Bullying
10 Tips On How To Deal With Bullying
Last week, a parent reached out asking for advice about her child that was being bullied. Although my original plan was to post more advice about boredom, this is an important conversation that I want to address. A lot of what I’ll say here can be found in my Technology Safety Guide that I feel is a must read for all families.
I should start by saying I wish I could take away all the evil people in the world, but I can’t. Nothing makes me more angry than people hurting children. Nothing. The good news is, I CAN help kids become stronger, confident, and happy so that they can take on whatever the world throws at them. With that said let’s dive into my 10 pieces of advice for anyone dealing with bullying.
1. Don’t bully: You can have a powerful influence. Promote kindness, inclusion, forgiveness, honesty, self-confidence, humility, resilience, healthy boundaries, peace, positivity, gratitude, faith, unity, self-love, integrity, and hard work.
2. Report bullying: We need to work together to create a safe world. Protect yourself and other kids by reporting abusive, suspicious, inappropriate, or unkind behavior to trustworthy mentors as well as applicable authorities, like school counselors or safety hotlines. Signs of abuse among friends or family might look like sudden changes in mood, behavior, self-confidence, school success, appearance, or isolation.
3. Don’t take responsibility for the abusive actions of others: Any time anyone chooses to bully you it has nothing to do with you and everything to do with them. Bullying and abuse is often manipulative and confusing. Abusers will try to make you think you are to blame. They may even try to appear kind and innocent to the people around them. Abusers want you to feel embarrassed and ashamed so that you stay silent, but it is NEVER your fault if someone hurts, manipulates, or abuses you. Even if you think you’ve done something wrong, reach out to a trustworthy mentor for help. Everyone is in charge of controlling THEMSELVES, meaning their own thoughts, feelings, and actions. Their actions have nothing to do with what you look like, what you wear, what activities you’re involved in, how much money you have, where you’re from, your personality, or anything else about you. They could be choosing to bully you because they are jealous, or just because you sit next to them in class. They could be choosing to bully you because they have some strange belief or idea. You could be the kindest and best person in the world and someone could still want to be rude to you, so don’t take responsibility for the abusive actions of others.
4. Do take responsibility for YOUR thoughts, feelings, and actions: You cannot control what people do or say, but you can 100% control how you think and feel. Think about it, if I were to punch someone (even if they punched me first), it isn’t because they “made me”. I can’t blame anyone else for MY thoughts telling MY fist to hit someone. When you’re bullied the order goes like this; First, someone does or says something to you. Second, If they physically hurt you that means your nerve receptors will sense the physical pain. Third, You have a thought about what they do. These thoughts are optional and sometimes actually stronger than the physical pain. Fourth, YOUR THOUGHTS CREATE your emotions. ***HOLD! Go back. Read the third and fourth step again. This is the most powerful part. YOU decide if you believe or agree with random abusive people or if you agree with people who love you. You control if you want to question your worthiness or if you will have your own back and love yourself no matter what. You choose to hate others, or to love. You choose if you’ll hide or stand up.
In the movie Sing Street, the main character is bullied over and over again by a cruel boy at school. The bully uses all kinds of tactics like name calling, belittling, stealing property, and even physical abuse. While it would be understandable if the main character was insecure or embarrassed, that’s not how he responds. The main character was self-confident. He didn’t care what the bully or onlookers thought of him. To him the bully was more of a nuisance. He saw the boy for what he was; an insecure, abused, and struggling teenager. He didn’t give the bully any power over his life, he followed his dreams, held his convictions, and in the end actually helped the bully get out of his abusive house.
Now, if you do ever feel embarrassment, shame, confusion, insecurity, anger, depression or any other negative emotion, don’t beat yourself up.
Once, years ago after a series of uncontrollable events a friend bluntly told me her opinion of me. I can honestly say that usually harsh comments from others don’t affect me. Even at my weirdest I think I’ve been good at not questioning my worthiness, but the truth is that my thoughts about what she said made me question almost everything about myself. I questioned if anyone really liked me or if I was just a big joke. I questioned all my old friendships. I analyzed and then reanalyzed every stupid mistake I’d made since middle school. Even though it was very painful, I learned a lot. Gratefully, facing my negative emotions helped me remodel my self-confidence with stronger beliefs about myself and with more compassionate thoughts about the people around me.
So there you go, negative emotions are normal. Instead of pushing your emotions away, be curious about them, because they will give you insight into your own personal beliefs. Understanding and taking control of your mind will be one of the most powerful things you can ever do for yourself. Let your pain teach you about yourself.
5. Develop true self-confidence: Your confidence doesn't come from your friends, family, your talents, or any of your possessions. There are plenty of attractive, wealthy, talented, and loved people who don’t love themselves. Self-confidence is exactly what it says it is, SELF-confidence. It comes from YOUR beliefs about yourself. Choose to love how you look, your natural personality, your life, your abilities, and your potential. Plan for obstacles, decide how you will love yourself when others don't, when you make mistakes, or when life is challenging. You are worth loving. Trust me.
6. Look Forward: Lighten your load. You don’t have to carry everything from the past into your future. You can let the past be the past. You can forgive, heal, move on, and start over today. You have incredible opportunities waiting for you!
7. Let people be wrong about you: Everyone at some point is going to be wrong about you. It’s normal. Your friends will be wrong about you, your family will be wrong about you, and even you will be wrong about you. You can’t control what people think about you and it’s not your job to convince everyone to love you. You can grow a positive INFLUENCE by showing up with ethical character, kindness and self-confidence.
8. Seek out and create a community of trustworthy adults to talk to: You are not alone, you are underage and your brain is still developing, so be sure to surround yourself with trustworthy ADULTS! You can know if someone is trustworthy when they want what’s best for YOU, have the wisdom and skills to help you become your best self, and don’t abuse, isolate, shame, or use you. Although they are not perfect, these amazing individuals are rooting for you, making the world a better place for you, trying to become wise and prepared for you, and sometimes even fighting for you. While good friends are indispensable, be sure to communicate and seek guidance from adults who are equipped to help you stay safe.
9. DO NOT give up: Sometimes it takes a while to end the bullying cycle. You might try something and it doesn’t work. There is a chance you will reach out for help and it won’t work. Don’t give up. You are worth fighting for. Sometimes you reach out to the wrong person, or the advice doesn’t work, or you need more help. If you are in pain, keep reaching out and keep trying. You are worth it.
10. Share: Please share this with your family and friends so that they can learn how to stay strong, confident, and happy in difficult places and with challenging people.