The Many Faces of Bullying Part 1: Face-to-face exclusion
In an age of parents sticking up for their children regardless of how wrong their children’s behavior is, Leslie Blanchard’s post “4th grader comes home with disturbing news – then mom realizes her ‘worst nightmare’ is coming true” is refreshingly honest. Rather than candy-coating the situation of her daughter leaving a well-meaning peer out “just because,” this mother of 5 called her daughter out for bullying (and then publically admitted to it on social media). While she recognized her daughter and other classmates’ actions were not overtly cruel, she understood that avoiding a peer who was attempting to become a friend is a more covert form of bullying. This mother’s ability to empathize with another child rather than protect her own “at all costs” proved to be quite valuable. Instead of sympathizing with ”how annoying” her daughter’s classmate probably was, she gave her daughter a task to get to know the other girl. It was not a suggestion, not a choice, but a requirement to come home the next day and “report 3 cool things she found out” about the other child. Blanchard seems to understand parenting and human relations on a deeper level than most, but what she might not have known was that she was following a strategy that has been shown in the psychological literature to break down “in group/out group” mentality. Gordon Allport’s seminal work on prejudice first written up in his 1950s book “The Nature of Prejudice” explains that to reduce prejudice biases, humans have to work collaboratively towards a common goal. Getting to know a person not in your group who you view as an “outsider” frequently reduces the sense of difference between the outsider and the group. Oftentimes, individuals realize that the characteristics that they based their rejection on are unfounded stereotypes. Since Allport’s important research came out, the “contact hypothesis” (having more contact with people from a different group – race, gender, sexual orientation, religion – decreases prejudice) has been used to help increase empathy, reduce prejudice, and even reduce stress responses during mixed race interactions according to researchers Mendoza-Denton and Page-Gould. Blanchard’s resolve to cut her daughter’s exclusion of a peer off at the pass was a brave and brilliant act of parenting. She taught her daughter and the other girl a very important lesson. She also warded off the chance of her daughter’s actions escalating over the years into more overt bullying by accepting, quietly consenting, or worse encouraging her actions. In addition to making a plan with her daughter to get to know the other child and checking in about how it went, this conscientious mother went a step further and risked her own precious pride to check in with the other girl’s mother. To admit that her daughter was not “perfect” (thereby she was not a “perfect” parent because her daughter had been leaving this other child out) was brave. Blanchard rightly points out that other parents’ attempts to stay out of their children’s peer interactions and let them handle it on their own is wrong. Fourth graders do not have the life experience or the brain development to just “know” how to handle such complicated social interactions. They need guidance. They need support. They need parents to follow-up with them and with each other. They need to understand how values of inclusion and non-prejudice play into their lives with clear, concrete examples from their own lives. It is important for parents to see the forest for the trees. In this age of “helicopter parents” who hover, fixating on the details of their children’s lives, there can be many missed opportunities to teach children how to become good adults. Speaking frankly and collaboratively with children about how to solve problems and modeling examples of challenges that parents have to overcome themselves (without sharing too many details) can help children start to think independently about how to solve problems. Children who are popular and well-liked, as Blanchard’s daughter is, have the somewhat unique opportunity to serve as an example of inclusion and open-mindedness. These children’s peers look up to them. They can model behavior that helps everyone act more kindly and inclusively and breaks down prejudice in young friend groups. Or they can lead the bully charge. Who do you want your child to become?
Separation, Panic and School Refusal
Separation anxiety disorder (SAD) is a relatively common disorder in children and adolescents and panic disorder (PD) is a relatively common disorder in adults. Investigators have suggested that SAD and PD may be related in several ways: The symptoms that children with SAD exhibit when separated from their parents look much like symptoms of panic in adults. Children with SAD are more likely to develop PD as adults than children with other anxiety disorders. The offspring of parents with PD have more than a threefold increased risk of SAD, suggesting a strong familial relationship between SAD and PD. The majority of children with prepubertal onset of PD also manifest symptoms of SAD. Thus, SAD and PD may represent different clinical manifestations of the same underlying disorder; both groups of children often refuse to go to school because they fear separation from their caretakers. Most clinicians recognize that the longer a school-refusing child is out of school, the more difficult it is to get him or her back. Therefore, treatment always focuses on returning the child to school as soon as possible. School refusal, however, can be due to many other factors (peer rejection, learning difficulties, substance abuse) which the clinician will wish to consider when designing a treatment plan for school-refusers. I offer several guidelines for returning anxious children to school as soon as possible. Mobilize parents, teachers and school administrators. Ask those involved in the child’s care to support the child’s return to school as soon as possible. Solicit their support before returning the child to school. Many a plan to return a child to school has gone awry by an overanxious parent or teacher who could not tolerate the child’s tears, or an administrator who was too harried to set aside the time necessary to accommodate the child’s return to the classroom. Have all adults (parents, teachers, administrators, staff) agree to a target date by which the child is to return to the classroom. A concrete and agreed upon return to school date prevents delays that can result from misunderstandings or disagreements among those involved. Plan a graduated return to school. Work out a plan that returns the child to the classroom in steps. Consider place (classroom or hallway), length of time in place (10 minutes or 1 hour), and situation (quiet and alone or noisy and crowded) when planning the steps. Ask the child to rate his or her level of distress for each situation in order to build an exposure ladder or hierarchy. For example, Karen, a bright but anxious 7-year old, agreed to a plan where she would walk with her mother into the school and stand in the hallway outside her class room for 10 minutes while her mother waited in the car. Karen rated this a 5 (out of 10). Next, Karen stood in the hall while her mother drove away and returned in 10 minutes. Karen rated this a 6. Identify a safe place in school for the child. Once the child is in school, locate a safe place in the school that the child understands he or she can go to when feeling overly anxious or distressed. For example, Jill, who had many symptoms of panic and feared she would vomit, agreed to return to her classroom one hour before class was dismissed so that she could walk home from school with her friends. She also agreed that if she became too uncomfortable in the classroom, she would go to the library, where she felt more comfortable and wait until school was dismissed. Gradually, Jill expanded the time in her classroom and eventually ate lunch with her friends. Only once did she have to go the library to wait out her anxiety. Make out-of-school time neutral or unpleasant. Many parents make the mistake of rewarding the child, indirectly, for remaining out of school. Often, parents have little choice in such matters. When a child misses school, parents must take off time from work to be with the child, take the child to work, or leave the child at home. This added one-on-one contact with the parent, however, can decrease the likelihood that the child will want to return to school. Identify which parent is the least reinforcing and ask him or her to pick up the child when he or she wishes to leave school. Instruct the parent in how to coach the child to stay in school, if possible, and how to be minimally reinforcing (not punitive) when taking the child home. In addition, work with parents to structure the child’s time outside of school so that it is as similar to class time as possible. During the time the child would be in the classroom, they are to study. If they finish their studies, they are to do other tasks around the house (washing the dishes, mowing the lawn). They have their lunch recesses at the same time and for the same length as when in school. George, who had been out of school for one month by the time he saw a therapist, did not like the changes his parents made in his routine at home — even though the parents were a bit pleased. Their home had never been cleaner! In spite of these changes, George remained reluctant to commit to a plan to return to his classroom. Only when George found that his recesses were boring because there were no other kids to play with did he take steps toward returning to school.