How to Stop Parental Bullying (6)

When their physical life is in a mess, parents find it harder to cope with the challenges that are part of every day. This situation puts many parents into a reactive mode and makes them easy targets for bullies. You can help your kids by helping yourself be more in control of your life. Adopt a lifestyle that lets you control your circumstances more than they control you.

You can also teach your kids every tip here to make sure they will not be bullying victims and, of course, you need to be a good role model for them by “walking the talk” and showing them how to be in charge of your life.

Control over your life is a good way to build confidence. It does not mean you have 100% control of everything that happens to you in life (we wish!), but it definitely means that you will save your energy for situations that are truly out of your control. Unfortunately, there will always be situation like that, but if we are not too busy with an out-of-control lifestyle, we can handle the accident, the misunderstanding, the trauma, the health problem and the relationship issue better.

Here are the 5 more tips for parents to build their emotional strength and stop the bullying cycle.

This post is part 29 of 35 in the series Bullying

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How to Stop Parental Bullying (5)

In the last few posts of the bullying series, I started introducing 50 personal development techniques for parents to help stop the cycle of bullying. A bully is a person who feels weak and powerless, who is bullied himself by another person, who feels weak and powerless, who bullies others gain power, who bully others to gain power… and this cycle will never end, unless we stop it somewhere.

Families are the best candidates to focus on, because parents, although some are bullied themselves and bully their kids, still have an interest in raising wonderful, successful, happy kids. If we give parents strength and empower them to be aware and develop themselves, they will raise happy and confident kids, who will raise happy and confident kids, that will raise more happy and confident kids and slowly, we will reverse the bullying trend.

In this post, you will find 5 more techniques to stop parental bullying using personal development techniques. Each tip is very powerful. Parents can learn to develop it and become roles models for their kids to develop it too. Your kids are mirrors – they will copy your behavior. When you change, so will they.

This post is part 28 of 35 in the series Bullying

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How to Stop Parental Bullying (4)

Personal development and emotional intelligence may seem like the stuff of workshops and seminars, but they are made up of simple mindset changes anyone can do to have a better life. As long as you have the desire to change, this series of posts can show you how. And when you start changing, even just a little, you will gradually pick up speed and be able to make changes more quickly and easily.

We are often so busy living our life we assume it cannot be changed and that make changes harder, because we are not letting go of what is happening here and now. If that is the way you feel, spend a few minutes breathing deeply with your eyes closed, let here and now dissolve away and imagine how your life could be.

When you are relaxed and hopeful, keep reading.

This post is part 27 of 35 in the series Bullying

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How to Stop Parental Bullying (3)

In the previous chapter of the bullying series, I started introducing my 50 personal development techniques to help bully parents stop the cycle of bullying.

I believe that “happy parents Raise Happy Kids” and strong and powerful parents raise strong and powerful children that no one can bully or push around. Parents with high emotional intelligence do not bully their own kids to gain power even if they are bullied by someone else.

Each of these tips can make a huge change in family life by itself and help you gain the power you need to parent your kids in a healthy, happy, supportive environment. Use your power wisely!

This post is part 26 of 35 in the series Bullying

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How to Stop Parental Bullying (2)

The previous post of the bullying series talked about stopping bully parents with awareness, because awareness is the first step towards any change. The following posts will show how we can stop bully parents by introducing personal development.

I believe that happy parents raise happy kids and that parents with good emotional skills raise children with good emotional skills, so this will also stop many kids from being bullies and others from being victims.

In the next 10 anti-bullying posts, I will list more than 50 bullying items and expand on some personal development technique to overcome some bullying behavior or help your kids stop being bullies or victims. Consider this your free parent coaching course to recognize, avoid and eliminate bullying from their life.

Some bullying behaviors are much more severe than others, but this activity is not meant to judge you or any other parent. It is there to give you tools to overcome snappy, fearful, aggressive or manipulative behaviors that arise from feeling powerless.

It will help you regain personal power so you do not try to get this power from abusing your kids, your partner or your employees (remember, every bully is also a victim and even if you are feeling like a victim, you may be bullying others).

This post is part 25 of 35 in the series Bullying

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How to Stop Parental Bullying

In the last chapter of the bullying series, I wrote about bully parents (some people call them toxic parents) and although I think there is sometimes a fine line between carrying out our parenting responsibility and bullying, there is no doubt that bullying is a cycle that will never end unless we help parents stop it.

Yes, we have law enforcement officers whose job is making sure it does not continue, but if parents stop bullying their kids from fear of the police or the authorities, it will only increase their sense of disempowerment. Their focus will be again on gaining power without the authorities’ knowledge, which will create another cycle of making kids afraid of reporting and worse, hiding their physical injuries and hurts from others. This reduces the support structure available to bullied children and the chances of stopping the bullying or recovering from it.

Parents must stop the bullying cycle not because of the fear of being caught, but because they have gained power and understanding through developing their emotional intelligence. This way, the parents will be happy too.

We must stop the cycle of bullying so that in 10 years, we will talk about it as history and say, “This is what people did in the past, but we are more civilized and in control and we are better parents for our children”. We need to be proud of making a difference.

In this post, I want to help parents discover if they were bullied themselves when they were young and if there is a form of bullying in their home towards their own children.

This post is part 24 of 35 in the series Bullying

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Bully Parents

Teenage girl looking sadly out the window

Bullying parents are a very dangerous phenomenon in our society, because parents are supposed to be the people who protect their kids from bullying. Yet, as I have described in previous chapters, there are many parents who feel weak and lack the emotional intelligence to maintain a sense of control without bullying someone else. Being smaller and weaker makes kids easy targets for them.

Why are there bully parents?

Parents bully their kids because they have been bullied themselves as children or they are being bullied by someone else (often severely or continuously for a long time – see Workplace Bullying). This creates a never-ending cycle of parents who bully their kids, causing them to grow up and bully their own kids (and other people at work) and so on.

Often, people who have been bullied as children do not realize that their behavior is bullying. When you grow up in a place where bullying is the norm, you accept it as part of life and behave accordingly.

I am sure you have gone to a friend’s home many times and discovered that they ran things differently, which questioned the way things are done in your family. In the past, aggressive behavior, physical violence and abuse of power were part of daily life – kids were physically beaten at school with a cane or denied food or sleep as part of a discipline method that was totally controlled by their parents.

When kids are bullied at home and have never learned ways to resolve conflicts peacefully, they react in an aggressive way when things seem to get out of control with their own kids. Had they lived in a home where the parents set a good example of conflict resolution, they would have developed healthy ways to handle challenges and difficulties.

This post is part 23 of 35 in the series Bullying

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How Organizations Can Stop Bullying (2)

When individuals bully at work, the problem is not as severe as when the organization has a culture that supports bullying. The organization as a bystander can choose to be a defender, protect victims and create a cooperative atmosphere, or to be a major supporter of bullies and increase the problem. Unlike the kids who are bystanders at school, organizational bystanders suffer from the bullying directly through loss of productivity and money.

This chapter includes many tips to help the organization condemn, stop and prevent bullying. Each tip here can make a huge impact on someone’s life and has the potential to stop the bullying cycle – victims feeling powerless and bullying others to regain their power, causing their victims to bully others to regain power and so on.

When I was 15, I had a very special teacher who supervised our school’s student council. He was a very devoted teacher and we felt he really cared for us. One day, I asked him, “Reuben, why do you do this? Why do you work so hard to empower us?”

He said, “If I convince 5 of you to make a change and each of you convinces another 5 who will convince another 5 each, eventually, we will have a better world!”

I am spreading his words. If you are part of an organization, particularly in a leadership position, and you help condemn, stop and prevent bullying towards one person, you will make a difference in the lives of their partner, their children, their grand children, and their great-grand children for generations to come.

We need strong and courageous people to put a stop to this cycle. If we stop one bully and then one more bully, we can gradually change the world. I believe this with all my heart.

This post is part 22 of 35 in the series Bullying

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How Organizations Can Stop Bullying

Bullying at work is a big problem in our society. In fact, many employees are abused regularly as part of their job description. The owner of the business, organization, farm or factory rules everyone and often bullies them on a regular basis. I take my hat off to those courageous people (past and present) who fight for justice and do all they can to prevent this bullying, because it is so widespread and “built in”.

As an organization, the first thing you must understand is that with every bullying incident in your workplace, you lose productivity and, as a result, money. It is in your best interest to stop it and as soon as possible. It may not be easy, but it is a must. In workplaces where there is bullying there are many problems that quickly affect the “bottom line”.

Some companies even close up because they are unable to manage their people properly.

Workplace bullying can be caused by individual factors and cultural factors. It is very important for every organization to understand those factors and address them as a matter of course.

This post is part 21 of 35 in the series Bullying

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How Workplace Bullying Bystanders Can Break the Cycle

In the previous chapters, I wrote about how helping the victim at work is a good way to stop bullying in society in general by breaking the cycle of victims becoming bullies who bully other victims and make them bully others too in a futile attempt to regain lost power. The cycle must stop somewhere and this can only be done by courageous people who understand that by helping each of the participants in the game, we can reverse the cycle towards a considerate, supportive, understanding and caring society (can I get an “Amen”?).

In this chapter, I want to offer some tips to help the bystander of workplace bullying. Just to refresh, workplace bullying bystanders are the people who watch others bully and take a stand by participating, encouraging the bully actively or with body language, doing nothing or defending the bullied victim.

As you probably understand, most of the people in our society are bystanders (thank God!) and by watching or being aware, they become either bullies or victims (fearing to defend) themselves. Their help in changing the bullying phenomenon is crucial, because not being directly targeted, they have more power than the victim or the bully and are in a better position to make a difference.

Here is a list of suggestions and tips for workplace bullying bystanders. Sometimes, using a single tip can make a difference in someone’s life. Never underestimate how much power you have to make a difference!

This post is part 20 of 35 in the series Bullying

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