Review general characteristics that promote skills necessary for handling peer conflicts
Review how to teach problem solving skills
Discuss how to deal with teasing & name calling
Discuss how to deal with bullying
Provide resources for you to access more information
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Self-Esteem
Let children know they are valued even when they make mistakes and experience failure
Allow your kids to make mistakes – mistakes made early in life are more ‘affordable’ than mistakes made later in life
Set firm boundaries and have high expectations
When children know what is expected, they are more likely to meet expectations and then feel a sense a security
Discipline with warmth and caring (Love & Logic approach)
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Self-Esteem
Use Effective Praise
Praise the effort, not the achievement
Helps them develop self-worth
Teaches them to value learning and improvement over perfection
Mindset by Carol Dweck
Be specific with your praise
Not ‘good job’ but “I like the way you cleaned your room. The way you made your bed is especially neat, and your clothes are folded nicely in your closet. You did a fine job. What do you like about it?”
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How to: Make Social Development a Priority
Help child gain access to pro-social opportunities through extracurricular activities & teams
Find time to talk to child about friends and classmates
Remember children differ in terms of how many friends he or she wishes to have
More friends is not always better
Children select friends who are similar to themselves but they change often
Common for children to change best friends year after year
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Social Development continued
Avoid becoming over-involved in selecting friends
If you dislike some of your children’s friends, remember it is very difficult to force a child to change his or her friends
Continue to monitor their interactions and encourage involvement in other groups such as clubs or sports programs
Supervision is critical
During play dates
Online friends/social media
Warn child about dangers of posting private information on social media sites/online
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Some Typical Reactions to Problems/Conflict
What Doesn’t Work
These methods …
Avoidance
Withdrawal
Physical confrontation
Verbal confrontation
Can be destructive
Can exacerbate the conflict
Hinder other effective problem solving solutions
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How to: Teach Problem-Solving Skills
Let child solve his/her own problems
You can guide and provide support but…
Rescuing children from their mistakes or failures leads to children feeling incompetent and unaccountable
May learn to always blame others for mistakes
Help child by listening to problem, brainstorming solutions, but let child take lead in correcting the problem
Avoid shaming child or faulting others
Ask: How can you do this differently next time?
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How to: Teach Problem Solving Skills
Model, model, model!
When you have a problem, literally walk through the steps for your child of how you solve the problem.
Children learn so much through watching us and these natural learning opportunities are usually the most helpful
We all make mistakes!
Teaching your child that everyone makes mistakes and that failure can lead to learning is a life skill
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How to: Deal with Teasing and Name Calling
Most teasing can be handled without adult intervention if child is armed with strategies to rebuff the teasing
There are differences in age and gender in regards to the patterns of teasing and name calling
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How to: Deal with Teasing and Name Calling
Do’s:
Don’t
Listen attentively to your child
Express empathy for their situation
Teach strategies that help insulate them from the effects of teasing
Overreact to reports of teasing by confronting the teaser
Shrug off the problem as no big deal or just a ‘normal’ part of growing up
Beware of both extremes
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How to: Deal with Teasing and Name Calling
Deflecting:
Children who tease in hurtful ways expect their victims to react negatively by crying, yelling, etc.
Teach your child to give the teasers the opposite of what they want by:
ignoring them,
turning the tease into a compliment (reframing),
agreeing with the teaser by using humor, or
removing themselves from the situation.
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How to: Deal with Teasing and Name Calling
Assertive responding
Teach your child ‘I-messages’ to assertively communicate how teasing makes him or her feel
‘My feelings are hurt when you say that because…” instead of “You are mean”
Practice role-playing these responses in non-threatening situations so your child can become comfortable using them
Use literature to help child develop empathy for children who are teased and learn strategies for effectively dealing with teasing.
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How to: Deal with Teasing and Name Calling
Self-talk
Encourage child to think of positive things they can say to self when they are in a teasing situation
Even though I don’t like this teasing, I can handle it
Is the tease true?
Whose opinion is more important – the teaser’s or mine?
Visualization
Teach child to visualize words bouncing off them
Reinforces idea that they don’t have to accept or believe what is said
Respond with a compliment
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How to: Deal with Teasing and Name Calling
Agree with the facts
‘You have so many freckles’ - ‘I do have a lot of freckles’
Eliminates feeling of wanting to hide the freckles
‘So?”
Conveys an indifference that tease doesn’t matter
Simple yet effective
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How to: Deal with Children who Tease
Explore why the teasing might be occurring
Seeking attention?
Victim of teasing from someone else?
Underlying emotional issues?
Clearly define for your child acceptable and unacceptable behaviors
Think of specific examples of both
Create a system where your child is rewarded for kind behavior and receives consequences for teasing or name-calling behavior. Make sure to be consistent.
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How to: Deal with Children who Tease
Help your child develop empathy by discussing how they would feel if teased in various situations
Children sometimes learn these behaviors from role models.
Be sure that the key individuals in your child’s life are modeling respectful behaviors.
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How to: Deal with Children who Tease
Mindfulness is a promising technique for hypofrontality – a weak prefrontal cortex (common in ADHD, executive functioning difficulties)
Poor executive functioning leads to impulse control difficulties which can lead to bullying/aggressive behavior
Teaching kids to pay attention to what is happening in the present moment can help kids take that extra millisecond to stop/calm down before they react
For more info, see: mindfulschools.org
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Bullying
Bullying differs from teasing in that it describes:
Hurtful teasing that occurs frequently over time with a serious intention to create discomfort
Characterized by an imbalance of power
More serious problem that generally requires intervention from adults
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Bullying is…
1) negative, mean behavior that
2) occurs repeatedly (over time)
3)in a relationship that is characterized
by an imbalance of power or strength.
(Olweus, 1999)
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How to: Deal with Bullying
Warning signs your children may be bullied:
Excessive sadness
Social isolation
School avoidance
Poor self-esteem
Missing belongings
Unexplained physical injuries
If you notice 1 or more of these signs:
Have a discussion with your child to get more information
Bring it to the attention of school staff. Work together to develop an appropriate plan of action.
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Risk Factors for Bullying
FAMILY
Lack of supervision
Poor attachment quality
Negative, critical relationships
Lack of discipline/ consequences/ support
Support for aggression
Modeling of aggression
SCHOOL
Lack of supervision
Lack of engagement
Negative, critical relationships
Lack of discipline/ consequences/ support
Support for aggression
Modeling of aggression
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How to: Prevent Bullying
Help kids understand bullying. Talk about what bullying is and how to stand up to it safely. Tell kids bullying is unacceptable. Make sure kids know how to get help.
Keep the lines of communication open. Check in with kids often. Listen to them. Know their friends, ask about school, and understand their concerns.
Encourage kids to do what they love. Special activities, interests, and hobbies can boost confidence, help kids make friends, and protect them from bullying behavior.
Model how to treat others with kindness and respect.
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Cyber Bulling
Social media is used by teens to accomplish eternal goals of adolescence:
socialize with peers,
invest in the world,
try on identities, and
establish independence
Use same parenting strategies
Lend them our ‘frontal lobes’ planning, organization, inhibition
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Cyber Bullying
Digital word and real space is one in the same
Home is no longer a place of sanctuary – no freedom from bullying
Victimization is highest about LGBTQ youth
Most common via text messaging and cell phone use
75% of kids or higher are bystanders
Most kids are bullied by someone they know – a ‘frenemy’
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Cyber Bullying
Turn it off approach doesn’t work because…
It’s flippant and dismissive
Blames/punishes victim
Doesn’t translate- we don’t say stop going to school for bullying that occurs at school
Doesn’t stop the victimization
Kids find a way around it – create new, hard to search identity, use at friend’s house, etc.
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Cyber Bullying: what you can do
Remind kids that bullying behavior needs an audience even in the digital world