Can We Talk About Bullying?

Mindfulness helps us stay calm in the moment, even though we feel hurt

My son Ocean and I were just swapping YouTube videos about bullying, and we decided to record a conversation on our Mindfully Parenting Atypical Kids Podcast. I’m a bit anxious about him starting middle school next year. ‘Bullies’ are everywhere throughout life, so it is important to me that we keep an open dialogue.

Please note that we are NOT talking about any sort of physical abuse.

“If someone punches you, is that bullying?” -Mom

“No, that’s abuse.” -Ocean

“What about if someone is just teasing you?” -Mom

“Then I would be in on the joke.” -Ocean

Brooks Gibbs has been on my radar for a while. Gibbs categorizes bullies as someone who either feels that they have been wronged, are power hungry, or they actually think they are being funny. He shares ways to defuse all three. He role plays his strategy with kids, and you can hear the laughter in the audience.

In general, his approach makes a lot of sense to me; way more sense than some of the traditional vilifying/shaming/victimizing strategies imposed top-down by school systems. Tell the bully to stop. Walk away. Tell a teacher. These are all fine, but do they really work to change the antagonist’s mind?

As long as we live in a culture that is built on oppression, there’s going to be bullying in life.

If someone doesn’t feel very powerful, and then they go and make someone else feel less powerful, they will feel better for a bit. We need to interrupt that.

“Why would a person want to bully? They want to have fun with people’s reactions, but at what cost? They just want revenge?”

“If you can’t walk away, deal with it in a positive way. ”

-Ocean

I agree with Gibbs about not reacting, and being friendly and kind.

It isn’t easy. If at all possible, we can learn to empathize and treat the person as we wish to be treated. This can defuse their attack, as you can see in the videos. However, I don’t agree when Gibbs says “Don’t get upset.” It is natural to be hurt and angry when we feel attacked. I would like Ocean to allow the whole spectrum of feelings, while being aware of who it is safe to SHOW his upset with.

If you are teased, don’t show that you are upset in the moment, if you can help it. Tell someone you trust, as soon as you feel safe. You might want to laugh or cry about it. Both can help.

Ocean and I role played on the podcast about a potential scenario. After watching the video, his strategy changed. He told me to pretend to be the bully. I asked if he would get upset, and he said he would try not to. “I would just be in on the joke.”

We are both short, and I know he has been teased about his height a few times at school. He asked me to pretend to be the bully, and I called him ‘Shorty’. He instructed me to be mean to him. I mocked his words, and he adopted a friendly tone and nicknamed me ‘Tally’, asking if we could be best friends.

Role playing together helps him in a few ways:

• It normalized the situation. He will know that he isn’t the only one to be teased by another kid.
• He gets to practice and come up with a menu of potential responses.
• He builds resilience to teasing and takes it less personally.
• He may even start to build empathy for the other kid who is so desperate for attention, revenge, or power that they would try something so low.
• He will learn that it is inappropriate to treat others unkindly.

My son’s sense of humor cannot be translated onto the page. This is a summary, and I hope you will listen to the full conversation on the podcast.

“I would just be in on the joke… I think the bully would just be like, okay bye!”

-Ocean

You can proactively role play with your kid, like we did.

Then, you can remind your child that we all have hurt feelings. You can model naming your own hurt feelings, and describe how they feel in your body.

Mindfulness can help us defer our reactions. We can postpone them, but eventually our feelings need somewhere to go. I hope everyone, child and adult, has someone safe to talk with about any challenging feelings. Being tough isn’t the special sauce here, it is staying calm even though you feel hurt. When you know who is safe to share your feelings with, it is easier to not react to teasing in the moment.

Here’s a mindfulness script for when your child feels triggered:

Your child can ask themself, “What is happening now?” They might actually pause to notice what’s happening in their environment.

Then, they can ask “Can I be with it, or is it too much?” If staying and talking to the bullying kid feels too painful, your child needs to be empowered to walk away.

When someone says hurtful words, it does hurt.

Pretending, or suppressing feelings, takes a lot of energy. At some point those hurt feelings need a safe place to go. I hope everyone has someone safe to talk to about any challenging feelings. Being tough isn’t the special sauce here, it is staying calm even though you feel hurt. It is important to know who is safe to share your feelings with.

Mindfulness teaches us to tolerate discomfort in the moment. We can say, “This is a moment of suffering.” It is temporary. It doesn’t mean that we stop feeling.

These are complex skills for anyone. I was nudging Ocean towards his own conclusions.

Ocean and I laugh a lot in this podcast, but bullying is no laughing matter.

“A person with a sense of humor is like a wagon without springs - jostled by every pebble in the road.”

-Henry Ward Beecher

Laughter is a coping mechanism, and humor has always been one of Ocean’s superpowers. I was intentionally being silly about it, not to belittle the topic, but to discharge any residual stress from suppressed memories.

If you are the trusted person for your child, and they come to you after a bullying situation, ask them to tell their story. Don’t interrupt or question the facts. You can ask some leading questions, but the intent is not to get the facts. Let your child tell their subjective story and take ownership of it.

Here are some potential follow up questions to ask:

• “What do you think about the situation?”
• “How do you feel about it?”
• “Where are you feeling that in your body?”

Even if your child can’t answer these questions, you are planting seeds of self-inquiry and awareness by asking them. You can make an empathetic guess at what they might be feeling, and ask if you’ve got it right. They can start to make the connection between physical sensations and their emotions.

Try it yourself the next time someone hurts your feelings.

Remember the power of laughter to discharge tension. I recommend doing some sort of grounding or mindfulness practice before role playing with your child. Sock puppets can be great tools for role playing too. Next time, I’m going to let Ocean be the bully.

I feel that he is a bit more prepared. Just like any tough parenting conversation, this isn’t over. I look forward to processing more complicated scenarios with him as they arise.

Please remember, physical abuse is a crime. If the teasing is overwhelming and cannot be defused, no one should suffer in isolation. It is important to get the community involved. I am not advocating stuffing the feelings down. Building resilience is different from numbing out. Everyone needs someone safe to communicate with when they feel hurt. Please make sure you feel grounded before listening to your child’s painful stories.

Here’s my go-to practice to settle into awareness and ground myself. Combine it with a deep breath:

Serenity Prayer:

Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
And the wisdom to know the difference.

Peter Levine’s Physical Signs of Trauma in Kids video. Brooks Gibbs video. Stomp Out Bullying: You’re NOT alone. It’s NOT your fault.

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