Bullying

Often we think of bullying as something that happens only at school, however we should not overlook the fact that bullying can also, and often does, happen at home between siblings. It is not normal or healthy for one sibling to persistently terrorize his/her brother or sister.  Kids will fight and disagree, and this is not bullying necessarily, but if one is always terrorizing another we need to focus on and address this issue with them.

           Here are some steps that are suggested in the book Bullied by Carrie Goldman. Helping kids learn how to “re-frame” situations and not take everything personally is a great first step that would help them to 1- not let the teasing upset them and 2- learn that the content of the teasing may not be true and not worthy of their time and energy to stress over. Re-framing is learning to apply alternative meaning to things.

In addition to re-framing, bullying should always be addressed when children are in a safe place and able to talk with an adult about what is going on between them.  The kids should learn that they need to address these things or that the bullying will continue and neither themselves nor the bully will get the help they need in order to change the situation.    

Another tip is the use of “I messages.” An I message is when you state “I feel…. When you….  I need you to …. Etc.”  However, using I messages doesn’t work when done in an unsupervised situation, because this will give the bully the reaction that he/she is seeking.  We need to teach kids to use I messages when talking with adults or while in a structured setting.  This is where learning to re-frame things in positive ways helps.  For example: if one sibling calls the other four eyes, the recipient can thank them for noticing his/her glasses and taking the time to comment. This is very upsetting for the bully, because he was trying to get a negative reaction and didn’t get one when the recipient didn’t become upset but happy instead.

Additionally, a receiver of sibling bullying can learn to agree with the teaser.  Such an instance might be if the bully says their brother/sister is short. The bullied sibling can agree “yes I am a short kid for my age.”  When using this tip there is not much arguing and it ends the conversation quickly

          Along with this tactic is the great skill of saying “So.” The bully may take time to point out that his/her sibling messed up on their art project. The teased child may simply reply “So, it’s not a big deal.”  Doing this removes the emotional response the bully is after and, if done without attitude or anger, turns it back on the bully, who must now wonder why they made such a comment in the first place.

Another tip that seems to stump bullies and give some power back to the bullied sibling is complementing. Complementing the bully throws them off and takes away what they are after, i.e. a negative emotional response.  If one brother tells the other that he plays like a girl the bullied brother can say “You are right and you are so good at [the game] that I was wondering if you would take the time to teach me.”  This is not the response that they are after, so it will often end the teasing.  

The last tip that I am addressing here is using humor. Humor is any way we can make others laugh and not leave us feeling taken advantage of or put down.  If the receiver of the teasing is told that they “smell worse than the dog”  they could say “Good, we were competing and I am glad to know that I am winning this time.” If the child can get others laughing this will change the emotion and end the teasing.

           I hope that these skills help with stopping the verbal bullying at your home through the summer.

By Kristy Goodson, LMSW

Sources: Bullied by Carrie Goldman