Parenting: Prepare the road or the child?

Nobody wants their children to be bullied.  We all want responsible school officials to stop bullying at their schools.  We all want other parents to teach their children not to be bullies.  We all want other kids to be witnesses and defenders when necessary. We all want the road smoothed for our children.

Of course we must do what we can to prepare the road with good enough laws and with clear requirements to hold school principals and district administrators accountable.

But since no amount of effort or number of laws against bullying in any of its forms – verbal, mental, emotional, physical, cyberbullying – will ever stop mean kids or their protective parents from bullying their targets, what can we do for our children?

Good parenting also requires us to prepare our children for the roads they’ll encounter.

Report to school officials but that’s only the second task. For example, Tom came home complaining that some other kids called him names, mocked his clothes, belittled his taste in music and even put down the way his parents looked and dressed.  His parents blew up and went to school the next day to have it out with the principal.  Since they ranted and raved and wanted the kids beaten in public or at least thrown out of school, they got no where.

Then they focused all their energy on the road – they wrote angry letters to the media, organized other parents and tried to get the principal fired.

Focus first on preparing the child. Tom asked, “Why do my friends call me retarded, gay, stupid, ugly?  Why don’t they like me?  What am I doing wrong?”  He was taking it personally; as if the other kids had the correct taste or accurate perceptions, and he was somehow being tested and failing. He thought there must be something wrong with him.  He was getting negative, uncertain and angry.  He was losing his confidence and self-esteem.

We rapidly found out however, that his friends at school weren’t saying these things.  The bullies were kids who really didn’t know Tom.

So we prepared Tom with his lessons for the real world.

• There will be jerks who target you, but that doesn’t make you a victim.  Victims give in and give up.  Victims feel isolated and helpless.  Victims get depressed and commit suicide.
• You’re okay; don’t take it personally.  There’s nothing wrong with you.  They don’t know you.  Test them – are they nice or are they jerks?  If they’re jerks, their opinion doesn’t tell you about you; it tells you about them.  Don’t ever let jerks control your feelings or emotions.
• Choose to be upbeat – courageous, strong, determined.  Be happy while you learn how to stop them.  Keep a fire burning in your heart.
• Stand up; speak up.  Use your talent and learn new skills.  Come back at them verbally.  Use humor; especially sarcastic humor.  Speak your piece.  Fight back if necessary.
• Get your allies to act.  Tell your parents; tell your favorite, trustworthy teachers.  Get help.  Test your friends.  Are they real friends or are they just acquaintances or “friendlies” who hang out?  If they don’t care enough to get involved, they’re not friends.

Parents, be smart in how you prepare and fix the road. I’m all for fixing the road.  Just be smart about it.  The summer is the best time to prepare the road.  Work with principals, teachers and parents to develop clear and strong policies and programs.  Hit the ground running when school stats in fall.  Get the kids involved so they become witnesses and defenders.  Make it a whole community effort.

Prepare yourself so that when there’s an incident, like happened with Tom, you know what to do and can do it without being overwhelmed by your emotions.  Have a checklist.  Is it a one-time argument or on-going harassment, bullying and abuse?  What are the power dynamics?  What evidence can you get?  Does it happen to other kids?  Can you get witnesses?

Prepare the friends and their families. None of Tom’s friends defended him.  They wouldn’t even be witnesses until we talked with them and their parents.  Then they saw the power of choice and of standing together.

Parenting: Prepare the road or the child? Don’t make it an either-or choice.  Prepare both.  Prepare your children to teach your grandchildren.  Do you doubt they’ll also have to learn to stop bullies?

Stop Bullying by Toxic, Adult Children

Stopping bullying by toxic parents and grandparents is only one side of the coin.  The other side is to stop bullying of parents by adult children who are toxic users and abusers. I’ll focus on the adult children who:

• Make poor decisions and try bully their parents to bail them out time after time.
• Still yell at or even hit their middle-aged parents just like they did when they were teenagers.
• Extort money from their parents in return for allowing them to see the grandchildren.

I won’t go into the abuse of elderly or senile parents, nor into situations in which the child is disabled or retarded and will need parental care for life.

For parents, this is one of the most heart-wrenching situations; to see that your adult children are:

• Still incompetent and failing.
• Still trying to manipulate or coerce you, long after they should have become independent and work to get what they want from the world.
• Characterless, nasty, abusive adults – entitled, blaming, narcissistic, weak and desperate.

Of course we parents think we’re at fault.  We can self-bully until we feel guilt and shame.  “Where did we go wrong?”  And of course those selfish, manipulative children try to increase those feelings so that we’ll continue giving them what they want.

Although it’s now too late to begin when your children were young, getting an idea about what we could have done then might help us now. Parenting experts for the last generation have falsely assumed and wrongly encouraged people to think that if they kept protecting their immature, irresponsible children from consequences and kept giving them infinite second changes, the children would eventually mature and develop confidence, self-respect and self-esteem.  They would become competent and independent adults.

Of course, a few children do change and become responsible when they’re coddled.  But this strategy encourages most children to remain weak and needy, expecting to be supported for life if they’re in trouble.  The best way to produce spoiled brats (at any age) is to give them what they want.

Instead, you must not let your heart guide your actions.  You must let them fail and bear the consequences, no matter how hard.  You must keep reminding them that they will need to take care of themselves; they will be dependent on their own judgment and effort.  This is not an all-or-none shift.  There should be a gradual shift as they pass from elementary school to middle or junior high school.

In a loving and firm way, encourage them to learn how the world works and to do their best, but stop protecting them.  I think of that in the same way I think of helping plants get hardy enough to survive in temperate zones – we leave them out longer and longer in chilly nights.

Although there are too many brutal, abusive, uncaring, selfish, demanding parents, the biggest mistake I see parents make is to coddle their children way too long.

Don’t use the word, “supportive;” it’s too non-specific.  Be specific; give them encouragement to work hard and live poor if they can’t do better.  But don’t be a friend, don’t be a bank, don’t be a 7-11.

As for the shame and guilt you might feel because the children didn’t turn out the way you’d hoped; give it up.  They have free will.  By the time they’re adults they make their own choices.  Truthfully, how much success did any of us have giving advice to teenagers?  They listen to their own drumbeat; just like we did, whether our parents liked it or not. So what can we do now?  The same thing we should have done back then: cut them off economically.  Ignore promises; behavior counts.  Give your treats to the independent, self-supporting children who don’t need them.  Don’t give them to the irresponsible children who depend on and demand them.

Don’t let them yell, shove or hit you; don’t let them harass or abuse you.  Hang up or throw them out immediately.  Remember, we’re adults; we must demand civilized behavior on our islands.  If they can’t be polite, they can’t be on our islands.

Make a family rule: we get together to have a good time, not to straighten each other out, or review our bank balances, or complain, whine or blame.  Keep offering fun when you get together.  Stop offering advice or money.

Don’t debate or argue about what’s right or fair.  We suffered enough of those when they were teenagers.  It’s your money, you get to do what you want with it; they’re not entitled to anything.

Of course, your heart will bleed, but keep that to yourself.  Worry, cry and pray in private.  Remind them that it’s their lives and they have to succeed on their own.

With the grandchildren, we have two paths.  The first is to remain firm and suffer the consequences when they withhold the grandchildren.  We all know the truth about blackmail and extortion: bullies raise the price and there will be no end to it.  If they deny you access to the grandchildren; write, call, send presents and keep records.  You’ll make your case when the grandchildren turn 18.

The second path is to purchase time with your beloved grandchildren in hopes that you can have an effect on them so they won’t turn out like your children did.  Expect the price in money and abuse of you to increase with time.  Unfortunately, the grandchildren usually learn to hold you up for what they want.

There is no instant and easy cure.  Your children have free will.  They have chosen and can continue to choose to be weak and irresponsible.  You didn’t cause it, although you might have enabled it by giving them too much.  They can try to drag you under when they flail around because they think they’re drowning.  Don’t let them drag you under.

For a clear example, read in “How to Stop Bullies in Their Tracks,” the study of how Paula slowly succeeded with her teenage daughter, Stacy,