Turning bullies into buddies

ISN'T IT WONDERFUL? The country has declared war on bullies! Schools all over the country are adopting anti-bullying policies and soon all kids will be able to go to school without fear of bullies. Good luck with that.

Do you have two or more children? If so, there is a very good chance that they bully each other every day, perhaps even all day long, and all your efforts to stop them are useless. If you cannot stop your own offspring from bullying one another, can you really expect one teacher to get 20 or 30 kids to stop doing it?

Often, school anti-bullying policies actually intensify the bullying among students while turning educational institutions into law enforcement agencies. The teachers have to do investigations into incidents. (In most cases, no one is even hurt.) Parents do not like to have their child accused of being a bully, so they tend to take his or her side against the other child. Before long, two or more sets of parents are fighting each other. Parents often blame teachers for doing nothing to stop the bullying, and teachers often defend themselves by blaming the parents for raising aggressive kids. Distraught principals then find themselves in the rotten situation of playing judge--not only between kids, but angry adults as well.

The following generally is what happens when grownups try to make youngsters stop fighting. Let's say you are my classmate and you hit me. I tell the teacher and you get punished. Does that make you like me? No. Does it make you like the teacher? No. Instead, it makes you hate both of us. You want to get even. So, you will look for the next opportunity to hit me again, and you will want to do it even harder than before, or you will try to get me in trouble with the teacher. Meanwhile, the teacher thinks she is making us stop fighting. She does not realize she is making us continue fighting. This process is identical when parents get in the middle of the squabbles between siblings at home.

So, be careful what you wish for. If you want the government to hold schools legally responsible for stopping the bullying among students, the next step may be to hold you responsible for stopping the bullying that goes on with your kids at home.

If you are waiting for the schools to make other kids stop bullying your child, your son or daughter may stay a victim for a very long time. Yet, if adults cannot stop youngsters from being bullied, who can? There is only one person in the world who can perform that feat--your child. You may think it is impossible for your offspring to do this, but it actually is effortless once your youngster learns how. The solution has been around for ages. It was put in our Constitution, through the Bill of Rights, by our Founding Fathers, for everyone to use and enjoy. The solution is called freedom of speech.

Children believe they get bullied because of their differences or imperfections: they are fat or thin, tall or short, gay or gay-looking, lousy at sports, freckle-faced, physically handicapped, in Special Education, or a different race or religion than most other kids--but these are not the real reasons. There are kids who are tat, skinny, tall, short, etc. who do not get bullied. On the other hand, there are many youngsters who are smart, good looking, talented, etc., and they get picked on all the time.

So, why does it happen to some kids and not to others who seem to be just like them? There is only one reason--and it always is the same. It happens because of a simple mistake that anyone can make and, once you do, the torment can go on forever. What is the mistake? Getting upset when you are bullied. No one continues to get bullied if the bullying does not bother them. No matter what your imperfections or differences are, people will not continue to harass you for long if it does not upset you when they try.

How can you teach your child to stop being teased? Easier said than done, you may be thinking, but there are many ways, and they all involve teaching the practice of freedom of speech. Perhaps the most effective is what I call "The Verbal Bullying Experiment." It goes like this: Tell your child, "We are going to play a game. Your job is to call me an idiot (or any other insult), and my job is to make you stop. If I can stop you, I win and you lose." When the insults begin, get angry and yell at your child to stop. You will discover that he or she will keep on insulting you while laughing gleefully. After a while, say, "I give up." Then ask, "So, if you want to insult me, can I make you stop?" Your child will say, "No." Then tell your son or daughter you are going to play the same game again. This time, do absolutely nothing to stop the insults. Say things like, "If you want to insult me, it is perfectly okay," and "You can insult me all day long if you like." Your child will probably stop in a matter of seconds.

Emphasize to your offspring, "You thought I could not stop you, but look how quickly and easily I did!" Explain that, when you were getting angry and wing to make the insults cease, you actually were making the insults continue. The second time, though, when you were letting your child insult you, you actually were making the insults stop. It was much harder for your son or daughter to insult you when you allowed the insults to continue. You have demonstrated the power of freedom of speech. Your child will probably be eager to try this with the kids in school; the verbal attacks should end in a few days.