“He’s looking at me."
“She said 'I don’t care' to me.”
“He stuck his rude finger up at me.”
"She said I'm mean."
And the demanding emails from some parents …
“the constant harassment from that child towards mine needs to stop … this is bullying … my child doesn't want to go to school ... if this isn’t dealt with immediately ...
These are very stressful situations for children, parents, and school staff. I've been a teacher, a school counsellor, and a private consultant and have dealt with hundreds, if not thousands, of these situations. Thanks to mobile phones and other devices that (sadly) allow parents to intrude on the minute-to-minute lives of their kids while they are at school, they have become more common in the last few years.
Unfortunately, the way schools and parents sometimes respond to reports of unfairness by children, although caring and responsive, has a terrible downside. Some young people learn that reporting the most minor grievances and maintaining social dramas can get incredible adult attention.
"They're whispering about me."
"She told my friends not to play with me."
"He walked in my path deliberately."
Kids don't know what they're doing!
Children don't brush their teeth in the morning, consciously devising the next social upset to rile up their parents and teachers. However, they do build subconscious habits of response that are interwoven with how adults in their lives respond when they report these social issues. What adults do or choose not to do often sets the scene for how children think about their problems and whether they will take steps to try to solve them themselves or take on a victim status (viral these days) and rely on adults to take on their problems for them.
Let me set a theoretical background. The late Professor Maurice Balson AM once said that about 90% of sibling conflict benefits parents. Ever notice how kids bicker more in the presence of parents who will get more involved and less with a parent who gives bickering less attention? It's a thing, and in my work with families, I often encourage parents to examine their knee-jerk responses to their kids' bickering. I ask parents to try to ...
Put down the referee's whistle and pull back when the kids bicker and snipe.
I also reinforce the golden rule of sibling conflict:
Whatever you do, try not to choose one child's side.
I often explain to parents that what happens in front of them has a history of escalation points that they didn't see, fuelled by both kids. They only saw the end—the final hurtful comment, the frustrated push or blow from the child (usually with the lowest impulse control), and what took place in front of the parent was meticulously planned by the child with the best planning! I ask them to remember when they were kids and how they would set up, or be set up and be set off by a sibling, and at some point, one of them would run to a parent "Muuuuum" to tell on the other. Parents often laugh as they reflect on how they wound one another up over the smallest of things and how they got one another into trouble. They also remember the feeling of satisfaction when a parent told their sister or brother off (or worse) and how this set the stage for even more vicious bickering. They also can tell me which parent they were more likely to take their fights to!
Cracking the secret code of sibling conflict
When we unpick the secret code behind lots of sibling bickering, what parents notice is that when they pay less attention to the kids' arguing and give more attention (even rewarding) when the kids are being considerate of one another, the frequency and the intensity of the bickering drops after an initial uptick in squabbling, where the children notice the parents' change of response and unconsciously ramp it up to try to get the grownups involved "come on mum and dad - play with us like you used to!"
So, what are the kids up to? Primarily, it's for attention from grownups and, in sibling relationships, the kids; the unconscious goal is to get an adult to pick a side so one can win and be the favourite for a moment. We never grow out of it, either. As adults, we still harbour resentments about who the favourite is (or was) when it comes to our siblings.
If you didn't grow up with siblings, you'll have to take my word for it. Perhaps talk to friends who did have siblings close to them in age. Ask them to share their stories about the tensions and jealousies that came with sharing the attention of parents, not a single parent.
How are classrooms like families?
Of course, kids at school aren't often related to one another, but sibling relationships are similar to being in a classroom together. Like kids at home, young people at school compete for access to limited resources like materials, play equipment, friendships and, most importantly, the attention of a limited number of adults. We all thrive on attention and have a basic human need to be socially recognised. That is true for any situation where young or older people hang out - at home, in schools, or in workplaces. Attention from adults or those in authority (even bosses) becomes a prized currency.
For kids in school, whether they're being praised for doing something that pleases grownups, told off, or helped through another argument with others, it is all attention, which is a potent currency for all humans.
I'm a big fan of working with young people to help them resolve these social conflicts. Restorative practices offer structures for these processes. I have lived and breathed these processes for two decades and have written books for teachers. I’ve seen these types of processes transform situations where nothing else worked. Restorative Processes teach young people a great deal. Like anything, however, RPs can be overdone, and they are a fabulous way for young people to bring adults into their arguments. Do you catch my drift?
To get involved or not to get involved?
There's a balance here. Adult under-involvement in children's social problems has obvious risk attached, but so does adult over-involvement, for my outlined reasons. Luckily, most adults develop a nose for situations where children's bickering may be less about the problem and more about the attentional payoff. Teachers have the best noses for this because they see it all day long. Savvy parents and teachers know that many issues will probably evaporate in these situations if they don't get involved. These adults develop a mental switch in their brain that sometimes says,
"Hmmm ... I think these kids might be better off if I don't get involved (for the time being)."
They then say something along the lines of:
“It looks like this is annoying for you/you all…”
“That’s a shame that it's come to this…”
“Did they really say/do that? How irritating!”
“Thanks for letting me know…
“Did you want help or just to let me know?
“Well, it’s lucky you’re sensible enough not to let that bug you…”
“It’s lucky you don’t have to respond…”
“What are your options?”
“You’re pretty clever; I reckon you can resolve this yourself … come back and tell me when you’ve got a plan!
“If this is still bugging you in an hour, we can discuss what you might do…”
Then, end the conversation, leaving the ball in the child(rens') court for a while.
If you're a teacher and have said something like:
"That's enough ... all of you. Your dobbing and arguing have exhausted all of us at school; it's worn out your friends who are tired of being the meat in your sandwich, and your poor parents are beside themselves. So no more!"
I'm going to forgive you because I've been there.
So, how’s this going down?
There are a few possible reactions to what I’ve written. Perhaps you’re a teacher reading this saying something like, “I deal with every day; it’s exhausting, and it stops me teaching; thank goodness that a restorative practices person is telling me I don’t have to do react to or restorative every one of these!” Or maybe you are a parent, who is enraged at my approach to the types of issues that have been making your child’s life miserable.
If you are a parent in this situation, I'd encourage you to consider a few critical points. You're not alone if your child seems to roll from one social crisis to the next. Plenty of great parents are in the same situation. It's very easy to be convinced by your child that they are at the end of an unending stream of mean behaviour, rude comments, and moments of exclusion. After all, they believe this. Like all of us, our brains become primed to see more of it after a conflict or moment of unkind and unfair treatment. We develop a hyper-sensitivity, and our social radar starts to ping in moments it wouldn't usually ping for. Suddenly, we are interpreting threats where threats don't exist. Psychologists call this priming.
Priming
Think about how your interpretation of what people say and do becomes distorted just after you've experienced conflict or straight after an argument with a partner. In the following moments, they could say anything or look at you anyway, and we'd be like, "What do you mean by that?" If someone cuts you off in traffic, you suddenly become sensitive to how close other vehicles are to you, and you've never noticed more yellow cars than when you've been playing Spotto! This is called priming. Past events change our perception of what happens next, and we can see everything through the lens of what just happened (or what we think just happened). It's the opposite of rose-coloured glasses. American psychologist John Gottman calls this negative sentiment override. In intimate relationships, when negative sentiment override is present, individuals tend to view their partner's behaviours and intentions through a negative lens, even when they are neutral or positive. This can lead to a downward spiral in the relationship, as even minor issues or misunderstandings are interpreted as intentionally hurtful.
Negative sentiment overrides don't just happen in intimate partnerships. Forms of it occur in all social situations, and parents, when they don't recognise this, can get drawn into this spiral of misinterpretation with their child. Because parents love their kids, they tend to believe their child's interpretation of events, and the other side of the coin is not to believe (or suspect) anybody else who challenges a child's version of events. Teachers, usually, this is you. And again, because parents love their kids and want to check that their child is doing okay, they fall into the trap of the after-school (your day was awful, wasn't it) interrogation routine:
"How was school today?"
"How did it do with (student name)?"
"Were they mean to you?"
"Were you included?"
"Something went wrong, didn't it?"
Even when the words are different, the message to the child is the same:
"You were victimised (again) today ... weren't you?"
"You're not big or strong enough to take care of this yourself ... are you?"
"You need me to fix this for you ... don't you?"
"Those kids are just awful ... aren't they?"
"Those teachers never listen to you or do anything to help you ... do they?"
"This happens to you all the time ... doesn't it?"
Making pessimists out of children
And so begins a very damaging, self-perpetuating cycle that is hard for children and their parents to break free from. Soon, tales of unfairness, unkindness and injustice dominate the conversations between parent and child. Then, it's pretty much all parents and children talk about when it comes to school. The child walks through the school gates primed to look for anything that will continue this self-fulfilling prophecy. As if this weren't difficult enough, if the child has siblings, their perceived 'situation' at school begins to mean that the parent (or parents) spend more time than they did previously, devoting their attention to the child having a tough time at school. The child gets the lion's share of the parental attention at home. The child soon learns that a great way to get a parent to pay attention to them is to report yet another problem at school. This is how they belong—the child who is constantly mistreated at school, the problem child, the bullied and victimised. Bingo!
It's not deliberate; it's completely unconscious, but it is diabolical for the child's view of themselves, their place in the social world, and, pretty soon, their mental health.
Victimhood is the new black.
If you are starting to wonder if that might be what's happening with your child, give yourself a break. Your intention was not to teach your child to get their social recognition needs met by reporting every minor social hiccup to you or their teachers (and expecting you or them to do something about it). I also know you’d be alarmed to think that you may have accidentally contributed to a situation where your child last learned that ongoing victimhood works to get them high levels of attention from grownups. This happens all the time. Smart, otherwise intuitive parents skip into this trap every day. Also, it's not all on you. Nowadays, victimhood is very popular. It works. Just watch some reality TV to see the power of victimhood at work! It's the new black!
Many people are real victims of situations they have no control over, and societies have a long history of maintaining power imbalances between groups by not acknowledging that harm. But there is another side to this. Just calling yourself a victim shouldn't make it an unchallengeable truth. After a long process of helping a group of teenage girls move past a long-running conflict that had exhausted them, their parents, their friends, teachers, school leadership and the local police, one of them said in final reflections, "This has taught me that in these situations, everyone feels like the victim." This thirteen-year-old girl had realised something important - that everyone in the conflict had decided they were the oppressed. This had impacted their judgement and, more importantly, had stolen from them any sense of control over their emotions, their thoughts and their actions. They had been locked into cycles of reacting. Feeling like the victim had stolen their power and agency. It had been a dark place for all of them.
There's a different way.
I feel for parents who end up in this situation with their kids. They'd rather do more constructive things than spend their evenings writing lengthy emails to teachers and school leaders about the day’s injustices inflicted upon their children. It’s exhausting. The good news is the cycle can be broken. Parents can change their response and remove involvement. This involves empathising with the child involved but making a conscious decision not to send that email or make that appointment at the school. Rather than the interrogation-styled questions above, the parent can say something different like:
"That sounds like an annoying and tricky situation; what do you think you might do tomorrow?"
"What they said was unkind. People sometimes act unkindly. How might you act to show that you're not bothered by it?"
"Can you think why they might have said/did that?"
"What makes toy sure that they meant to upset you?"
"Yes, that can be seen as an offensive remark. What made you decide to be offended by that?"
"What was your reaction? Did it make it better or worse?"
"How did you feel when that happened? How do you think (the other student(s) felt?"
"How might you start to sort it out?"
"Do you think you'll try to play/hang out with them tomorrow or do something different instead?"
The list goes on, but you get it already. Don't you? As strange as it seems, your goal is not to fix anything for your child. You can listen, even emphasise, "It sucks when people are mean just to feel powerful, doesn't it?" You aim to communicate that you won't be diving in to fix this one. Your other goal is to talk with your child in a way that shifts their thinking from that of a helpless, defenceless victim who has no option other than to react to a person with some options. It isn't realistic to expect fast results when adults shift to this style of talking with kids. This will take some class, persistence, poise and discipline.
If you're a parent, then you might have to get ready for things that could break your heart, like:
“You never help me…”
"Why won't you help me?"
"Nobody helps me..."
“You don’t love me…”
“Nobody cares/understands…”
“I hate you …”
"Everybody hates me..."
"They're always mean to me, even the teachers..."
For your child's sake, stay the course. You can hug them, but the long game is helping them learn to think through social problems and remove the poo-coloured glasses they have started to see through. Over weeks, if you stay the course, you will begin to see a pore-positive child.
There will be a gradual decline in the unloading of the day's problems on you. The tears and snot will reduce, and a happier kid will soon emerge. Please don't fret when they drop the "I hate you" bomb. Your child doesn't hate you, and if they say they do, your response will be, "That's a shame; I sure love you!" and then shut the conversation down. Here's what else you will stop doing! You'll stop those interrogation-styled questions at the end of the school day that go like this:
"Was .... mean to you today again?"
"Did .... look at you today?"
"How did it go with .... today? I can tell by your face something went wrong, what happened..."
Here’s where I direct you to a chapter in a parenting book I wrote with Mark LeMessurier called Raising Beaut Kids. It’s a $10 download from my website. Read the chapter titled ‘Navigating life’s ups and downs’ three times. The repetition will be necessary.
Frenemy
/ˈfɹɛ.nɪ.mi/
Noun: a person with whom one is friendly despite a fundamental dislike or rivalry.
frenemy (plural frenemies)
(sometimes humorous) Someone who has traits of an enemy and a friend. quotations ▼
(sometimes humorous) A fair-weather friend who is also a rival.
I first heard this term when a boy I was mentoring at Fullarton House referred to another boy as his frenemy. I immediately knew what he was talking about, although I'd never heard the term. Those two kids swung between being best(est) of besties to sworn enemies, often two to three times a day! They innocently convinced their parents that they were both the continual victims of the other’s oppressive and cruel tactics and tied teachers, school leaders, their other friends and their parents up in knots.
Here’s what all grownups need to know about frenemies. Their on-and-off-again alliance is less about companionship (although in the good times, they genuinely enjoy each other’s company) and more about the payoffs in excitement and attention from concerned adults when they're bitter enemies. My best advice for adults in schools is to give them more attention when they are in bestie mode. You might comment on how considerate they are being toward each other. You could mention it when you notice them sidestep a conflict by one of them conceding. Ensure you praise the one who backed down and tell them that not having to win shows maturity. Don’t throw a party; make the odd relaxed observation. When the storm comes, try using the scripted statements above (again and again) when they try to draw you in and do not let their issues control the weather in your home/classrooms. If their conduct disrupts classrooms, deal with them like any other child who has broken class rules. It's essential to learn that if the issues between them negatively impact the rights of others, then they will be dealt with firmly and fairly.
These issues can be amplified when one or both students are neurodivergent. It's common for neurodivergent students who share a classroom to become fixated on one another. This is a by-product of the social communication difficulties, mind-blindness, and black-and-white thinking styles that come along for the ride with kids on the Autism Spectrum. Management shouldn't change; however, some additional coaching and understanding are usually more labour-intensive for the adults involved.
Last words
Parents, I'm going to reiterate what I said before. Give your child room to think through these issues without your direct intervention. Listen to them, but listen more like you would to a friend who you know can create their own social dramas. We've all got one! Empathise, tell them that it sounds hard. Ask them what might have caused the other kid(s) to say that nasty thing or leave them out. Ask your child what they said or did to improve the situation.
Listen hard, and you'll gain insight into how your child processes the social world but pull back on advice giving or 'you should(ing)'. Calmly ask them what they might do tomorrow to solve the problem. Deciding to avoid the kid(s) they're having the issue with might be a reasonable option. It will be challenging, but your sensible and steady decision not to get involved will pay massive dividends. Again, this will be hard, mainly if, up until now, you have fought your kids' battles for them. Just remember, you won't be around one day, and they'll need to do this for themselves. Best start the training now. An excellent book to help you and your child navigate these times is "When Life Sucks" by Adeleide-based psychologist Kirrilie Smout. Kirrilie has been a guest on our Dyscastia Podcast and always has amazingly sensible guidance for kids and anyone who helps kids.
Teachers, as much as you want happy parents, please do not be forced into reacting immediately. You may set up an unhealthy cycle. Remember, their parents are also exasperated about the situation and can benefit from some coaching based on what I discussed above. But this will be when you are able, not when they demand. Will parents hear your wise advice? Maybe not straight away because they'll be stressed by the constant barrage of reports about mistreatment and injustice coming from their child. This will sometimes be a long game. Please remember, you're not a servant to your students' parents; you are a professional with many demands on your time.
Building kids’ resilience to sensibly and calmly navigate the many bumps in the friendship road is tricky; it certainly takes a village to raise a well-adjusted child. We must remember that this road is bumpy; kids learn more from the bumps than the good times. When the bumps come, well-meaning adults can sometimes be too hands-on. Stepping back is no easy task in the context of what experts call a mental health crisis in children. I get all this, and we all need to be vigilant. However, over-involvement has its own unique set of nasty consequences for kids’ well-being, and we need to be vigilant about not being hyper-vigilant.
I wish you all the best in building resilient kids and leave you with this interview excerpt from an interview with Australian author and School Principal John Mardsen:
...our problems…include parents who think that school is utopian and are shocked if their child is insulted or hit... (I would like to tell prospective parents)...Whilst your child is at school, there is every likelihood that they will be bitten, kicked, hit, sworn at, abused and insulted (and that’s just by the teachers). Just joking. This will happen because we are a community of ordinaryl people, and normal life includes moments of friction, anger, tension, jealousy...It's likely that your child will bite someone, kick someone, hit someone (etc.) at some stage too. We do not provide a magical oasis of beauty and peace. We do provide an environment where people can learn to cope with the vicissitudes of life. Every relationship has some ugly moments and some difficult aspects. It's never too early to develop an understanding of that and acquire strategies to keep moving forward.
School News, Term 3 2016 pp 10-11
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