Resources for parents whose kids are being bullied

I teach how to use behavioral psychology (operant conditioning) to stop bullying and harassment. I have quite a bit of free content available if you are looking for help.

53 short video tips to stop bullying using operant conditioning - https://bullyvaccineproject.com/53bullyingtips/

2 free short courses for parents - https://bullyvaccineproject.com/how-to-talk-to-your-childs-school-so-they-will-actually-listen-and-help/

And https://bullyvaccineproject.com/what-to-do-if-your-child-is-a-bully/ (these do require signin – but it is free)

A slideshare – how to stop bullying – a guide for bystanders - http://www.slideshare.net/JenniferHancock1/how-to-stop-bullying-a-guide-for-bystanders

A free ebook - https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/633104

A free course at Udemy - https://www.udemy.com/stopbullyingwithscience/

Please share and let people know there are things they can do that will actually help.

Deltas – Positively Reinforced

This is for parents who would like to have more positive relationships with their children despite the need to say no!

One of the main things I teach is how to use operant conditioning to improve interpersonal relationships.  I am also a parent and yes, I use these techniques on my child and my husband and no – it’s not manipulative, it’s positively reinforcing the positive behaviors I want to see in myself and them.

Don’t Be Afraid of Tantrums

Reality – emotions are difficult. Your child has to learn how to cope with them. Helping them learn is your job. If they never experience them, they won’t learn how to cope with them.

I participate in several positive parenting and peaceful parenting forums. One of the things I’ve noticed is that many parents are afraid of their children’s tantrum. Like – if their child throws a tantrum they have failed as a parent and are ruining their kids.

Great Advice for Parents

Punishments, time outs and consequences: making sense of the advice.

I’m a mom. I participate in a variety of mom discussion groups. I find a sense of solidarity and support in them. The most common theme that is discussed is: how the heck do I get my kid to do what needs to be done without punishing them?  I mean seriously – sometimes they only respond to threats.

We have been told punishment is bad and counterproductive and we are to use time outs instead.  But, we end up using time outs as if they are punishments, which ideally they are not. And so now there is a backlash against time outs called, wait for it ... time in. We have been told to create natural consequences to help our children learn to behave well, and we end up using consequences as punishments too. And we threaten our kids with punishment in the form of consequences or time outs. We can’t seem to get away from the do what I say or else model of getting our little heathens to behave the way we want or need them to.

There is a lovely article from psychology today that has a list of 10 alternatives to consequences. And the author rightly points out that consequences should not be used as punishments. (see: https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/peaceful-parents-happy-kids/201407/10-alternatives-consequences)

Most of the advice amounts to reasoning with your child in such a way that your child will conclude: doing what you need them to do is a good idea. In other words, go Socratic on your child.

I’ve been doing this since my son became verbal. I have always made it clear, he is free to choose his actions and by doing so, he is choosing his consequences. I don’t just impost consequences as a threat. When he is acting out or being defiant – I say – ok – what is it you want to accomplish. He tells me. Then I say, Is doing whatever obnoxious thing you are doing going to get you that? (The correct answer is NO!) What is likely to happen if you keep doing it? (Hint – mommy is going to get frustrated and mad because – heck – she’s human). Do you want crazy mad mommy? (Usually he does not). How might you behave to get what you want? (Hint – do what I need you to do).

He is in charge of his behavior. He chooses his consequences through his behavior. And we do this explicitly. It’s not an emotional process. When he gets upset, and lets face it, we all do, we tell him it’s ok for him to get mad. But acting on anger usually makes things worse, so let’s work together to reason through his options so that we, his parents, can help him rectify his problem.  And, sometimes we can’t. And he has come to accept that too.

Bedtime battles? We never had them. His bedtime is what it is and there are certain things that have to be done before bedtime and if he wants story time, he needs to get them done in time for us to have reading time. He still gets snuggled and stuff, but certain privileges go away because of time constraints. This isn’t a punishment, it’s a natural consequence.

The key to being able to do this – is the reset (or Do-Over in the list from Psychology Today). You can’t be angry or frustrated when you help your child calm down and reason through their actions. You have to be calm and model calm reasoning. Being angry and frustrated is going to happen. You can’t expect your kid to calm down if you can’t. So you calm down first and then start compassionately helping your kids to choose their behavior so that both of you are happy with the outcome.

What skill sets do children need for the future?

The 6C’s – Skill set for effective lifelong living and learning.

I love it when best practices coincide with a humanist approach to life.  It turns out that early childhood education specialists, Doctors Golinkoff & Hirsh-Pask, have narrowed down the key list of skills children should learn so that they can learn how to learn so that they can keep learning as they grow up.  (See more at: http://dupagechildrens.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/ELRAC_Brochure_11_11_2013_update.pdf)

Why is all this learning important? Because success in life is largely a measure, not of what you know, but of how you use the information you have. So the synthesis of information is important AND knowing how to acquire new information if it turns out you are mistaken is also important.  Because the only thing worse than being wrong is continuing to be wrong because you don’t know how to correct your mistakes.

Anyway – the 6Cs – the skill set we need to focus on to help our children learn.

• ·         Collaboration (building new knowledge and approaches with others);
• ·         Communication (persuasively arguing – and listening – to share ideas);
• ·         Content (the 3R’s and so much more);
• ·         Critical thinking (selecting and synthesizing the information needed to perform the task at hand);
• ·         Creative innovation (using content and critical thinking to envision new solutions to old problems);
• ·         and Confidence (the old saws about perspiration and perseverance have much to offer).

Modeling Anger for your Child

Why getting angry on occasion, may not be a bad thing.

All you parents out there, raise your hands. How many of you have lost your temper with your children and felt like a horrible failure of a parent as a result?  Yeah – me too.

Getting angry is not how I want to parent. You see parents who are mad all the time yelling at your kids and you feel sorry for the child.  That sort of abuse can really damage a child. So when we lose our cool as parents and yell, well, it’s not good.

On the other hand – I do think modeling not just anger, but how to get over frustration and anger quickly without hurting anyone is a good thing. This is one of those important life skills people have to learn. And if we aren’t shown how to do it and aren’t taught how to do it, how will we learn?

I used to work at an SPCA and we had an animal fostering program. So if we had babies without a mom, a volunteer would nurse the pups or kits until they were of adoptable age. We had to tell our volunteers to allow the kits or pups to struggle. Don’t do everything for them. Allow them to struggle. Because if you don’t and you coddle a kitten or a pup, you end up with a psychologically very damaged puppy or kitten. The struggle helps them to be normal.

It’s the same with kids. A little bit of stress and struggle is good for them. A lot – is bad.

So, when I get angry, I don’t hide it. But I also try not to take it out on my kid. I use my words to let him know, I’m getting mad or frustrated and that he should give me a little space so that I don’t blow up. Getting frustrated and angry is normal and ok. Taking it out on others is not ok. Because my husband and I model rationally dealing with our anger and frustration – most of the time anyway – our son has picked up on this and does the same thing. In fact, he’s often so calm about dealing with his anger, others don’t always believe him when he says, he’s getting angry or frustrated.  We, his parents, know better and respect his space when he asks for it. He does the same for us.

What about those times when we do lose our cool?  Well, they don’t happen that often. But when they do, we apologize as soon as we calm down, which is usually within about a half hour. Our son accepts our apologies because he knows, that’s not how we normally handle our anger and frustration and that even the best attempts to be rational sometimes fail.  And that’s a good lesson for him to learn. He apologizes too when he loose his cool. Why? Because that’s the behavior we've modeled for him.

I realize it is hard to be rational when you are angry. But consider what sort of behavior you want to model for your child. Because they learn from example. If you don’t want a kid who screams when they are mad. Perhaps you should try to cut back on your screaming first.

How do you model and handle anger and frustration in your family?

Disciplining a child – a lesson in humanistic parenting.

Are switches and hitting a good discipline technique?  After all, NFL star Adrian Peterson has been accused of hitting his 4 year old son with a switch. Many people, myself included are horrified. This is child abuse. Others, like Sean Hannity, think it’s a valid discipline technique.  Who is right?  Well – I am of course!!!

Let me address this as a former animal trainer. No good trainer uses physical violence as a training technique. Ever. Anyone who does is an idiot who doesn’t know what they are doing. And if they do this to an animal, they would be brought up on animal abuse charges!  It’s not considered acceptable to beat the crap out of your dog because it’s not consider a valid training technique anymore.  And, if you wouldn’t use physical battery with a potentially deadly weapon to train a dog, because it’s unnecessary, counterproductive and brutal, why on earth would you do it to a child!

What happened to Peterson’s son was battery with a weapon. There is no other lens with which to view what happened.  With all due respect to the Sean Hannitys of the world who think beating a toddler with a stick is a good way to teach them a lesson, it’s not. There are decades of research with more evidence than can be cited here that show if you want to get a behavior to stop – the best way to get it to stop is to stop rewarding it while you give the animal a different way to reach their reward.  Negative reinforcement – which is what physical punishment is – is still reinforcement and it is counterproductive.  So if you really wanted to discipline a child, wouldn't you do so in a way so that they would actually learn what you want them to?  Yeah – I thought so.  Beating a toddler with a stick doesn’t teach them anything except to be afraid. And ... there is a lot of science to back that up.

Additionally, there is new research that shows hitting also impacts brain development negatively.  So, not only does hitting a toddler with a stick not produce better behavior, it causes brain damage.  It’s abusive and unnecessary and counterproductive.

People really do need to learn alternate ways to get their kids to comply with their requests. The good news is those alternate ways are way more effective at helping kids learn to be powerfully ethical and self-sufficient. No hitting required.

What are these other more effective techniques? I’m glad you asked. 

I am a Humanist and a parent. I have a very well behaved child. I have never hit him. He is given consequences and we use the Socratic method to help him choose behaviors that will benefit him and our family. He is free to choose his actions, but there are consequences, both good and bad depending on his choices.  My goal as a Humanist parent is not to have an obedient child. I want a child who can make good decisions for himself, including going against authority if authority is wrong. That requires me to help him learn how to make decisions. The Socratic method is fabulous for this. As soon as he could talk – we started reasoning with him.  It takes a bit more effort on the front end, but it pays off in spades as they grow.

We also used time outs. These are not considered punishments.  They are an opportunity for you to collect yourself and your emotions and to get your emotions out without harming those around you. Mommy and daddy take time outs when we need to and our son has been taking time outs for himself for several years now (he’s 9 as I write this).  Again – it’s not a problem to be frustrated or angry, our goal is to not do something we will regret while we are frustrated or angry. And sometimes, you just need to go somewhere alone and vent. We all do.  As a result, when we have disagreements in our home, they are settled rationally and without yelling.

If my son starts to do something he shouldn’t, I ask him if he really wants to do that.  The answer is usually no. If he starts to negotiate and it’s something we can be flexible on – we negotiate. If it isn’t negotiable – like getting a shot or something, we tell him – this isn’t something you can negotiate. We rarely have problems anymore.

A non-violent approach to child discipline works incredibly well. Anyone who meets my son will attest to that. So, stop hitting your children and teach them how to make good decisions for themselves.