Navigating Bullying With Your Children

Most of the studies out there show that the difference between a kid who spirals out of control and that bullying just pushes them over that tipping point and the kid who actually survives it is just one friend.

So I don't even know this about you, you know, 41 years of marriage. I don't even know if you were ever bullied at school. I went to the same school, but you know, I was three years ahead and I was so much more mature.

I didn't pay any attention to that little girl running around in the playground. But I don't think I was bullied, but I did see bullying and it outraged me if I would see that. I think I've shared the story here before, but I think I was 12 years old and there was a girl that was known as a bully who was 15 years old and she would beat up all the younger kids. And I was with one of my friends who tended to get bullied a little bit and the girl saw my friend, started calling her names and pushed her down on the ground. And so I'm thinking I'm strong, I'm a gymnast, I'm doing all these things to make you stronger as gymnast.

And I'm just going to say to listeners that don't know you very well, I've seen you, you get all, I'm just going to, I can just see it. You're a little girl and you're like going to take her down. And mind you, this girl is probably 5'8". I'm guessing she weighs 200 pounds.

I am 100 pounds and I'm 5'1". And I think I'm taking her down. And so I said, yeah, you want, you want to go?

I'll go with you. And this girl punches me in the face. You guys, I was going to tackle her.

I thought I've, you know, I play football with my brothers. She punched me in the face and I went down so hard and I felt so much fear. I was, I didn't even know what to say. And now as a mature adult, I hope I am. I'm realizing this girl must have been so hurting, the girl that was bullying.

What had happened to her that would create this? She was a monster to us younger kids. And I'm thinking, man, I wish I would have dealt with it different.

And I wish I would have had some tools. I think we as parents want tools to help our kids to know if they're being bullied or maybe our kid is a bully. Like, what do we do? Yeah, we live in a world where there's more attention drawn to bullying.

There was never any talk when we were kids and even high school about it. But now there were bullies, there were bullies and there's cyberbullies. It's a real deal that a lot of our own kids are dealing with. So we've got Jonathan McKee in the studio today who's written a couple books, two books I didn't even know. One, a fictional book called Bystanders and then the other one, The Bullying Breakthrough. And these have been so helpful for parents, especially to help us understand how to navigate this world with our kids. Jonathan, welcome back to Family Life Today.

That's good to be here. I remember when we talked about this before, Jonathan, you talked about, you know, your experience being bullied as a kid. Talk about that a little bit.

That's the book that if you flip over the back cover, the picture explains it all. I have a picture of my fourth grade, you know, my fourth grade school picture. And you can't really even see me. All you see is these two shiny teeth. And they immediately go, man, it must have been a rough fourth grade. I'm like, man, it was a rough like five years because when the baby teeth went out, the big teeth came in. And they gave you a name, right? Oh, there was tons of them. I mean, name it.

I mean, from Bugs Bunny to can opener. And I would, true story, I'd be at the grocery store with my mom and little kids would be like, Mommy, what's wrong with his teeth? Shh, don't stare, honey. You know, he probably sucked on his pacifier too long or whatever, you know. I mean, and so I just, there was not a day that went by that I didn't hear comments about my teeth. So it just was one of those things that started. And then I was also just a very peculiar kid.

I've very, you know, put all kinds of initials there from ADD to probably ADHD. And they were constantly telling my parents that I shouldn't be on this medication and this medication. And so it was a rough, especially middle school for me. And during middle school, there was this one period of time where this one kid kind of had it out for me. And he actually started this Kill John Club.

He made T-shirts. I kid you not. No way.

KJC. And I went up and told the teacher about it. And the teacher was like, no, they didn't. And I'm like, no, they didn't. That's not, you know, I'm like, no, trust me, that's Kill John Club.

They had some T-shirts where they would throw their jackets on so you could see it. But on the back was a caricature this kid had drawn of me and had a gun scope on my head. And people think there's no way this stuff happens. But yeah, this is very real for me. And it was very real for my son.

So I thought it was an issue to talk about because it's becoming a pressing issue for especially, you know, for young people today. Because one of the things I had going for me is at least when that bell rang at two thirty, I could go home somewhere safe. Now, when the bell rings at two thirty, young people enter a whole new world where the bullies are sitting there waiting for them.

And it continues all night long. What do you remember going home as a middle school boy? How did you get through? Did it continue in high school?

And how did you navigate it? It was, I mean, it was very tough times. One thing that was honestly, I mean, God is so good. I had two loving parents who really cared about me and I actually was plugged in at my church. And at my church, I actually had some really good friends. And that really helped because most of the studies out there show that the difference between a kid who spirals out of control and bullying just pushes them over that tipping point. And the kid who actually survives it is just one friend, one close confidant that they can talk to. That makes a world of difference. And that's one of the things when I talk with young people in school assemblies, I always tell them that stat. You can make the difference in another kid's life. You can make a world of difference because one friend makes a difference.

I think every parent is hoping that they can have an impact on their kids with bullying. But did you tell your parents? Did they know what was going on internally? No, because when I even wrote the book, my mom read it and she's like, I just didn't. And she heard me kind of because I would do school assemblies and talk about this a little bit, but she's like, I just had no idea.

And it wasn't her fault. I didn't come home and be like, hey, yeah, so today here's the food they threw at me and here's the whatever. And I know with my son, we would talk with him a lot. But we found a lot of those stories years later because we had no idea that in high school, he was still literally getting food thrown at him during lunch and stuff like that. We had no idea.

He just never said no. Do you think there's any way we can pull that out of our kids? The question I'm always asked by parents is, well, what can we do? What can we do? And I think the mistake we make as parents is we want to solve it.

Yeah, I want to solve it. I'm going to go down there. And I tell you, I remember a time when my kid was in fourth grade where for Halloween, all the kids had their costumes. And and my son, Alec, he was such a cute little kid and a creative little kid. And at the time, he really liked the Disney movie Monsters, Inc. And he was in the Disney store with us and he saw this costume from Mike Wazowski, the big green dude with a big eyeball. And it was this it was this amazing costume.

It was this big ball, this eyeball with legs and arms. And he's like, I want that. And I'm like, well, save your money. Well, he did. He saved his money and he bought this and he comes home and he puts that thing on. He's all put that thing back where it came from. And he's like sitting there, like doing the Mike Wazowski dance and all the stuff. And his little sisters think he's the greatest and so funny and everything. And so we go to this school Halloween party where parents and kids ever go. And as we walk in, all these kids start looking at them and they're like, oh, look at the big green dork. Hey, nice costume.

And I'm looking. And most kids are dressed like as a pirate, you know, or as a rocker. How old were they? This was fourth through sixth grade. So he was fourth grade. So he's on the younger end and they're just hurling out insults.

And the crazy thing was watching his whole posture change when he walked in. He was so excited. And literally he went through this gauntlet of insults with me right next to him. Gauntlet of insults. Those kids didn't care. They were just literally laughing and pointing.

And he got through the gauntlet. And within 30 seconds, he kind of tucked his head down into my chest and goes, Dad, can we just get out of here? Please get out of here. As a dad, I want to start throwing pirates around.

You know, I want to toss pirates. I mean, you want to solve it. You want like, listen, bullying lecture begins now. And the best thing that we can do as a parent is not solve the situation. Matter of fact, most of us don't know what to do. So the best thing to do is to admit we don't know what to do. And if our kid by chance tells us about it, say, man, I don't know what to do.

I don't know the answer. But I just want you to know that I'm here for you through this. Tell me more about this. And as they talk, listen, empathize.

Man, that sounds like that must have been tough when those kids were doing that. I can't even imagine what you're going through. I'm so glad you told me. Talk to me more about this. And those are the things we want to say.

And that's why I spent time writing in the book was here's some of these things we can say like that. Because our kids, more than anything else, want someone who understands. And whenever I talk to young people about this, here's what they always tell me. My parents have no idea. They don't have a clue. They wouldn't understand.

They would freak out. That's what I always hear. The best thing they can have is someone who didn't freak out, but someone who listened and empathized and said, hey, no matter what, I'm here through this.

And you know that nothing you do ever can stop me from loving you. Yeah, I'm guessing that's why having one true friend makes such a big difference because they feel like somebody hears, somebody understands, somebody empathizes. So when it's the parent, that's why it's so valuable because the child is feeling like my mom and dad get it. Yeah, absolutely. And you've got to be that. And another piece of advice I'd give to a parent is I think it would be good to try to see if they could get involved in some community somewhere. And that's it.

It's a tricky subject. I spend a lot of time talking about in the book because we took our kid to youth group because we thought I personally had had a really good experience at youth group. That was a place where I was accepted. But we took my son to youth group and he literally was bullied at youth group. And he was an interesting kid for sure. He like brought his middle school, brought his stuffed animal to camp with him. He brought this little stuffed monkey and the kids were teasing him and he and they were cruel. And he went out once and he came back to the cabin and they had shredded his monkey and he was stuffing and monkey parts all over his bed and stuff. Just kind of they were like as a sign of like, that's what we think of your monkey, you know. And he didn't tell us that till years later.

We found out about this. He just felt like he had nobody he could talk to. And I wished I would have just been there more to just listen because I think, no, I know for a fact that if he would have told me, I would have freaked out. I would have freaked out. It's the worst thing we can do as parents. Freak out looking like what?

What do you mean? Well, there's two ways we could figure out. One is our kids are going to do things that violate our rules and whatever. And one way is we freak out like, not in my house, you know, that kind of freaking out. But there's also the freak out in this bullying situation of what? I'm going to call the principal right now. What does the kid say right now? Dad, don't.

I'll never tell you again. And honestly, not a slam on principals. And in my book, I actually spend a chapter and I interviewed principals. What would actually be helpful of a parent telling you? So I give some steps of positive ways, but very often people will come to principals and I've seen example after example of principals that will be like, oh, really? Well, I'll call those bullying kids here in front. And it just makes it worse.

A principal bringing two kids in. So Alec here says that you were saying this. No, we weren't. No, we weren't. We weren't doing that. Why?

Why would we do that? I got suspended and in trouble with teachers all the time. So if I ever went to a teacher and said this, the teacher, the very kids that were teasing me, the teacher loved me. I was a thorn in that teacher's hiney. You know, so I mean, it was like the teacher was almost like, you know, well, you deserved it. You know, sit down, you troublemaker.

Because I was. Those of us who are bullied very often become antisocial. Why? We don't have social circles because nobody likes us. And so it becomes this downward spiral where all of a sudden we don't have as many friends. We don't know how to talk with friends. And then when people do talk, we think they're talking about me. And so we lash out and we say stupid things. It happens all the time. I see this all the time with bullied kids. I did it.

My son did it. And sadly, what happens is it makes us difficult to be around. And so sometimes our parents, they don't know what to do with us, you know, and when they freak out, they go, I'm going to solve this.

And it's the last thing we want them to do. So there are some positive things you can do. And the best thing you can do is empathize and be there for your kid. And it doesn't mean you shouldn't call the principal. You can. But you should not be freaking out as you do this. You should talk and say, hey, is there something we can do?

What can we do to resolve this? Talk about signs of a kid being bullied, because a lot of parents don't know their kids are being bullied at school or even cyberbullying online. Are there any signs that we can look for to even know or even questions that we could ask? Yeah. Very often you'll notice changes in attitudes and behavior.

Some signs will be like loss of appetite, you know, not wanting to eat, that kind of stuff. You also got to keep your eye open for like, like with young guys, for instance, sometimes they come back and you'll honestly see like, like a ripped shirt or dirt on their backpack or torn books. And oh, how did you get to?

Oh, I dropped it. And sometimes if you start to notice and it's not like if you see one of these things, but when you start to notice, I saw a change in attitude. We saw, as my son started getting bullied, we literally saw his whole demeanor change. We saw where he used to be a very confident young man. And all of a sudden he just kind of like, no, I'm stupid. I'll probably mess it up.

And I just under confident in himself and everything. So we've got to watch, keep our eyes on that. In the days of social media, one thing we can do is if you're giving your young kids social media accounts, I think it's good to have the passwords on those accounts and look at those accounts and see what people are saying and see the comments people are making. And we can spot some of those comments. And again, not freak out if we see those, but come as someone who's compassionate and empathetic and be able to talk about, hey, how did that make you feel?

I saw this. Not freaking out like what? But to be able to talk about that.

Those are some of the things you can look for. And I'm sitting there, you know, as a parent, you're always trying to solve. I do that.

I'm always trying to protect. And so I sit there and think, oh, should we switch schools? Should we home school? Is there ever a time that we should make that big of a switch? Yeah, absolutely. I'm actually a firm believer in that. I'm not a firm believer in coming down and swooping our kid up and trying to solve all their problems and pulling them out of it, because often it will usually follow them from place to place.

But there are some arenas that are more difficult to navigate than others. And my son was in a very rough school and he was a very creative mind and he was kind of a gifted student with all this. And we actually found this school that you had to be on a list to get in. And it was a lot of other nerdy kids like him. And he loved it when he switched to school. He ended up having some problems at school.

He had some kids picked on him and that kind of stuff, but he loved it and he actually thrived at this new school. So sometimes as parents, we really should look at those situations and pay attention to those kinds of things because, yeah, there are some simple things like that we can do. Let me ask you this. Do you feel like when you were being bullied or watching your son, what's the person being bullied feel about God? Like, God, where are you? Why aren't you taking this out of my life? Is there any of that kind of struggle that you experienced or you watched your son experience? I know for me, for myself, I wasn't crying out to God at the time and I wish I would have because as an adult, I think at the times where I hit the ground on my face and was like, God, and cried out to him and he was so there and took me through those tough times.

I wish I would have done that as a kid. And I wish someone would have helped me understand that a little better because I think if I would have known who God was and how much he wanted to walk through that with me, it would have really helped me. But we got to realize, kids today, they just really aren't plugged into Scripture. They aren't really, you know, their relationship with God usually isn't the first thing on their mind. It's more the fact that they're being absolutely mocked on social media. That's, for them, that's the issue right there.

It has nothing to do with God, no matter what God does. I still got people calling me names on social media or not liking my stuff and they're liking somebody else. And those are kind of the very real issues in their life. So, it is tough. It's one of those tough things as a parent. And I guess the advice I would probably give a parent there would be sometimes we try to block out all the bad stuff. And this is one of those opportunities where instead of focusing on blocking out the bad, here's where we should really focus on absolutely saturating them with good. Really helping them feel loved in the home, really helping them see some of the areas where they have worth.

And if we see that they're really gifted in something that might be obscure and different than all their friends or football players, but they really like horses or drawing, get them in a drawing class, get them involved somehow where they can go and volunteer with horses bare minimum or something like that. Sometimes if they find that outlet where they can use their gifts and see, look, I'm being used to do something. In the book, I talk about finding opportunities to serve and make a difference. It's something as simple as serving in a homeless shelter and seeing people respond because you're making a difference in their life.

That makes you feel good about something. And so I say as parents, we can kind of do that. And it's through sometimes pouring truth and good experiences in their life that they'll have those good experiences and they'll relate to the issue. And you don't even have to address the issues they're going through, but you're giving them positive experiences and you're giving them truth so that they recognize those lies as false. And so that's one of the best things we can do. Because no, I think to go circle back to your question, I don't think it's their go-to reaction for a lot of kids today to be like, what does God think about this?

What does he think of me? But when we're teaching them what God thinks of them, who is God and who am I? Most of the issues that kids are dealing with in life fall right between those two questions.

Here's one other angle. You mentioned the bystander, you know, the person that's watching either a friend or maybe another parent. What do we do if I'm watching one of my friend's sons or daughters get bullied? Maybe I'm their friend. Maybe I'm just a dad, a fellow dad.

Do I step in? Yeah, absolutely. That's the big question I asked in my fictional book, Bystanders. It was a book about a bunch of kids that were, you know, basically standing and watching this bullying take place on a campus. And it's the story of a campus experiencing a school shooting. And the majority of kids out there, there's usually a couple bullied kids, a couple bullies, but the majority of kids are bystanders.

And that question is, what do we do? And I like to equip kids to know that you can make a difference. You can literally save someone's life. And I talk about what it means to sit next to a kid at lunch. I've heard so many different bullying programs where people be like, just sit next to a kid at lunch. Here's the reality I talk to kids about. I go, guess what? I was a bullied kid.

And you know what? I was a pain. And if you would have sat next to me at lunch, you would have spent one lunch with me and said, glad that's done. And you would have gone and sat next to your friends, you know? And sadly, some of the kids that are bullied aren't necessarily fun to hang out with. It's a true sacrifice to literally say, I'm going to sacrifice going to lunch with my friends, and I'm going to go sit with this kid. And going to lunch once with a kid might help a little bit, but it's nothing compared to being a kid's friend, you know? And, you know, bust some scripture on it. What good is it to do good with someone who is easy to do good to compared to someone who frustrates us?

That's the Jonathan translation of the Sermon on the Mount. You know, because it's one of those things where, I mean, literally if our kids start to understand this, this can be work. And the sad fact is, is if we're a bystander and we allow the bullying to go on, very often we ourselves become the bully. I remember, I've shared this here before, so I won't go into the details, but our oldest son was friends with a kid who got bullied at school. And I was there one lunch period playing outside the school, and the kid was bullying this friend of my son's. And I stood up to the kid and basically threw him off the playground and took him to the teacher and said, hey, this kid shouldn't be out here. You know, I didn't do it, but I was very smart because I first I gave him a warning like three times, and then he kept bullying the kid. So I finally took him up to the teacher and said, you know, he needs to go in.

He can't play with us anymore. And the teacher looked at me and literally went, you know, why are you doing this? And then the kid says, yeah, Mr. West, why are you doing this? And the teacher looked at him like, oh, I see why he's a bully.

I didn't think anything about it. A week later, I'm at a parent teacher conference and I'm standing there talking to this teacher. And this mom comes up and taps me on the shoulder and goes, are you Dave Wilson?

I go, yes. She starts tearing up. She goes, my son's Timmy. Thank you for standing up for him on the playground last week. So Tim went home, obviously, and told Mr. Wilson stood up and just standing there watching her face.

I could feel her whole life, you know, her whole life. Little Tim actually is a really big kid, had just been bullied his whole life. And one guy, some stranger dad stood up and I just hit me. Man, that's well, that's what we can do in so many different areas of our lives. Well, it's funny, Dave, because I remember that. But you also spoke life to this young boy who was being bullied.

Right. Like you said some great things to him as a man and as a pastor. I think that that's probably what really hit him to like men. This man who's really influential said these incredible things about mentors are huge. And sometimes you can find that in that community, in that church, even if they're having a rough time with other peers. Sometimes that youth pastor, that youth volunteer really. And we as parents, sometimes we think, well, shouldn't I be the one they come to?

It's great to have another mentor, a coach. And it is interesting. I'm standing in a playground. I'm listening and watching bullying happen right in front of me.

And I can sort of as a bystander step in. But as we know today, bullying often happens in the dark, cyberbullying. It's happening on our child's phones and devices, and we don't even know about it.

It's a real deal. You've obviously looked into this, studied this. Talk to us about cyberbullying. How do we prevent it?

No, that's a great question. And you know, my answer is going to be the same answer I gave when we talked in earlier shows just about what do we do in this world of social media right now as parents. And there's actually some realistic guardrails and boundaries we can have that will really help our kids avoid some of the cyberbullying. And I'll spin it like this. Parents come to me all the time, and when they ask me about how to deal with this situation their daughter's in or their son's in, here's how it usually comes out.

So my 11-year-old son is being bullied on social media all night long. And then she'll ask, so what do I do? And right there, I say, well, do you really want to know?

There's actually some very practical things you can do. She'll be like, yes, anything. I'll say, well, you just mentioned three things. You said my 11-year-old son is being bullied on social media all night long. How's your son's social media all night long? Well, it's his phone. He has it in his bedroom. He insists he has his smartphone right there by his bedside, you know.

He used it as his alarm clock. I go, well, do your son a favor. Go to Walmart. Spend 10 bucks. Buy an alarm clock.

They go dingy, dingy, dingy, dingy. Yeah, it does. I say, and this brings up three issues when it comes to should I give my kid a smartphone. First of all, what age? Most experts say wait till high school. Your 11-year-old shouldn't have a smartphone. That's the first thing you can do. Second thing is your 11-year-old's on social media. Your 11-year-old had to lie about their age to even get on social media because they're not even supposed to be on social media till age 13. For sure, wait on social media and do the research.

You'll see it. It's in tons of my books, like Parenting Generation Screen. The research is out there that watch the amount of social media time that your kid's spending on it. Thirdly, you said all night long in their bedroom. If there's one thing that experts agree on, it's no phone in the bedroom. If anybody asks me, Jonathan, if you could only give your kid one rule, it would be no devices in the bedroom at night because your kids don't need to be losing sleep and being insulted.

Or worse yet, how come I don't have as many likes and followers as everybody else all night long? They don't need that. And those three things would help keep bullying to a minimum. And then, yes, there's all kinds of other stuff.

But right there, boom, boom, boom. Those are some practical things we can do as parents is not just give them these devices and throw them in this. It's like we're dressing them in the wrong color and dropping them off in a neighborhood of a gang of the opposite color and going, good luck.

You know, you're just you're throwing them out there to the wolves and you can't do that. We can help. There's practical things we could do to help our kids. It's not like bullying is a new phenomenon.

I mean, we probably all experienced some kind of bullying when we were in middle school or in the early days of high school. I think what's happened in our day is that it's all being amplified. Our kids are experiencing at a level today that is different than the level we experienced when we were their age. That's why it's so important for moms and dads to know how to respond, to have a strategy in place and to know how we can help our kids as they go through their teen years. And what Dave and Ann have talked with Jonathan about today, what he's included in his book, The Bullying Breakthrough, is real practical help for parents of teenagers. We've got Jonathan's book available in our Family Life Today Resource Center. You can find it online at familylifetoday.com or call 1-800-FL-TODAY to order a copy.

Again, the title of the book is The Bullying Breakthrough, real help for parents and teachers of the bullied, bystanders and bullies. Again, you can order the book from us online at familylifetoday.com or call 1-800-FL-TODAY to get your copy. Now, this weekend we've got hundreds of couples joining us in Hartford, Connecticut, in Louisville, Kentucky, in San Diego, actually in Delmar, and in Parsippany, New Jersey. We tend to remember marriage getaways happening this weekend. Next weekend we're in Little Rock and Cleveland and Delray Beach, Florida and Pittsburgh.

These getaways are continuing throughout the fall. If you've never been to a getaway, why don't you go to familylifetoday.com and get more information about when a getaway is coming to a city near where you live and plan to join us. And then pray with us that the couples who are attending this weekend will have a truly transformative, marriage-changing experience as they come to a weekend to remember marriage getaway.

Again, there's more information about the getaway on our website at familylifetoday.com. And we hope you have a great weekend. Hope you and your family are able to worship together one way or another with your local church this weekend. And I hope you can join us on Monday. We're going to talk about all of the data, all of the research that shows young people, people in their 20s and 30s, walking away from Christianity, from religion. David Kinnaman and Mark Matlock say there is a silver lining to that cloud, and we'll explore that silver lining when we join them on Monday. Hope you can be with us for that. On behalf of our hosts, Dave and Ann Wilson, I'm Bob Lapeen. We will see you back Monday for another edition of Family Life Today. Family Life Today is a production of Family Life, a crew ministry, helping you pursue the relationships that matter most.