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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Sharing and Caring

We have all noticed that human communication and relationships seem to be deteriorating – the rate of divorce is still on the rise, bullying is a worldwide phenomenon and the point of discussion everywhere, young people are staying single longer or choosing not to have kids and let’s not get started on customer service. Things are bad and we know it.

But why is that?

It just so happens that this week, I have had a few opportunities to think about this and I would like to share these thoughts with you.

At a pool party for Noff’s friend, one father complained about his daughter disregard for the high of mobile phone charges and said he was surprised she had been so careless with his money. Another mother spoke of how her daughter used Facebook to splash every little thought in all her friends’ faces without taking into account how they might take it. Both parents were quite frustrated with their kids.

When I was growing up, I was told to be polite and considerate. My parents thought about what others would think about the way I dressed, the way I combed my hair, how I spoke, the grades I got and many other things. They looked me over and made sure I was presentable before I went out the door.

It was all about others. We had to get special permission to think of ourselves.

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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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How to Stop Workplace Bullying (2)

Stopping the bullying at work has a very important impact on the bullying in our society. Many bullies come from bullying homes or are subject to some form of bullying at work and try to regain power by picking on the people around them. It is a cycle we can break by helping each participant in the “game” break their powerless perception.

In the previous chapter of the bullying series, I wrote 30 tips to help the bullying victim at work. Here are the next tips and I am sure that implementing each of them can make a huge difference in your life.

Remember, if you are a bullying victim, you have the power to break the cycle.

This post is part 19 of 35 in the series Bullying

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How to Stop Workplace Bullying

Workplace bullying has an enormous impact on other bullying on our society. To gain some power back, workplace-bullying victims search for weaker people in order to take that power from them. They search all around them for any person who appears weaker, even if that person is their partner, family member, friend or child.

If we want to stop bullying completely, we must have a holistic approach to it. We must help everyone involved in bullying, because bullying is a cycle that start with big bullies who feel inferior in some way and bully others to regain their sense of power, which makes their victims feel inferior in some way and bully others to regain their sense of power… can you see the cycle? Let’s stop it!

To stop bullying at work, we can help three entities: the victim, the bystanders (those who witness the bullying) and the organization who is suffering from it directly or indirectly by loss of working days, motivation and productivity. In the upcoming posts, I will write tips to each of these entities and what they can do to stop the workplace bullying. Find out who you are and use these tips to make a difference where you work.

Bullying it is everyone’s business and sometimes, a single tip can make all the difference. You can stop workplace bullying by stopping the bully, but also by changing the behavior of the bullying victim.

This post is part 18 of 35 in the series Bullying

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How to Help Bullying Bystanders (2)

In the last bullying post, I wrote 25 tips to help bystanders who are involved in bullying. In the bullying game, there are the bully, the victim and the bystanders. Each of them is very important in eliminating the bullying phenomenon.

The bystanders are the people that watch a bully act and either get themselves involved or not in favor of the bully or the victim. As a reminder, here are the 5 types of bystanders:

* Ring Leaders
* Associates
* Reinforcers
* Outsiders
* Defenders

On average, when another person gets involved to defend a bullying victim, the bullying will stop within 10 seconds. Think about it: 10 seconds are enough for the bully to take a step back and for the situation to improve for everyone. Therefore, I am sure you understand how important it is for us to give power to the defenders (and inspire more of them), because they hold the key to making a big shift in bullying elimination.

This post is part 17 of 35 in the series Bullying

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How to Help Bullying Bystanders

Bullying involves additional “players” besides the bully and the victim. All the other players are called “bystanders” collectively and include the “ring leader”, the “associates”, the “reinforcers”, the “outsiders” and the “defenders”. Here are the characteristics of each of these types.

Ring Leader – These are kids in power who orchestrate a bullying act by using their social influence. They do not bully directly but use a bully’s weakness to harass other weak kids.

Associates – These are children who actively join the bully. It could be because they are afraid of the bully or the ring leader, but they do not initiate the bullying themselves. In some strange way, they are also victims.

Reinforcers – These kids do not bully directly but give a feedback to the bully by commenting, smiling or laughing. They do not initiate an act of bullying towards other kids, but they increase the bully’s confidence by being a supportive audience.

Outsiders – These children are on the victim’s side, but they keep quiet when they witness an act of bullying. They are afraid of the bully, so they say nothing and do nothing in order to avoid drawing any attention to themselves.

Defenders – These kids are rare. They intervene and actively try to stop the bully and comfort the victim.

As you can understand, the involvement of un-involvement of all these characters can make a huge difference to the frequency and intensity of the bullying in any environment. On average, kids who get involved and defend a bullied victim stop the bullying act within 10 seconds. We need more of them!

This post is part 16 of 35 in the series Bullying

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