then there will be no abuse or crazy killers and no massacres.

Of course, we don’t want kids to bully other kids.  And we need laws to force principals to stop bullying at their schools and also to protect good principals from suits brought against them by parents wanting to protect their bullying children.  And we want to recognize and rehabilitate kids with criminal tendencies sooner.  And we want a society that is more clear and consistent about not massacring other citizens.   And we want a society with more ethical and moral citizens.

Our efforts to change our school and legal system are necessary, useful and laudable, but they are not a solution that will prevent future massacres.

Face reality.  Bullies, psychopaths and killers are like the weather – they’ve always been with us and always will be.  We can’t change the weather any more than we can completely prevent massacres and tragedies.  Assigning blame won’t change that.  The way we deal with the inevitable changes in the weather or the next blizzard that will hit Denver in April or May is to prepare ourselves so we’re not caught off guard or helpless.

The useful question for us is how we prepare our children and teenagers for a world in which they will face crazy, violent people.  One of our tasks is to teach our children not to use bullying tactics to make themselves feel good or to get what they want.  Another task is to teach them to be resilient in the face of bullying and how to stop bullies in their tracks.  Obviously, Harris and Klebolt never learned this.

The hardest task for parents is to recognize when our children have gone bad and to do something about it.  It would be asking a lot to expect parents to say, “My kid is crazy and might go on a killing spree.  Please lock him up.”  It would also be asking a lot for school administrators to say the same.  Yet that is exactly what we want to ask of Harris and Klebolt’s parents.  And also what we must ask of ourselves.

Answering these difficult questions will help us teach our children better than hand wringing or assigning blame.