Bullying Unmasked: Recognizing and Addressing Unseen Challenges

Understanding bullying is crucial for parents and educators alike. In our discussion, we dive deep into its varying forms and the impact they have on children. 
- Types of bullying: Physical, verbal, social, and cyber 
- The cycle of bullying: Origins often in past trauma 
- Practical strategies for parents to support children 
- The importance of role models in a child's life 
- Warning signs for adults to look out for in children 
- The necessity for open communication on emotions and behaviors 

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Music:
"Shine" -Newsboys
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Transcript

Welcome to Brain

Speaker 1 0:00

Welcome to Brain-Based Parenting, the Boys Ranch podcast for families. We all know how hard being a parent is, and sometimes it feels like there are no good answers to the difficult questions families have when their kids are struggling. Our goal each week will be to try and answer some of those tough questions, utilizing the knowledge, experience and professional training Cal Farley's Boys Ranch has to offer. Now here is your host, cal Farley's Staff Development Coordinator, joshua Sprott.

Speaker 3 0:30

Hello and welcome. Today we're going to start a new series on recognizing and addressing bullying. To do that today, I'm joined by Carol Culley, houseparent with Earl Home.

Speaker 2 0:38

Danny Culley, houseparent with Earl Home.

Speaker 5 0:40

Suzanne Wright. I oversee training and counseling here at Boys Ranch.

Speaker 3 0:44

All right, let's kick off with our question of the day. Bullies are very well represented in pop culture, and especially in like 80s and 90s movies, so I thought I'd ask y'all who is your favorite pop culture bully?

Speaker 2 0:55

Well, I would have to say Simon Cowell. Oh, he's a big time bully on that show.

Speaker 5 1:02

That's a good one and that's Simon playing Simon. That's not an actor playing a scripted role in a movie. Good example he gets surprised sometimes.

Speaker 2 1:13

So I kind of like it when he gets that surprise and he's bullying them and then all of a sudden he's just like in awe, like oh my goodness.

Speaker 5 1:19

Yeah, I don't really have. I don't like bullies in the movie. They irritate me. They frustrate me and I think just by nature of working with kids for a long time. I'm trying to look to see what's beneath that right. What did they miss? What kind of caregiving were they provided with? And that detracts from the whole point, you know, of having a bully. So I can't pick one.

Speaker 3 1:45

See, I'm kind of the opposite. I love bullies in movies because they always get their come up and sit the end, and that's what I like about them so my favorite bully is biff tannin from the back to the future movies and he has no redeeming qualities whatsoever and he's just a mustache twirling evil, bad villain, and he gets it in the end and I like his parents.

Speaker 1 2:02

Yeah, aren't you worried about his childhood?

Speaker 4 2:08

I like that. I'm with Suzanne. I want to know where his parents were All right.

Speaker 2 2:16

So to start off today, let's maybe define bullying how would you define what it means to be a bully or bullying? Well, I would have to say someone that I think he's a bully is someone that's got lowest self-esteem anyway, and what he does is he picks on the smaller individuals or the weaker individuals and it makes him feel like he's a bully. Is someone that's got lowest self-esteem anyway, and what he does he picks on the smaller individuals or the weaker individuals, and it makes him feel like he's more empowered.

Speaker 5 2:29

I think it's behavior from the bully that's intended to harm another person, either physically or emotionally, and it's usually intentional and it's repeated.

Speaker 4 2:39

And it's also, I think, that the bully has also been bullied, so he has seen it, he's been through it. So you know, to make me feel better, I'm going to do it to somebody else. So it's a repeating cycle of bullying.

Speaker 2 2:50

Yes, and sometimes I think they do it because, just like she said, they've been bullied before, but at the same time they feel like that was something that was normal for them and without them doing it they don't feel normal. So it's a little bit of chaos that they need in their life to continue on with it.

Speaker 5 3:07

Yeah, yeah. If you feel powerless, it's a way to grasp it at power, and a lot of us repeat those patterns from our childhood. So if you were treated that way by someone, you in turn treat others in the same way.

Speaker 3 3:20

Correct. So you guys kind of started talking about a little bit already. But I think there's a lot of different types of bullying, so let's kind of break them down individually. Let's start with physical. What does physical bullying look?

Speaker 2 3:31

like Grabbing someone and taking their lunch money.

Speaker 4 3:34

Shoving them in the locker.

Speaker 2 3:35

Yeah.

Speaker 5 3:36

Could be a shoulder check when you walk by. It could escalate to more serious beating someone up or, you know, taking them out back behind a building and harming them in some way.

Speaker 2 3:49

Taking personal items away from them.

Speaker 5 3:52

Sometimes, though, it's pretty, it's subtle. I'm going to shoulder check somebody when I know the teacher isn't looking.

Speaker 4 3:58

Or smack them in the back of the head when somebody's not looking, trip them.

Speaker 3 4:01

The physical can be kind of hard to figure out or sometimes it's pretty obvious. The verbal, though, I think, is sometimes harder to kind of decode and see. What does verbal bullying look like it can?

Speaker 4 4:11

be in all different ways Name calling, shutting them out, ignoring them, talking about them to their other friends and spreading false rumors about them. Yeah, verbal can go in several different directions.

Exploring Tough Parenting Questions

Speaker 5 4:28

In a large training group out here one time I asked our house parents what do you see most commonly? And degrading comments was number one. So that kids say negative things. You know your dad's in jail or your mom passed away, or negative things that are very harmful and again, you know we recognize where that comes from. They have a hurt and they want to inflict that hurt on someone else. But kids can say really ugly things to other kids.

Speaker 2 4:51

A lot of threatening and back and forth ways. Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 3 4:55

Yeah, I think that there's the old saying sticks and stones will break your bones, but words will never hurt you. I think that's the code.

Speaker 5 5:01

Who made that up? Yeah, who came up with?

Speaker 4 5:03

that Wrong.

Speaker 2 5:06

Yeah, because sometimes I think, verbal abuse. It harms kids in a lot more inner than we believe or we know. And it causes them to do spontaneous things that hurts themselves, which we as a society need to really get a check on, because if we don't catch those little behaviors happening and we don't try to stop it or we can't understand them, then they're going to be in a bunch of trouble.

Speaker 5 5:30

I'm sure we all have, you know, a phrase in our head that somebody said to us when we were young and maybe it was meant teasingly or as a joke, but it you know if it was a comment about our physical appearance or a mistake we made. That sticks with you into adulthood and so often adults say things to kids they don't realize the impact that that's going to have on them, right?

Speaker 3 5:55

Yeah, I think that's absolutely true. As adults, I don't think we realize the power and esteem we hold over kids, and a throwaway comment to us might be something that sticks with a kid forever. Yeah, all right. So talk about physical and verbal. What about social bullying? What does that look like?

Speaker 5 6:10

You know, socially, that is, hey, we're all going to wear blue shirts tomorrow, but don't tell Danny, right, Right, you know, or all of a sudden you know we're a part of a friend group and tomorrow I'm not included, and so those are hard things to navigate, right, you know? We tell our children things like be sure that you're friendly to everyone, but not everyone is going to be your friend, and so where do you draw that line between socially isolating somebody and leaving them out of the group, or just you just don't hang out with that person because you don't have a lot in common? And those are hard things for adults to identify in a group of kids, right, you know? Does the teacher see all of those social interactions, and which ones do you choose to ignore and think, hey, that's normal, and which ones do you act on? So it can be subtle and tricky and, like you said, carol, if there's not an adult monitoring that at all times, it's going to fly under the radar.

Speaker 2 7:06

Yes, and I also think you know, with what's going on in our world today is a lot of disbelief can also be put by just because of a political affiliation or a racial affiliation, and it's gotten to a point where it's almost it's past mean and it's getting to the point of hatred which is again if we don't step up and see that it's going to get way out of control.

Speaker 5 7:28

Well, and if kids are, you know, viewing a lot of social media, if they were to watch the news, which they probably don't but how do adults treat adults? There's a lot of bullying that goes on verbal bullying and social bullying and so we as adults aren't always setting a very good example for the kids in our world. I think, there's some glorification of bullies in our society too.

Speaker 3 7:51

So kids pick up on that. If they see adults see it as a valuable thing to kind of socially bully and intimidate one another, then they're going to jump in and kind of emulate that as well. I have teenage daughters and the social bullying is one of the things that kind of I see the most in their world and it's just and it's always subtle things they talk about like secret chat groups that other girls have and they'll talk about it right in front of them, which I find funny that they're talking about a chat group right in front of you. Know a kid. But it's basically to say you're not part of the group.

Speaker 3 8:20

Yeah yeah, it's kind of a way to manipulate their, trying to keep that power, power. Yeah, I think that's actually the root of most of these is power and control. So this next one, I think for us as adults might be one of the harder ones to kind of understand and talk about, because this wasn't a thing when we were kids, right?

Speaker 2 8:38

No.

Speaker 3 8:39

Cyber bullying I think is a big problem, but what does that look like then? How do you guys see cyberbullying play out with the kids?

Speaker 2 8:47

Oh, it's horrible. I mean, our rotary phones never had all that. We're going to date ourselves a little bit. But there is so much stuff on the web. There's so much negativity. They're seeing it left and right. They're also seeing it with the singers the pop singers, the rock singers, it doesn't matter even country singers. I mean, all of them pretty much have joined band and done it to each other.

Speaker 5 9:10

Yeah.

Speaker 2 9:11

And they're seeing this constantly and so that's going to be a hard thing for all of us. I mean, some of us are way behind times on some of this updated technology that these kids are just 100% behind all the time.

Speaker 5 9:23

Well, you know there are apps that are intended to be used by bullies, right? So that in a public group, like a school cafeteria, you can send out a text anonymously where you call one person out, maybe for what they're wearing or what's their hair look like that day, and anybody on that app gets a notification and they're all joined, invited to join in on that bullying. And so, again, those can be tricky if parents aren't aware, if parents aren't looking to see what's on their kids' phones and having those conversations. And even the chat group that Josh mentioned, where you know they would intentionally say, hey, we're in this chat group, oh, but you're not. So it's just, it's another tool, it's a tool of the times that kids use to bully one another.

Speaker 3 10:08

What about hazing? This one, I think, sometimes is a little bit confusing. It's because sometimes I think we socially accept hazing. What is it and why would we consider it bullying?

Speaker 5 10:18

So I think hazing has been around for a long time, and it's basically in order to be part of our group. You have to go through some type of initiation process that's demeaning or humiliating where they are, you know, requiring someone to drink a large amount of alcohol or run through the streets nude, or you know, to undergo some sort of process in order to be recognized as being part of our group. And the problem with that is that kids are wired to want to belong right. Remember when your children are little and they just learn to do a somersault and they go watch me, watch me, watch me, watch me, you know 9 million times and they want your attention as the parent. And then, developmentally, it's appropriate that eventually they quit wanting you to watch them, watch them. They want their peers to watch them, right. And so at that stage where kids are vulnerable to hazing, their desire for belonging with a peer group is so strong that sometimes kids will engage in behavior they don't really want to do because they think it would bring them acceptance or friendship.

Speaker 2 11:24

I think a lot of times where sometimes these kids that we all know that they do certain things and they didn't get recognized, but then they keep pushing that same behavior off on others to get them to do it so more people follow along. And the more that follow along. They now feel like, okay, now we're good and by pushing them into it, get them to doing those certain things. That makes them just feel like they're on top of the world, where really they're not.

Speaker 5 11:50

My daughter had a friend that attended a different school and she was an excellent basketball player and made the varsity team as a freshman, and so I think there was a little bit of an easiness with the girls who were already on the varsity team who's this upstart little freshman, is she going to show us up, right? And so they actually dunked her head in a toilet bowl to haze her to. You know, they said well, we're initiating you into the team, and she was reluctant to report that. She didn't want further retribution from those girls and she hoped that it would be a one-time thing and they would drop it and then accept her into the group. And so, you know, sometimes you see stories of hazing like in a movie or on TV show, and it's many, many years ago, but it's still alive and well in this world today.

Speaker 4 12:38

You see it a lot in college campuses. You want to be a part of the alpha kappa, what you know. You have to do these steps to. You know cheerleading squads. Same way. Go through this. You can't be on the cheerleading squad we. Why do you think that that is? This is what they put me through so I'm going to put you through twice as bad yeah.

Speaker 2 13:08

Yeah, and then not only that, they feel like they were picked for that particular thing to do, and everybody's going to be watching to see if you follow through, because if not, you're not the person we thought you were. Yeah.

Speaker 3 13:20

Suzanne, I heard you once say something about if an adult was to engage in these same behaviors, it would be illegal.

Speaker 5 13:27

Yeah, that it so. If an adult engaged in those behaviors we would call it abusive, right. But somehow we overlook children treating other children that way, teenagers treating other teenagers that way, and we say, oh, they're just kids or it's just part of it. But you know, here on our campus that's a rule of thumb that we use. If I see two kids engaging behavior that I'm concerned about and I say, well, if I was doing that to a kid would I be in trouble, then I don't allow one kid to treat another kid that way.

Speaker 3 13:56

So what might be some warning signs that we, as adults, want to look out for to see if our child is being bullied?

Speaker 4 14:02

They tend to withdraw. They're usually outgoing kids and then they're withdrawn. They're depressed, they stop eating and they're subtle. They don't just stop. It's a subtle decline of behavior and if you're not looking for the behavior to change, you're never going to catch that there's a problem.

Speaker 2 14:19

I think also some of their normal things they do every day that they really enjoy. They stop doing Sports, going outside and playing with the other kids. There's a good sign that something's going on. If they just couldn't wait to get outside. Now all of a sudden they just and again being withdrawn and depressed. That's a big thing, because you see those changes in them and you wonder what is going on Now you've got to go search and find out what it was that caused it.

Speaker 4 14:43

Even lack of using their cellular phones. They're on it 24-7 and then, all of a sudden, you don't see them on it as often. Why is that? And all of a sudden, you don't see them on it as often? And why is that they?

Speaker 2 14:54

don't want to see what's coming through on their feeds, and another thing, too, is they stop eating. They won't participate with the groups that's inside of the homes or outside in the schools or anything else. They just completely just walk away from everybody.

Speaker 3 15:07

So how can you distinguish between normal peer conflict and actual bullying behavior?

Speaker 5 15:12

I think normal peer conflict occurs where there's equal power in relationship, right. So if I'm giving Danny a hard time and he's giving me a hard time, right, we have equal power in our relationship. It's reciprocal right and frequently bullying is not reciprocal right, so it's one-sided. It's only Danny picking on me and we see that quite a bit.

Speaker 4 15:34

You know, you see the one. You see like the two or three group, picking on the one kiddo and calling them names, and you have to immediately stop that because they have to understand that is not right and it will be tolerated. And then that one kid that's being picked on sees, you know, oh, they have my back. You know, I know I'm safe. So, you have to be able to recognize the difference, because if you don't, it only gets worse from that point.

Speaker 5 15:59

Yeah, and there's also typically like a power differential between the bully and the person being bullied, right. So that may be an older child with a younger child or a child who's well accepted in a friend group and a kid who's kind of a loner or a social outcast, the bigger kid and the smaller kid. But you have to be careful with any of those categories, because sometimes it's that smaller kid who's provoking the fight right. Sometimes in a dating relationship, you know we think about the male being coercive or bullying, but sometimes it's that female as well. But somewhere there's a split between power in the relationship in a bullying situation.

Speaker 2 16:39

And I think also with the normal conflict. You can really tell because there's joking and going back and forth, both fun thing. You can really tell whenever it starts to get to a serious point because one will shut down and the other won't.

Speaker 5 16:51

Yeah, all of a sudden one is no longer having fun, right yeah?

Speaker 2 16:55

And even with it being a normal peer contact, sometimes you've got to step in and stop it because you can see it's going in that direction, because it could be a normal contact and turn into a bullying real quick.

Speaker 3 17:09

One of the things I've noticed with a lot of bullies, especially those ones that are social bullies, is they're really good at manipulating and ingratiating themselves to the adults in the environment and that makes it really hard for the adults to ever call them out, because they're thinking oh no, this kid, this kid's my favorite I wouldn't. He would never do anything like that. Have you guys seen that in your working with kids?

Speaker 5 17:30

What? What was the the bully? Was it Leave it to Beaver?

Speaker 3 17:33

Eddie Haskell.

Speaker 5 17:34

Eddie Haskell. Right, and he's. Oh yes, mrs Gnome, you know he was so ingratiating and so kind in the presence of an adult, but behind the scenes he was calling the shots and being a bully and scheming to do something he shouldn't be doing.

Speaker 3 17:49

Yeah.

Speaker 5 17:49

Yeah, I definitely think that's true. I think there are certain kids who definitely know when it's safe to turn on the bullying behavior and that it's not safe if there's an adult present.

Speaker 2 18:00

Yeah, I think we see that quite a bit, and it is not just necessarily in a home, it's in the store, you know, anywhere, movie theater, you see that. And sometimes it is it's like yes, ma'am, no, ma'am, yes sir, no sir, no sir. And then all of a sudden you catch them out of the corner of your eye and you're like what was that? And that's when you got to step up, say hey, what was that?

Speaker 2 18:21

and confront them yeah then they'll know hey, they are listening, they're watching, they hear me what about differences in how boys and girls engage in bullying?

Speaker 3 18:29

do you see differences in the the genders?

Speaker 5 18:31

I think boys tend to be more direct. Right, it's that? Shoulder check, it's that? Let me lock you in your locker. Yeah, yeah, I think girls tend to use social bullying more. Not that they're never physical, but I think there's a lot more social isolation. You know you can't be part of this group. There's a reason the movie was called Mean Girls. Right, because girls tend to be less physical, but they're just as vicious as houseparents of boys. What do you think?

Speaker 2 19:04

I would say that's true, because we see it both ways. You see that with the boys they are more physical and it's more direct, like you say, and they step up to it right away to where girls they can be malicious and they do it behind the scenes. They do it, you know, and they can be very, very mean about it, but, like you said, they'll lash out to where they get their group together before they'll start to where the guys they'll do it on their own, yeah.

Speaker 5 19:29

And you know they say like two boys will have a fight and then it's over and they move on and they can go out and play basketball or hang out the very next day and girls are going to hold a grudge Forever. Forever, Right and so, yeah, I think there are differences in the way our brains are wired and how we, and how we handle social relationships or mishandle social relationships. How has social media changed? How kids bully one another and how we handle social relationships or mishandle social relationships.

Speaker 3 19:54

How has social media changed, how kids bully one another and how does it look different from what we might call traditional bullying?

Speaker 2 20:01

I think it's changed it dramatically and that's because they're able to see them on an acting stage doing something that not necessarily is real, but these kids think that it is real and they're incorporating all that stuff in there. So you see the stuff on social media and you see the stuff that you know they get on there and they see them actually just tearing these people apart, and that's what they're trying to accomplish to where, before you know, it was just like, like you said earlier, you know, hey, a fight and we're over with. Yeah, you know, but now it's even more than that it's going to continue and continue, and continue and continue.

Speaker 5 20:35

I'm sure you all feel the same way.

Speaker 5 20:37

I'm really glad that there was no phone with a camera on it and no social media when I was in high school, yes, for every stupid thing I said or every stupid move I made to be recorded and then shared with everyone so that they could join in my humiliation. You know, if I did something stupid, maybe one or two people saw it. It might be a good story to tell, but it wasn't. Everyone in the whole school knows that I, you know, walked out of the bathroom with toilet paper hanging off my foot, or fell on the icy road out in front of the school or whatever right. And so, boy, it's rough to be a kid, a middle schooler, a teenager these days, because someone could capture your mistake at any moment and then use it in a way that's intended to shame you.

Speaker 2 21:26

Right, and I think that the peer pressure of seeing what's going on. You know, eat a Tide Pod.

Speaker 5 21:30

Oh, let's eat 10 of them. Yeah right, let's see what's going on. You know, eat a Tide, Pod. Oh, let's eat 10 of them.

Speaker 2 21:34

Let's see what's going on. And now? It's this big thing that's blown up into you know where. It should have never happened in the first place. But you see all those things and you're just wondering, like what happened?

Speaker 3 21:41

I wonder too about historically, if you were going to bully someone, you basically had to do it face to face, and now, through social media, you can do it from the comfort of your screen, and anonym you can do it from the comfort of your screen and anonymously.

Speaker 5 21:52

Anonymously, yes.

Speaker 3 21:53

Like if I said it to another kid then face to face I'd probably get punched, but if I say it just behind a screen, there's no downside for that for me, yeah right.

Speaker 4 22:01

Yeah, Like when we were kids.

Speaker 5 22:05

you know, you did it face to face, or you wrote it on a note anonymously and you pass it to this friend to pass to this friend, to pass to that friend to finally get it to the right person.

Speaker 4 22:10

You know, like little chain mail, they don't have that. Now you know.

Speaker 1 22:13

And it's.

Speaker 4 22:14

all of this phone and tablet and computer stuff is really demeaning our children. You know they have no outlet from it and it's just a constant daily thing that they have to see.

Speaker 2 22:23

And I think another thing on that same part, too, is whenever they might not be wanting to bully someone, but they see someone doing it online or they see something and they start this little thing to get it to keep it going too, because they think it's funny, and we've seen that a couple of times as well.

Speaker 5 22:45

Well, and I think too, when kids don't have good social skills, they may be more likely to jump into these things right, and so teaching your kids appropriate social skills is so important, and if you don't teach them good social skills, someone else will teach them questionable social skills right, and so you know. So those are intentional conversations you have with your kids. You know, if you see an instance of bullying on TV, it's good to have a follow-up conversation where you analyze that. I think I've probably jumped ahead to a question, josh, but I think sometimes we're a little too hands-off and we need to be more intentional with our kids.

Speaker 3 23:23

All right, Thank you so much for joining us today. I'm not going to bully you into it, but if you want to give us a five-star review and tell all your friends and family members about how much you love brain-based parenting, I won't stop you Until next time. Then you might have to loan out your frontal lobe today. Just make sure you remember and get them back.

Speaker 1 23:39

Thank you for listening to Brain-Based Parenting. We hope you enjoyed this show. If you would like more information about Cal Farley's Boys Ranch, are interested in employment, would like information about placing your child, or would like to help us help children by donating to our mission, please visit calfarleyorg. You can find us on all social media platforms by searching for Calfarley's. Thank you for spending your time with us and have a blessed day.