Bullying

How do you respond when your child is being bullied? When your child hears and experiences another child’s (or grown up’s) hurtful words, it is painful for you too. Sometimes those words come from a family member, a classmate, and sometimes they come from a child they just met a few minutes ago.

As you see your child escalating into frustration, it’s natural to step in and try to help by saying things like, “Oh sweetie, that is not true.” Or, “You do not deserve that.” You may even criticize the person hurting their feelings.

You’re not your kiddo's emotional manager

Quick-fix responses to bullying may settle feelings down in the short-term, but they’ll keep you in the role of managing all your kiddos difficult emotions. Continuing to do this repeatedly leaves your child unable to handle hurtful words without you.

Instead, you can empower your kiddos to be thoughtful and resilient. They will inevitably experience tough stuff in this damaged world. They need wise words, sheltering them doesn't do them justice. The brain works to quickly and efficiently label our experiences good or bad.

The problem is, all-or-nothing thinking is not helpful and leads to big emotional reactions or poor decisions. Research reveals that all-or-nothing thinking is also more common in those with mental health issues like depression and anxiety.

When someone hurts your kiddos feelings, use that as an opportunity to teach them forgiveness, self-awareness and share wisdom you have on the topic of resilience.

“Trash, Truth, Treasure”

Whether the stress comes from what others have said, what they are thinking about, or a situation they are facing, you can help them to navigate mean comments. The idea of trash, truth, treasure is, you can help your kids differentiate between these experiences and thoughts into three categories: hurtful trash, helpful truth, and heartful treasure. This exercise is making them more mature as they learn to navigate hard feelings.

Helping kids think effectively about what others have said to them is a good starting place for developing their maturity, because it’s obvious and concrete. Over time, you can build on that concept to address other challenges of what a child is believing about themselves or a situation they’re going through.

The next time one of your kids is on the receiving end of mean words, instead of trying to argue with the statements, you can respond with, “That was kind of a hard thing to hear, wasn’t it?” Or if your child is really upset, “Oh, you’re having big feelings about that right now.”

Give your kiddo some time to let themselves feel. This is very important, so instead of shutting down your kiddos see this as a helpful tool to them. Then you may say, “When you’re ready, I can help.”

When they are ready, you can guide them out of black-and-white thinking toward a better perspective. Explain each concept of Trash-Truth-Treasure to your kiddo and then choose a question that would go with the situation.

Trash: Unkind, false statements that can hurt our feelings if we allow it to. When we are hurt by others, there are almost always by untrue statements. These are often spoken by someone whose angry with the world but sometimes people can hurt others intentionally. Either way, if something is false and mean, it has zero value. Simply stated, it’s “trash” and should be disregarded!

To make this concept stick for your kiddo, you can ask what was said, and then ask, "do you believe what they said is mean and untrue?" Another way is to have your kiddo write down the mean words on a piece of paper (if they are old enough) and then throw the paper in the garbage can. The long-term benefit is the future use of the question "Was that the truth?" and use the statement "throw it in trash" and they understand.

You can explain, “When throwing these words in the trash, you are saying you don’t want mean, false statement about yourself stuck in your head and heart. Hurt people, hurt people. Remind your kiddo of this.

When hurtful words are mean but true

Sometimes trash and truth are mixed together. This might happen if there is helpful truth in something that was said harshly. Consider if someone says this to your child, “You’re such a baby! You always have a tantrum when you lose.” Then he says something back like, “I'm not a baby. You’re a baby!”

For both kids and adults, learning to separate trash from truth is a life-changing skill. The best way to teach is to lead by example so tell your kiddos about anytime you went through bullying or any form of criticism from others. This allows you to see hard, but helpful truths.

Helpful truth provides insights that put the situation into perspective. This includes knowing that hurtful words came from a kiddo who has a really rough home life. Understanding the situation can ease the sting when they experience hurtful trash. It can also grow compassion and a belief in your kiddo that, “This wasn’t about me, it was about something going on in my friend heart because hurt people, hurt people"

Helpful questions to “Respond to the Truth”:

• Why do you think this person might have been mean?

• Was something said that was true that you could use learn from this situation?

• What help do you need?

Heartful Treasure: Truths that encourage us and make us feel good.

Life will throw hardships at us. “Heartful Treasure” are truths that encourage you and grow your confidence “Heartful Treasure” can simply be practical things:

• good qualities or strengths your child knows are true

• their development and progress

• their loved ones

• the ways they are kind and helpful to others.

When you or your kiddo are going through feelings of hurt or discouragement, what heart-filling statements will make you feel better?

To make this concept stick you can work with your kiddo to write treasure statements on pieces of paper and put them in a keepsake jar, or have them journal, or use a poster. Be sure to work on your own jar at the same time, and model standing firm on the truth when you are discouraged or hurt by someone.

How do you respond to hurtful comments and criticism?

Share with your kiddos your experience and celebrate the tiny steps of growth. When kiddos learn this skill, they are learning something most adults struggle with! Reinforce their confidence by saying: “When people say mean things, you can figure out what’s really true and what to do! Then you can learn and grow instead of letting your hurt or anger control you.”

Learning this concept will help to prepare them to face challenges in life including conflict between siblings, peer pressure and social media. You may even notice them being more thoughtful about what they say to others!

What about when the mean words come from ourselves?

Worse than another child's mean words, negative thinking can hurt them too. If you are careful to validate your child’s feelings, then you can use this format to help your child with hurtful thinking, thoughts rooted in anger or anxiety.

Help your child identify the Trash, Truth, and Treasure in the middle of anxious thoughts

These three categories can also help kids struggling with anxiety. It prepares them to be resilient.

Break the pattern of negative thinking and hurtful comments

Model identifying the Trash, Truth, and Treasure in the critical or hurtful comments from others, and in the thoughts you let yourself believe. Negative beliefs have to be carefully identified and worked through, so we don’t give them power. Most adults still struggle with this. This is good because this way your kiddo can watch you learn and grow too.

You can model for your kiddo what it looks like to struggle and grow from the process of identifying and replacing hurtful words, comments, and negative thinking with healing thoughts. This builds a more graceful and more truthful family culture. Your kiddos will grow up knowing how to let go of the lies that are so easy to believe about themselves and others, and how to replace them with the truth.