Cooperative Extension with Jean Bell 05/24/18
Bullying
Bullying is a serious problem today. Bullying can range from mean teasing to threats and physical violence. Bullying can be verbal, physical, digital harassment, and even extortion of money or exclusion from activities. According to stopbullying.gov 28% of kids in grades 6-12 say they have been bullied at school and about 30% of kids admit to bullying another child. Most of this school bullying happens in middle school grades, but bullying can happen anywhere or anyplace, not just at school. Cyberbullying is bullying on a digital platform. Cyberbullying can happen on social media, through text messaging, or while playing online games. Cyberbullying is reported by about 20% of teens, and the incidence may be even higher.
Parents need to be on the lookout for signs that a child is being bullied or is bullying others since most kids who are being bullied may not say anything to parents or ask for help. Some warning signs to watch out for are changes in your child’s behavior. These changes can include unexplainable physical injuries, lost or destroyed clothes, books or electronics, frequent headaches, stomach aches or even faking illness to get out of going to school, changes in eating habits, like skipping meals or binge eating, difficulty sleeping, loss of interest in school or activities, avoidance of friends, noticeable increases or decreases of screens and texting, hiding their screens when others are near, avoiding social situations, and self-destructive behaviors such as harming themselves or talk of suicide. Kids who are targets of bullies are often perceived as different from their peers. The differences may be that they are short, tall, fat or thin, don’t have “cool” clothes or shoes, or have a different religion or sexual orientation. Signs a child may be bullying others could include getting into physical or verbal fights, aggressive behavior, blaming others for their problems, worrying about being popular or having unexplained extra money or belongings.
Bullying is linked to negative outcomes for the child who is being bullied and the child who is the bully. Kids who are bullied are often depressed, lonely, have health complaints and are more likely to drop out of school. Kids who are bullied have been known to retaliate against their bullies through violent measures. Many school shooters have had a history of being bullied. Children who are bullies often engage in other violent and risky behaviors and are more likely to abuse alcohol and drugs, get into fights, and be abusive to spouses or children as adults.
Adults can help prevent bullying by helping kids understand bullying and encouraging then to talk about bullying if they are a victim or if they see bullying. Give kids tips on how to stand up to bullies. Parents need to be aware of what their kids are doing online, and monitor their kids’ social media use. Parents can check histories or even use apps to do this. Make sure you have your child’s passwords and establish rules for media use. Some good rules are to make sure your child never gives others their passwords or information and to treat everyone with respect and never post or forward anything negative about others. Keep the lines of communication open with your kids. Spend time each day talking to your kids and let them know you will listen to problems when they need to talk. Model respectful behavior towards others. When you are online, be respectful to others, even if you are posting comments.
Cooperative Extension with Jean Bell 05/17/18
Some thoughts about discipline
Discipline is a topic that many parents have strong views about. Discipline is not about spanking or not spanking your child, but rather a way of teaching your child positive behaviors.
The June issue of Growing Together, a newsletter published by Growing Child contains a column titled The Big Ten, which has ten thoughts on the topic of discipline that I would like to share with you.
- Know what you want to accomplish. Reflect on the kind of person you want your child to become by adulthood, and make decisions based on those goals. Keeping the big picture in mind prevents falling into the trap of quick fixes, such as discipline that stops the behavior temporarily, without children understanding the reason behind the limits.
- Remember that when kids misbehave, it is not personal-they are not doing it just to drive you crazy. They are either developmentally unable to act as you would like, or they have not yet learned the lessons you want to teach. Take time to figure out the reason instead of just getting upset.
- Consider whether you sound like your mother or father. This is not necessarily a bad thing. But merely repeating the discipline practices from your childhood without thinking about whether they are appropriate to your goals can be counterproductive. Bad memories are strong, so figure out what is motivating your guidance pattern.
- See life from your child’s viewpoint. When you consider things from a child’s perspective, you can often prevent problems from occurring; an example would be a too long wait with nothing to do in a restaurant. In addition, understanding how children think helps parents teach in a way that helps children see the sense in behaving in particular ways.
- Remember that discipline has a different meaning than punishment. Discipline means teaching, punishing means stopping in negative, often hurtful ways. Children don’t learn new and better behaviors when they are punished, they merely learn to stop that behavior temporarily, and not get caught the next time.
- Too many rules mean lots of rule breaking-and parental policing. Instead, remember the big ideas for setting limits-kids need to learn to keep themselves safe, to respect the property and rights of others, and to take responsibility for their actions.
- Change your focus from the negative to the positive. When you catch kids being good and pay attention to that behavior, you reinforce that behavior. Reinforced behavior is strengthened. Ignoring behaviors you don’t want, or quickly redirecting them without too much attention to the negative, causes undesirable behavior to disappear.
- Keep your cool. When kids are yelled at all learning goes out the window, as they concentrate on feeling ashamed and fearful. This is not easy to do, but when parents take time to calm themselves, they are far more effective in their guidance.
- Be strong in your beliefs. Caving into toddler outbursts or the emotional blackmail of older children is not good for them now or in the future. Kids feel safer with authoritative parents.
- Admit your mistakes. Nobody’s perfect. Sometimes all these reminders will go out the window, as you and the kids have a really bad day. The life lesson of having a parent apologize and try harder is lasting: we do our best.
The job of guiding children to learn appropriate behavior is an important job of parents. Take the time to reflect on your discipline strategy. Hopefully, these tips will give you some insight on positive discipline.
Source: Growing child newsletter, June 2018 page 3 www.growingchild.com