The Role of the Bystander in School Bullying

            Whenever my colleagues and I get invited to schools or other venues to talk to parents, one of the most common questions we get would be something related to bullies.  How can I stop a classmate from bullying my child?  How do I talk to parents so they can discipline their child to stop bulling my child?  We are thinking of pulling out our child from school because he/she is being bullied?  Where is the best place to put my child so that he/she is not victim to bullying?  Interestingly, we seldom get questions where parents admit that their child is a bully and what kind of help their child needs.  

            I must admit that bullying is one of the most difficult problems to deal with.  There are no easy answers.  If we are going to have any success in minimizing it, we have to get everyone involved.  Yes, I suggest a systemic approach, as bullying is not a problem of an individual; it is a problem of an entire environment where it is happening.  The problem is not the bully per se, the problem is the environment that allows bullying to happen. 

            Let me begin by saying that violence and hurtful behavior is not inherent in any child.  It is absolutely learned from one’s environment.  A child learns to hurt another child.  Sometimes, this happens in the home—when a child is discipline using corporal punishment, for instance.  Other times, they see it on television or from other children around them.  And so, interventions must not only focus on the victim of bullying, but the bully him/herself as well. 

            School bullying often happens in the presence of peers, and quite invisible to the adults.  As such, the bystander—often peers—must be taught to identify when bullying happens and what they can do.  In this systemic approach, the bystander plays the most crucial role.  They need to be empowered to give a voice to the victim and to step in so the bullying stops.  In all actions, the bystander must take a stand against bullying.  Here are some behaviors that the bystander can do: 

·         Say something to stop the bully, such as, “Pick someone your own size!”

·         Tell the victim that what he is doing is not nice, and identify what he/she is doing as “bullying.” 

·         Take the victim away from the bullying situation. 

·         Protect the victim from being bullied some more. 

·         Ask someone to run and get adult assistance. 

·         Run and get adult assistance. 

In the morning of March 5, 2011 (Saturday), PsychConsult, Inc. will be sponsoring FREE back-to-back talks.  I will be giving a talk on strategies in dealing with school bullying and my colleague Ms. Berny Go will be discussing teaching children social skills.  I will be explaining the systemic approach to addressing this phenomenon of bullying.  If you or anyone you know are interested to participate, please call PsychConsult, Inc. at (02)4212469 for reservations.  Do call as there are limited seats for this event. 

Continuing Bonds

            In one of my previous entries in this blog, I discussed grief and the various stages that people usually go through in loss.  As we grieve over a loss, we often let go of how things were, realizing that the past will never come back as it was.  We then get to a point when we accept the reality of our new situation and get on with our lives. 

            This process is easier said than done.  A colleague of mine, Ms. Angelica Ang, recently did her thesis on what she called “continuing bonds.”  What she tried to capture in her study was how people, particularly widows, grieved over the loss of a loved one (in this case, their husbands).  But instead of totally letting go, many among these women actually thought that their relationship with their husbands merely transformed from a more physical to a spiritual one.

            She found out from some studies done in the west how about 40% of widows actually communicate with their deceased spouse.  They also felt that they were watched over.  Slightly more women (44%) even went to the extent of admitting that they sense their deceased spouse’s presence; they felt the touch, heard the voice, or even see the image of their spouse after their passing.  For many others, their memories of their spouses kept them alive somehow.  Many still keep their spouse’s belongings, and regularly perform rituals of remembrance. 

            As Ms. Ang studied how these continuing bonds were observed among the widows she surveyed and interviewed, she noted 10 manifestations of this phenomenon.  They are as follows: 

1)      Hopeless hope – when they think of their loved one, hoping that someone would knock on the door and they would open to see that person

2)      Visiting the grave – the frequency of visits to the grave as a way of perpetuating a memory

3)      Care – the consciousness that the other (deceased) person can still witness what one does on a day to day basis; behaviors are patterned after what the other person would have wished 

4)      Loyalty – continuing to nurture one’s affection towards the other person, even after death  

5)      Taking on husband’s role – taking up the source of livelihood of the family; doing the things that the deceased person used to do for the family

6)      Preserving his possessions – holding on to what the deceased possessed in life, and not wanting to let go of them; appreciating the “sentimental value” of these things

7)      Deceased as standard – idealizing the contributions of the diseased and using that as the standard for any possible future relationships, sometimes even for one’s children

8)      Legacy – thinking in terms of what the deceased left for the rest of the family, whether these are material things or intangibles (such as values or principles)

9)      Relationships with relatives – continuing to attend family affairs and being involved with  the relatives on the side of the deceased 

10)  Reminiscence – honoring the memory of the deceased (e.g., celebrating special occasions as if he were still alive)

Continuing bonds was studied in the context of widows who lost their husbands.  I suspect that the same phenomenon can be observed with other significant losses, such as, a parent losing a child or a child losing a parent.  At any rate, it is some kind of a spin to the traditional notion of grief that I wrote about months ago. 

Basic Feelings

Have you ever listened to yourself talk to others when you are relating a certain experience that affected you?  In narrating your story, do you hear what kind of feeling words you use?  In many of our conversations, feelings are an implicit part of our message, meaning that we don’t necessarily say our feeling but only imply it by means of our tone of voice and nonverbal expressions (e.g., facial expressions, gestures, etc.).  Whereas most of the people we talk to will be able to pick up on the emotional tone of our message, many of us do not explicitly state how we feel or felt. 

Being able to express our feelings and giving them specific names can have several benefits.  For one, naming our reaction to a particular experience or event enables us to put meaning into this part of our lives.  This meaning often results to a greater understanding of ourselves and the way we see ourselves reacting to external circumstances.  For another, being able to identify an emotional reaction can lead us to specify a detail in our experience that held particular significance for us.  This makes us gain an understanding of when and what really made us react the way we did.  Finally, admitting our reaction can help us decide how we are going to react to the specific circumstances that we are experiencing.  This step is often the difference between merely reacting to one’s situation and purposively expressing one’s emotions. 

In order for us to be able to express our feelings adequately, we need to build our vocabulary for feeling words.  Researchers studying emotions believe that there are only a handful of basic feelings that are universally experienced.  This means that the feelings that people experience anywhere in the world are only made up of a few basic elements.  Other emotional reactions are said to be combinations of these basic feelings.  Much of what we know in this area is a product of research done by psychologists Paul Eckman, Nico Frijda, and their colleagues.  Some of the basic feelings that have been included in these lists are as follows:  happiness, sadness, anger, fear, disgust, surprise, shame and desire. 

For most of us Filipinos who are bilingual, we need to understand the various feeling words that different languages we know are able to convey.  Many of us will be convinced that that certain words in a particular language can better convey our meaning and experience.  We also need to be sensitive to these personal preferences. 

We can thus begin our journey of better emotional awareness by familiarizing ourselves with these fundamental emotional experiences.  We can ask ourselves how and when do we have these reactions?  To what extent are we able to anticipate and manage them?  What is easiest for us to identify and what are the most difficult to manage?  We can then observe ourselves incorporate these words the next time we are talking about our experiences to others. 

Parenting Styles

After last week’s post, I thought it relevant to talk about a basic model that helps us understand the different parenting styles.  I would like to discuss the 4 parenting styles of Maccoby and Martin (1983).  

This is a relatively simple model that combines 2 levels of 2 factors.  The first factor is the extent that parenting is child-oriented, and the second is how demanding the parent is.  The combination of two levels of these factors result to the 4 styles of parenting, which are as follows:

a)      Authoritative – Authoritative parents expect much from their children.  They challenge their children to do their best.  They are also child-centered and are more democratic in negotiating rules and expected behaviors.  Ultimately, decisions may be made by parents, but children are often consulted and their sentiments are considered in decision making.   

b)      Authoritarian – Parents who adapt the authoritarian style also have high demands on their children.  However, they believe that they know best, and that children have no role in making decisions in terms of rules and expectations.  As such, parents often dictate on their children and expect them to follow. 

c)      Indulgent – Indulgent parents tend to be very child-oriented.  They give in to the wants and desires of their children without making a lot of demands on them.  These parents see their roles as being nurturing and allowing children to be children. 

d)     Negligent – Parents who do not make any demands on children and who are busy minding their own with little regard for the children are called negligent.  They are often too absorbed with their own affairs that the children are pushed to the background of their lives. 

According to research done in the United States, Authoritative parenting generally bring up children who  are happy, capable, and successful.  Authoritarian parents are generally obedient and diligent in what they do, but are not always very happy.  They are also not very good in interpersonal relationships and their self-esteem is not always positive.  Children of indulgent parents are said to be less happy and tend to have problems with authority figures.  Finally, children of negligent parents tend to lack self control and have more negative self-esteem. 

When I did my thesis for my master’s degree, I actually used this model of parenting to understand how parents change their style of parenting when their children are identified to have some emotional problems.  Basically, what I found was that the more child-centered the parents were, the more they tended to pay more attention to the child.  They nurtured the child and also increased their demand for the child to help themselves.  In so doing, parents tended to move towards the preferred parenting style in such a situation.  Parents who tended to be less child-centered did not make much changes in their parenting style.  Some of them even started to be concerned about being identified as having some difficulties, fearing the stigma of such identification and shying away from potential help. 

This is just one study done in the Philippines using a western model, and might shed light on the virtues of being child-centered and yet challenging children to work harder and be self-motivated.  What style do you see yourself adapting and how do you think that is working for you and your child? 

Tiger Parenting

            A few weeks back, the Wall Street Journal published an excerpt (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704111504576059713528698754.html)

from the recently published book by Yale Law Professor Amy Chua entitled Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother.  As with the book, the excerpt extolled the virtues of no nonsense parenting focused on achievement and hard work.  Some of the more important assumptions of this parenting style is the understanding that one can only have fun if one does something very well, and that achievement is only worthwhile in specific areas of endeavor that is relevant.  So, according to this philosophy, being second best is being the second loser.  Play dates, theater and most of the arts are frivolous endeavors, whereas piano, violin and chess can be seen as  components of a well rounded education. 

Not surprisingly, the essay caused a stir across various groups of people in the Americas.  It even made the cover story of Time Magazine this week.  After all, Ms. Chua did accuse western parenting as often being indulgent and anxious in pushing children to achieve and to prove their capacity beyond what may be deemed as mediocre.  She obviously thought that the primary purpose of parenting is to ensure that the child is happy, and this happiness can only be possible if that child is the best (and nothing lower) among their peers in worthwhile endeavors (defined by parents, often including school performance and some hobby like piano or violin). 

In reading the article, what struck me about this tiger mother’s style of parenting is her dedication and single minded efforts in achieving her goals.  She knows what she wants from her children, and she makes it clear that she will be there with them all the way.  This is no easy task since the mother works as hard as the child in making sure that efforts bring about desired results.  She models the hard work that she demands of her child.  She does not relegate this responsibility to a hired tutor or on paid lessons alone. 

Another element of her parenting style that I thought was really commendable was her confidence in her children’s abilities.  What kept her going in pushing her daughter was her faith that her daughter can do what she thought she could do.  Individual differences has little place in this way of thinking, as her faith was anchored on what her elder child (or any other child, for that matter) was able to do at a similar age.  She called her daughter “lazy” when it seemed that her daughter was about to give up.  She was not afraid of labeling behavior that was undesirable, calling a spade a spade. 

This style of parenting is certainly about teaching children to work hard and perseverance in working towards a goal.  Important goals are also pre-defined by the parent, and the child has little choice in what endeavors to pursue.  This style presupposes that the child is the parent’s some kind of project, and the parent’s job is to ensure that the child is programmed correctly; that is, the child understands the value of hard work and will not rest until he or she is the best in what he or she is doing. 

In the end, it is up to every parent to make a choice how one shall parent their child.  Is happiness indeed only achieved if one is acknowledged as being the best in a particular field of endeavor, be it in school or in a chosen hobby?  I guess, each one has an opinion about this. 

Planning Works

            Last week, I wrote about David Allen’s thoughts about setting goals.  In the same podcast, he talked about starting one’s goal setting activities by looking back.  As we begin the year, those of us who are thinking about plans for the coming year might just want to start with that.  Just how is it done?  Here are some steps: 

1.      Think of yourself a year ago.  What did you want to happen in your life then?  Did you have any goals in mind then? 

2.      What did you do as the months progressed in the past year?  Were there special activities from January to December that particularly stand out for you now?  Any moments or accomplishments that you are particularly proud of, even if these were not even part of your goals and plans for the year? 

3.      List them all down. 

4.      Feel good about these accomplishments over the past year, and stay there. 

5.      Remind yourself of all the things you were able to do by going back to your list every so often, particularly when you are feeling bad or useless. 

After doing that exercise above, you might be in a good frame of mind to think about what you would like to accomplish in the coming year.  So, you might want to think about the following: 

1.      Where are you now?  What do you want to work on?  You can make as many as 50 goals if you want. 

2.      Remember to cover the various aspects of your person, such as: 

-physical self – your self-care habits, eating, sleeping, and exercising

-intellectual self – learning something new, embarking on a hobby, finishing a particular book

-emotional/spiritual self – your inner-care habits, being true to yourself, and living a meaningful life

-social self – nurturing valued relationships and creating new ones

3.      How do you hope to accomplish these goals?  What will you do to create the right environment so you can do them?  Remember that you need to be at least somewhat convinced that these goals are realistic and that you can achieve them. 

4.      Accommodate activities in your schedule that would target these goals. 

5.      Every so often, go back to these goals so you can tweak them or even revise them all together. 

Planning is one of the most important habits of personal effectiveness.  We often forget it because we are inundated with just too many things to do.  What we are neglecting when we do this is a clearly thought out path that would help us achieve exactly what we want in the best possible way. 

Setting Goals

I was listening to a podcast from the Scientific American website the other day, and they featured the book “Getting Things Done:  The Art of Personal Productivity” by David Allen (http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=making-and-keeping-your-goals-10-01-13).  I thought he had some very novel ideas about setting goals that I thought was worth sharing, especially at the start of a new year. 

Many of us may have heard before that we only need a few goals that are clearly articulated and broken down into smaller chunks with clear deadlines.  This, some say, is the time honored way of getting things done.  Not really contesting the effectiveness of this method, David Allen talked about a different way of setting personal goals. 

Firstly, Allen said that thinking about goals is certainly a much better exercise than thinking of all the negative things that might happen or has already happened.  Looking forward to something that one wants to happen can also bring about good feelings and a healthier sense of wellbeing.  This somehow ties well with the realistic optimism idea that I had written about some time ago. 

Secondly, his advice on the best way to set goals is to set many of them—about 45, in fact!  These goals can be about anything in your life, including:  your ideal weight, your diet, your running time, your income, getting a project done, what an ideal weekend would be like, etc.  Initially, I must say that this suggestion sounded a bit too much.  At any rate, he went on to clarify that having these images was integral in keeping our energies up and about.  He further explained that we need to be flexible about our targets, changing them along the way as we see what might be realistic.  He incorporates the idea of being able to see the future better as time passes, and that is when goals can be tweaked to approximate what is more realistic.  He even opened up the option of changing the goal all together when one sees something better that one had not considered earlier. 

Finally, Allen urged his listeners to actually begin setting goals by cleaning up.  By this, he meant for us to focus on the hundred and one things that we might have been putting off over the months and years.  He says that setting goals about these matters first before adding on new goals might be just the thing to do in order to have a fresh start. 

After listening to this podcast, I thought that Allen did make a lot of sense.  He talked about the need to make ourselves feel good about what we want to work on, instead of beating ourselves about not being able to accomplish some targets we made for ourselves.  He also talked about being flexible about our goals, both in terms of how they are fulfilled along the way and whether or not we want to pursue them at all when we get sight of something better. 

Although he initially sounded like he was contradicting the earlier notion of making few and clear targets, I think his suggestions can work very well with certain personal goals.  The positive approach to goal setting is also quite empowering.