Recently, I was reading a blog post in Psychology Today from the author of a great site I happened across recently. The author's name is Izzy Kalman, a veteran school psychologist and psychotherapist.
You can read his full post here. The gist of the article was that many people criticize him as being too critical about many approaches schools take toward bullying behavior.
Here is a comment he got from a reader recently:
“I was astonished to see the story about the boy labeled a "bully," for it added to my worries about my own son's problems at school with being bullied. What if, to top it all off, he finally loses his temper and starts pushing back and he's the one tagged a bully? Good lord.
“My son is in middle school and was bullied--teased, isolated, made the subject of rumors, mocked openly in class--for the entire first semester of this year. I had no idea until he finally announced to me that he couldn't go to school any more. He couldn't take it. I took him to a therapist who wanted to do an intervention session at the school but my son wanted nothing more to do with it, for he had been bullied some the year before, and the teachers had intervened, and done a terrible job: so bad, in fact, that it immensely escalated the problems and it made him afraid to tell me that they had escalated, for that would have set off another dreaded intervention.
“I began doing massive amounts of research on bullying, and came to the same conclusion, independently, that [Mr.] Kalman long before me had: any form of school intervention backfires badly. And I had real life experience to add to the research. (I do believe that a whole-school, philosophical, Quaker approach works pretty well, but it doesn't prepare you for the rest of the world, or at least it didn't prepare my son for it when he moved to this very good public middle school.)
“Anyway, in my research I happened upon the bullies2buddies site and read it with interest. I asked my son to read it and we agreed that he would try it for a few weeks while we figured out what to do. Here's the breathtaking thing: after what was really 1.5 years of bullying, it stopped in one week. In fact, it stopped the first day my son tried the technique. Two kids started making fun of his chapped lips, blocking my son from getting to his locker. My son just looked at them casually and said, "yeah, my lips get chapped this time of year; I hate it." They said nothing more and let him pass. It has now been four weeks without any bullying. He said he has been teased a few times, but no more than any of the other kids.
“The therapist has recommended that I keep a close eye on the situation, that my son may not be telling the truth out of fear that we will intervene. I don't have the sense that this is the case, but I will definitely keep you posted.”
Thanks again, Parent of Bullied Child, for presenting us with your experience. I look forward to hearing from you again.
So, reader, please don’t think I only spend my time criticizing. And please use my website to save other kids from bullying, too.
If you are further interested in resources for combating bullying, see the link at the right side of the page: Help Your Child Learn to Defeat Bullying!
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