The Unexpected Pitfalls of Teasing in Your Family

Middle school's not an easy time for anybody, but I was definitely picked on when I was growing up, and just, yeah, I was a sensitive kid, so making fun is not nice. So I was the son of a pastor, and I was smart, and everybody saw me as goody-two-shoes, you know, and it took me a little while to embrace that identity.

My younger brother, he's 17 now, he thinks the world of his hair, but he kind of just looks like a chia pet, and we tell him that all the time. We were both on the high school tennis team at the time, and so we were giving each other a hard time about who was better. But what we found that, after all that boiled down to, it made us both better players and, yeah, made us stronger in our relationship and grew us in our walk with the Lord.

Well, I wonder if you can relate. We're going to be talking about the fun that you might have in your family, and when teasing becomes harmful and becomes hurtful. This is Focus on the Family with Jim Daly.

I'm John Fuller, and thanks for joining us. John, I'm reminded of a recent message we shared from our British guest, J. John, who recited the familiar saying, Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me, and according to J. John, in that episode we aired, that's not just a nursery rhyme. It's a nursery crime, is how he said it, because words can hurt. I don't know if you remember being teased.

Oh, yes, that was a particularly difficult time. I don't know why we're all vulnerable at that age. The fact is our words can hurt, and even when teasing is done in a spirit of fun and games, it can go over this line. And I'm good at it, actually. Teasing is something I can do right away. I've noticed. Have you ever gotten that? But hopefully I've tried to do it with fun. But it is when it's pointed at a person and denigrates the other person, then it's, I think, something different.

And we're going to talk about that today with our guests who are going to enlighten us. And a great book, Sean and His Amazing Shrinking Sister, and it's a book about teasing. Yeah, I think, as you said, Jim, we all experience it. I remember when I was about 9 or 10, there was an uncle teasing me at a family get-together, and I cried. He's like, you just got to toughen up. And all these years later, I actually have a deep affection and love for that guy.

I got through that episode somehow, but it does get difficult, and we're going to, as you said, talk about that. We've got Dr. Danny Huerta with us. He's on staff here at Focus and heads up the parenting and youth teams. He's an author, and he heads up our Practice Makes Parent podcast with Rebecca St. James. We're very pleased about that.

We also have Ginger Hubbard back with us. She's an author and a speaker and a podcast host, and she specializes in helping parents get a handle on the behavior of their kids. Thank you, Lord. Never-ending ministry opportunity.

That's right. As you said, Jim, Ginger has co-written a book called Sean and His Amazing Shrinking Sister, a book about teasing. It's a great little book, and we'll be touching on that as we go. You can learn more about our guests and that book at our website.

The link is in the show notes. Ginger and Danny, welcome to Focus on the Family. Thanks for to be with you guys.

Danny's in the hall every day. That's so good. Ginger, it's good to have you back. Thank you.

It's good to be back. I love the accent. Yeah, well, you can't hide Southern. Now, where's that from? Alabama. Alabama. Okay, I love that.

We're at 70 degrees, by the way. Okay, stop bragging. Yeah, so when you said that story a moment ago, John, about you, I remember one, my mom's best friend, Penny, she's passed away now, but I remember when I was five, she looked at me, because I was a very excited five-year-old. Could you imagine that? Expressive. Expressive, very verbal, and she looked at me and she goes, you've got diarrhea of the mouth. That closed me down. I mean, seriously, I tried not to talk the rest of the day, because I thought, wow, I don't want to be that, but isn't it funny?

I ended up being on the radio. I think I got the final word on that one, but let's start there, Ginger, from your experience. What are some common forms of teasing among children and maybe adults, and why do you believe most teasing can be harmful? Well, teasing usually falls under two categories. There is mocking, which is imitating someone for the purpose of making them feel silly. So making fun of someone. Yeah, yeah, and that's going to make them feel ridiculous. And then there is teasing in the form of ridiculing and belittling, or we might call that insulting, where that is going to make someone feel inadequate, less significant.

And so I would say that it usually falls under those categories. But whether the teaser is ridiculing or mocking or belittling, biblically, teasing falls under the category of unwholesome talk, which does not benefit the listener. In fact, it does just the opposite. It tears down the person who is being teased, which is a direct violation of God's commands for us to love one another and build one another up. Is there a playful teasing that's in the good zone, it's fun, it's not directed at somebody maybe, but what would that look like compared to what you're talking about? Usually it is directed at someone, but I do think there is room for playful teasing.

And I think you can tell by the way the person is responding, God does give us that sense of discernment. So if you're teasing someone, I love to be teased most of the time. I was teased in school some that I did not like it so much. But teasing can be fun. Playful. Playful, but we can tell when it's really tearing someone down just by the way they're responding to it. And that's when we need to back up and build up. Danny, I wanted to get this out as quickly as possible, because to me there's a difference between teasing and then bullying.

But I don't know that most people would know where that line is, or maybe it's a zone, not necessarily a line. But how do we distinguish between the bullying and kind of the breaking down of somebody that way versus teasing? Well, especially within a family, that's so important to understand.

I mean, some families have a culture of ongoing teasing that can be pretty destructive over time, especially when we're talking about weight issues and things where they're verbally getting more and more aggressive with their teasing. I remember watching this dad. We were the next in line. It was a rollercoaster ride at Disney, right?

The happiest place on earth. And this dad was – they had just gotten off the ride, and the dad was walking off, and the attendant said, hey, guys, you forgot something. And it was his son that had forgotten his belongings, and he went and grabbed it and came back. And the dad's kind of laughing and angry at the same time, and he slapped him upside the head and said, man, you're so stupid. Right in front of everyone. That's bullying right there from a dad to a son. The son was taller, bigger than his dad. He just folded over in the presence of his dad and just crushed his spirit. You could see that lack of security for that child.

That's terrible. Both of you have examples of being teased about your hairstyles now. For those on YouTube, Danny, that's hard to believe because you ain't got no hair. But what kind of hair did you have at one point? Well, hair was very important to me in high school, believe it or not. So the Lord took that away from you. They threw it away.

That's right. He said no more, no more time on that. So my sister – never listen to your sister, right? My sister said, hey, Danny, maybe a good perm would be good.

Never do that. Oh, like Kirk Cameron. Like Kirk Cameron.

I was thinking, ah, he looks cool in growing pants. Very good, Kirk. A shout-out for you to hear me.

A shout-out. So I showed the picture, like this guy. And so they did a perm, and I looked like a poodle.

I really heard it. So I went home and I said, how do I get rid of this perm? And it was one week to school, to the start of the school year, junior year in high school. And I go, oh, no one will notice. No one will notice. So I walk down the stairs. The first thing one of my friends yells out, Danny, you look like a poodle. And he just yelled it out down the hallway.

Everyone turns around. I got the nickname Air Hertha on the basketball team. Instead of Huerta. Huerta, yeah, because of – It was a perm that lasted a while. You didn't try mayonnaise?

I think mayonnaise will help take that out. No one told me about that one. I should have used that.

But it was fun. Ginger, what about your hair experience? So actually it wasn't my hair, it was my ears. It was the first time that I decided to wear my hair in a ponytail to school. Okay, so the hair's involved. The hair's involved, yeah.

So I pulled my hair up into a ponytail for the first time, because all the girls were doing that. And someone called me elephant ears. And so I had the big ears. I think I've grown into them now, though. You think maybe a little bit?

Absolutely. But for the longest time, every time I – I didn't wear my hair up forever. Because of that, it sticks with you. And so – and even to this day, I'll wear my hair up, but I still, when I look in the mirror, I think, elephant ears? I don't know.

You know. I hear a lot better than other people. The better to hear you with.

The better to hear you with. Ginger, why do you believe teasing is a heart issue most of the time? Well, I think a lot of times with kids – well, I know a lot of adults who love attention. But especially with kids, they love attention. And so, so often at the heart of it is trying to get attention or to entertain. But both of those motives are selfish in nature, because they bring a form of satisfaction to the teaser, but it's at the expense of hurting someone else.

And one telltale sign that it is to get attention is if there's an audience involved. But it's really selfish for children or anyone to place their need for attention above the feelings and the best interest of others. In Philippians chapter 2, verses 3 and 4, we're told, do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility, consider others better than yourselves.

Yeah. Looking, you know, to other – the interest of others instead of your own. You know, and I think, guys, I'm thinking of guy teasing. And, you know, again, I feel there's a difference between the way girls might tease and the way guys tease. You had a situation, I think, Daniel, with your daughter, where she was being teased in school. Isn't that great? I think girls tease differently, I think.

They do. Now, this one was boys teasing my daughter in high school. So she was trying to answer some questions, and she answered incorrectly. And I think they were trying to flirt with her. I tried to explain that to her. But in a way that was – they had no emotional intelligence with the way they were teasing her. They teased her about her intelligence. They said, blonde girls do not ask questions. And they told her that because she was blonde, that's why she got it wrong. And they would toss things at her to get her attention. And they were just trying so hard to get her attention. And another boy next to her talked to the guys and said, hey, my best friend is blonde, and he is a genius.

He's super smart, so that's not it. And he said, you guys need to leave her alone. He stood up for her and would say, hey, don't listen to what they're saying.

It's not even true. And sometimes we need to observe when someone's being teased and have courage to step in and give them a sense of truth. Well, that situation, too, is like immaturity.

That's junior high kind of stuff. But Jean had a great line for that. Being blonde, when she was teased, she said, well, the dumbest blonde I ever knew was brunette.

That would just stop it right there. Okay, first they have to figure out what was she saying. But it was interesting. My daughter said, I stopped asking questions. So it did affect her deeply. I think Jean had that as well, being blonde. I mean, there's the blonde jokes.

And we all would say them, and it hurts. And then it stopped her from asking questions. And see, the same thing happened to me. I tried out for cheerleader in sixth grade. And I'm one of those people, you know how when you're young, the kids always try to get you to, what is it, pat your head and rub your, I can't do that. I can't do it at the same time. I can only do one thing at a time, just ask my husband.

If I'm driving and talking at the same time, there's no telling where we're going to wind up. So I just can't do two things at once. And so I tried out for cheerleader. And I'm sure I had to practice way more to be able to do the moves and the cheer at the same time.

So had to practice forever to get it. But we only had to do one cheer to try out. So I made the team.

Which was not a good thing. Because as soon as we had the first ball game, I couldn't do all of those cheers like all the other girls could. So they went one way and I went the other. So there were two girls that did not make the cheerleading team.

And they were sitting in the stands. And they were mocking me and making fun of me. And so it just really made me insecure. So I thought, well, okay, I'm not going to do the cheerleading thing. So I actually dropped out. I'm going to be in the band.

Because if you don't cheer, then you're in the band. So I practiced. I was first chair clarinet. And then the school decided to have a marching band. Well, I can't play the clarinet and march at the same time.

I can only do one or the other. So then I became known as the big eared cheerleader who can't march and play the clarinet at the same time. So it did kind of hurt, right? That's the point.

Sure, it does. And it made me feel awkward a lot. And to this day, it's like even when I enter a room, it's like I want to throw out this disclaimer and say, hey, I'm Ginger Hubbard.

I might say or do something really awkward. So just be prepared. So it's like it puts a label on you. Yeah, and it's kind of amazing how those things, those sensitivities occur into adulthood. And then you get married, the spouse inadvertently pushes these buttons that he or she doesn't even know they're pushing.

You're going, I didn't mean you're stupid. But in fact, this one I was debating whether to ask you about. But in the Old Testament, you mentioned this, I think in the great book for kids, the Old Testament story with Elijah and what God did to quiet his critics, which seemed to be some kids that were jeering him. Yeah, Danny, you're going to appreciate this story.

Yeah, I mean, this one is obscure. Yeah, that's a pretty radical story about teasing in the Bible. So it's in 2 Kings chapter 2, and a gang of boys, these 42 boys to be exact, were teasing the prophet Elisha about his bald head. And Elisha called down a curse in the name of the Lord, and two bears came out of the woods and mauled the whole gang. Now, that's probably not a passage of scripture that I would recommend reading to kids for a bedtime story.

Right. But it is one that I would say would get their attention because it does show just how seriously God takes teasing. The whole moral of the story was that to ridicule Elisha was to ridicule the Lord.

That gang of boys was yelling, get out of here, Baldy. But it was God who created Elisha's bald head, just as he creates all of us with unique physical features and personalities and characteristics. And so to make fun of any aspect of the unique qualities of God's creation is to criticize the Creator himself. Especially the bald guys.

Especially the bald guys. That's why you're taking a lot of material away from me. Yeah, and Proverbs 17, 5 says, Whoever mocks the poor shows contempt for their Maker.

So we don't criticize what God creates. Good reminder. Yeah, the power of words. This is Focus on the Family with Jim Daly, and our guests are Ginger Hubbard and Dr. Danny Huerta. And we're covering a very important topic. A lot of families just, I think, deal with this by not dealing with it, and we want to empower you to be in a good spot for your family. So get a copy of the book that Ginger wrote, along with Al Rowland, called Sean and His Amazing Shrinking Sister, a book about teasing. We've got so many other helpful resources at our website as well.

The link is in the show notes. You know, Ginger, wit is rewarded in our culture, probably most cultures, you know, just being kind of quick to the draw. But you're saying for parents particularly, they need to be careful about what they speak over their children. Danny's example a moment ago about implying that that young man was stupid, and that's why he left his things behind. Right.

Has anybody ever left anything behind? I guess we're all stupid. But the point of that is parents' words carry so much more weight for a child. They mean everything to them, and we don't realize that sometimes. That's right. And, you know, no one likes to be made fun of no matter how old we are, but teasing children in particular is especially harmful because their social and interpretation skills are not fully developed, so they aren't able to distinguish the difference between sarcasm and truth. What we view as teasing and just poking fun, they're going to perceive as criticism and take it to heart, and that can cause emotional damage that they can carry with them on into adulthood.

Well, the fact that I could remember when I was five what my mom's friend told me. Right. I mean, that's the power of that stuff.

That's right. Danny, explain why some parents use teasing as a way to toughen. Yeah, here's the question. To toughen up your kids.

I gave you the softball, right? I mean, sometimes, especially with dads, we're saying, well, we're going to toughen up our kids. That's why we're teasing them to get them ready for junior high.

Right. It is a form of roughhousing within a trusting relationship and between peers, but when it's from a parent, Ginger's absolutely right. The processing and interpretation isn't there, and so when you're trying to toughen up a sensitive child, you're actually destroying them and further pushing them away from the toughness. What they're becoming is either more quiet, more withdrawn. They avoid certain personalities or situations because of that, and if you have a child that is very confident with that, you're creating even more grounds for them to take that outside of the home to some people where they may inadvertently hurt others, and you're trying to toughen them up, but in the process, they may become a bully themselves towards other kids, and you're thinking, I've toughened them up, and you've created something that creates some extra parenting for you down the road. Wow, and I think my reaction, like I did when I was that five-year-old, I just stopped talking for the day. So you actually retreat, and then they're saying, wow, look what I did for my child.

He's actually quiet now if that was success. Ginger, tell us about the book you've written here probably for both parents and children. What age is this really aimed at?

I think they decided it would be for ages four through eight, but I've seen older kids up to 12 talk about that it was helpful for them. So describe the story, what's happening to Sean and his shrinking sister, and why is she shrinking? Okay, well, it starts out actually with mom and dad teasing each other when they're going on a family camping trip, and so Sean picks up on teasing from his mom teasing his dad, and so he starts teasing his sister Annie, and then every time he teases her, she shrinks a little bit, which represents how when people tear us down, it makes us feel small. So it's not until his sister Annie has gotten so tiny that she's almost gone that Sean realizes the damaging effects that his words are having on his sister.

So as the story progresses, Sean asks forgiveness of his sister, her size returns to normal, and their relationship is restored. That's a clever way of describing that, really. Danny, in that regard, what advice do you have about helping children respond rather than react to teasing? Yeah, it's being able to pause for a moment and look at what is, first of all, the intent.

Are you being overly sensitive? That's another thing to teach our kids. Sometimes kids are just wanting to have fun with you.

Yeah. They love you, they care about you, and sometimes we're overly sensitive and see everyone as the enemy rather than there's some people just trying to connect in a way that they know how to connect, and so getting to know the person in front of you. And so responding is looking beyond the behavior and figuring out, what are they really trying to accomplish? Do they feel insecure? Do they have something else that they're struggling with that they're trying to accomplish through the teasing in a negative way, in a positive way? Is this their way of roughhousing with me?

Is this a way that they're trying to show me that they care about me and love me? And how can we have fun? How can I bring something back to have fun and continue the play, the tennis hitting back and forth? It's really helping kids pause and observe the moment rather than immediately reacting to what has come their way. You know, a good little quick devotional you can do, I remember we did this, was using a tube of toothpaste, and you give each child a tube of toothpaste and a toothpick to actually squirt the toothpaste out and then try to get the toothpaste back into the tube. I mean, a lot of us are familiar with that. Of course, they struggle, and it won't go back in with that toothpick. They try, try, try. And then you relate that to the words we speak, and it's a great little devotional you can do with young kids. We did it when the boys were probably like five and seven, and they were all into it.

I don't think toothpaste ended up on the wall, but probably close. But, you know, it's just a good way to talk about the power of our words. And that you can't take them back.

Once they're out there and they hurt, they hurt, and they're going to stick with you. And we have a tendency to focus on the negative instead of the positive. That's just our human nature. So, you know, say that someone takes a picture out here in beautiful Colorado, and you look at the picture, and it's great scenery, and you love what you're wearing, and your smile's great, but there's this big ketchup stain on your white shirt. What are you going to fixate on? The ketchup stain on the shirt. How I'm going to get that out. That's what I'm going to fixate on. Shout or whatever you use.

I don't know. Jean's great at that. She always tells me, here's how you do it. Let me end with this, Ginger. What's that strategy for helping moms and dads curtail that bad habit?

And Danny, you can jump in as well. So they're hearing this today. They're going, ah, okay, I kind of lean into that with my kids, and maybe I'm doing more destructive harm than I realize. What's a way for adults to capture our own words and not speak before we can think about what we're saying? Well, think before you speak.

Is this something that could potentially harm someone? And I always encourage, when children are misbehaving, we always want to reach past that outward behavior and address what is going on in the heart, because all sin is, you know, what is it in Matthew? It says that the mouth speaks what the heart is full of. And so we have to get past that outward behavior and address the issues of the heart.

So when children are teasing, we can ask some heart-probing questions, just something very simple. Maybe go back to that verse we talked about in Philippians. It says in Philippians, honey, that we're not to do things out of selfish ambition but to value the needs of others above our own. So could it be that you are putting your need to entertain or to get attention above the feelings of the person that you're teasing? Are your words showing love and building up?

Are they tearing down? And also in Matthew, it says that we are to treat others the way that we want to be treated. So that's great heart-probing questions for kids. Would you want to be treated this way?

How would you feel if you were being treated this way? So we always want to start with the heart, because that's the example that Jesus set in Scripture. When someone did something wrong, he didn't immediately launch into what they did wrong and what they should have done instead. So often he would ask heart-probing questions. And in order for the people to answer those questions, they had to evaluate their own hearts.

Because he knew how to ask those questions in a way that would cause them to take their focus off of what's going on around them and the other person and onto the sin in their own hearts. So when we can help our children evaluate and take ownership for the sin in their heart, that helps them realize their need for Jesus. And it's the same with us.

You were talking about parents teasing. What is our example that we're setting? Our kids learn most not by what they hear us say, but by what they see us do.

It's so true. And so we have to ask, what's the example we're setting? Do they see us tearing other people down? Do they see us criticizing their mom or dad? Do they see us criticizing them?

And so we have to take that plank out of our own eye, and then we can see clearly to remove the speck from the eye of another. And when we do blow it, we need to be humble about it. One thing is for certain, we are sinners in need of a Savior just as much as our children are.

We need the rescuing help and grace of God. Yeah, just as much as they do. And it's encouraging for our kids to see that. So we need to be humble.

It's so true. See, that was a little bit of teasing there. That was. You just brought it right in.

All right. Well, this has been great, and what a wonderful resource for children. Roughly ages four to eight, but it sounds like even up to 12 years old, the message could get through. Even mom and dad. We started out with mom and dad teasing each other.

I was going to mention the 50s and 60s, Shawn and his amazing shrinking sister, a book about teasing. Thank you, Ginger, for putting this together. Danny, thanks for joining us.

Yeah, it's great to be with you. And I'm telling you, if you have kids in the home about that age, this is a great resource to get, maybe your grandma and grandpa. And you should pick this up and give it to your adult children, especially if you're seeing your kids parent in a way that might need a little more substance in this direction.

Get ahold of us, and if you can make a gift of any amount, we'll send it as our way of saying thank you for being part of the ministry, and we'll get it out to you as soon as possible. Yeah, we appreciate your generosity, and our number is 800, the letter A in the word family, 800-232-6459. We're stopped by the show notes for further details. Danny, quickly before we go, you're also doing a parenting podcast, Practice Makes Parent, with Rebecca St. James.

Yes, so much fun. That sounds like it's going well. We're tackling parenting questions, and we just want to be life-giving to parents and help them along the way and have a great conversation with a lot of different guests that come on the show. Well, I hope people tune in to that. I hope so.

And you can find more details about Practice Makes Parent in the show notes. And tomorrow, we'll hear a powerful story about one woman's horrific journey through human trafficking. And then he goes, I'll marry you.

I won't marry you. And then I come to find out that I'm baby mama number eight and his 11th child, and he wants nothing to do with me. On behalf of the entire team, thanks for listening to Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. I'm John Fuller inviting you back as we once again help you and your family thrive in Christ. It can be challenging to inspire your community to see life the way God sees it.

So what's the solution? Well, on June 15th, Focus on the Family is hosting See Life 24. And no matter where you are or who you are, you can be a part of this free event with speakers like Ben and Kirsten Watson and real stories about choosing life. See Life 24 will inspire you to translate your faith into action. Register today at SeeLife24.org.