'Resilience against bullying'

[youarenotkiddingme]

My ds secondary have been running workshops.

Probably my fault but I got the wrong end of the stick about the content and (assumed?) was under the belief it was to support parents in supporting their children who are bullied and to discuss the recent crackdown and how the school are tackling the issue.

I can honestly say overall the school are great with bullying and tackle it rather than deny it happens.

Email today to say they are running a later session for parents who work and it's entitled "resilience to bullying".

The wording seems odd to me? I teach my ds to ignore, report etc but don't think I should have to encourage him to being resilient to being called a spastic and retard.

Would I be that parent if I emailed and asked what they mean by it and say I'd rather know how they will treat disablist language as seriously as they do racist etc rather than be trained to make my ds more resilient to it?

I think resilience is such an important life skill. But I do think sometimes the language used is a bit thoughtless. The title smacks of victim blaming (although obviously not the intent). I’ve come across mental health schemes entitled “stronger minds” which indicates anyone who needs to use their services are currently weak. But it’s obviosly (well hopefully) not what they’re saying.

I think resilience is a good thing in principle, but is often used as an excuse for not dealing with things properly.

My work gave a talk about resilience: but there it was to make excuses for the fact that they push everyone to their absolute limits, so have a serious problem with long term sickness.

Alternatively it can be about empowering the person to step back from a situation, and be less impacted by it.

Having an adult DD who was bullied for many years, but for whatever reason thought she could deal with it herself, with disastrous consequences (suicide attempts, self-harming, serious MH problems for many years, still ongoing), I wish this resilience had been taught when she was at school. She's having to learn this now. It's very hard for her as she takes things that are said, either as a throwaway comment or intentionally meaning to harm, very much to heart and finds it difficult to get past them.

Maybe the title of the workshop is clumsy, but I think it's definitely a worthwhile thing to take part in.

Please let us know what it involves when you have spoken to the school.

Schools can take some time to work their way through their bullying policy. My thought process as a parent is: I can't change the bully, so what can I change?

I can be proactive and change my child's school. I can find a good psychologist to help my child develop resilience, assertiveness and coping strategies. I can find extra curricula clubs or sporting teams to allow my child to build a social circle outside of school.

To do nothing is a bit like cutting off your nose to spite your face, even though it is entirely reasonable to be very pissed off you need to do anything when your child isn't in the wrong.

I wonder why they don't offer a 'correctional course' to help the 'bullies stop being arseholes'

That's actually a god title

'bullies stop being arseholes'

Content

How to shut your mouth
How to think pleasant thoughts
How to be a good friend
How to stop causing drama
How to use social media for good
How being the centra of attention makes you look like a wanker

I think its a great idea, as part of a balanced approach. Of course they have to tackle the bullying and the bullies as well, but its useful to teach children the skills to deal with nastiness, they'll need them as adults too.

There are too many people who can't cope with the slightest criticism and could do with some lessons in resilience as well.

I was bullied all throughout my school life. I continued to be bullied until two years ago obviously not school bullies. I’m not sure how much being taught to be resilient would have benefited me. I hated school and my self esteem was rock bottom.

@Sarahjconnor, can I ask, how did you achieve that?

There are too many people who can't cope with the slightest criticism and could do with some lessons in resilience as well

Yep and there the victim blaming!!

Yep and there the victim blaming!

O sod off, it is not. Nice buzzwording but no.

Green your post made me giggle!

It kind of summed up how I feel.

It seems it's a course on how to make my ds resilient to be called a spastic whilst struggling to climb the stairs rather than a information evening about how they will stop children commenting unnecessarily about another pupils who's just climbing the stairs.

I do tell ds you can not control or count for others choices and behaviour and he'll meet dickheads everyday of his life.

But I do think there needs to be a wind change with regards to acceptance of certain language. By acceptance I mean a lack of heavy consequence or prior targeted teaching.

I know for a fact if they shouted something racist they'd have been in inclusion whilst it was investigated before they'd managed to finish the word.

I don't think you can equate being bullied with not being able to accept criticism.

Unless you think calling my physically disabled son a spastic is constructive and he should take that criticism and cure himself?

I don't think you can equate being bullied with not being able to accept criticism

Well, there is a spectrum, isn't there? There are the people who are truly bullied, and there are people who claim to be bullied because they can't accept any criticism. I used to work in HR, and recall one young woman (she wasn't the only one) who put in a charge of bullying against her manager. She claimed the manager was bullying her because she was repeatedly told her work was not good enough and she was constantly late. Her work wasn't good enough and she was constantly late, there was no bullying.

My point, as stated, is that resilience is a good skill to teach all children, bullied or not.

There are ways of dealing with people

If the works not good enough - how was the training? What help and assistants did she get to improve her work? Could they be flexible to allow her a shorter lunch when's she late?

If the boss says 'your work is rubbish' V 'Hi I can see youre cameo he difficulty with X system - lets get Y over to help you'

'Resilience' as a term really annoys me, especially in relation to children. It's so often trotted out that children are resilient, they bounce back easily.

Well, no, I disagree, when it comes to trauma like bullying or abuse children are not resilient and it's not remotely a failing on their part if they are not. The extent of damage from childhood trauma sometimes isn't realised until much later, in adulthood. Damage is damaging.

Somebody upthread mentioned assertiveness, and I think this is a more helpful way to look at things. For the general everyday peaks and troughs of the schoolyard dynamic, disagreements and fallings out, assertiveness is a great skill to teach kids. That leads to real and appropriate emotional resilience

'Resilience' in the face of sustained bullying, or abusive parenting, or other kinds of exposure to ongoing trauma is pretty much bullshit - if the kid seems alright and functioning it's almost certainly low level dissociation to help that kid survive in their particular environment.

Not remotely healthy, and will just have to be resolved and processed at a later date as an adult.

Hmm, I am physically disabled and went to a very rough comp. DH asked me once if I was bullied at school. I said, no, well I mean there was quite a bit of disablist name calling, but not really. DH said, well you were bullied then weren't you?

But I suppose, I had pretty good self esteem, and a loving family and a solid crowd of mates and, to be honest, I was fairly blasé about the name calling. It was perfectly clear to me that they were losers with something very lacking in their own lives so I never let it bother me over much. I don't think it has affected me, I never really think about it.

So is that resilience then? I try to teach my kids to speak up against bullies and ignore it if anyone tries to get to them. I teach them that bullies are losers not scary people.

But yes, I absolutely agree that there should be zero tolerence of disablist language in schools. When DD was in Y5 one of the little girls in her class called one of the boys a "one eyed freak". DD and the boy's best friend remonstrated with her. The boy pushed his chair over and got very angry. Nasty girl turned on the tears and it was the other three kids who got into trouble. DD actually asked the teacher what she was playing at allowing the girl to get away with that and was told to be quiet.

Agree with Judy. Yes, the bullies should. change their behaviour, but the children can also do things to help themselves. DD has complained of bullying, but she can overreact to perceived slights which others laugh off. Helping her to be more flexible and building her self-esteem so that she ignores or laughs at comments would help her. It wouldn’t stop the worst bullying - and it doesn’t mean that she was to blame - but it would make her life better.

I always remember this girl at school was pretty fat and not that attractive. You would think she would be someone the bullies would gravitate to. And yet she was incredibly confident and incredibly popular. Actually was voted the then school equivalent of most popular girl in final year. Also went out with boys who were conventionally much more attractive than her.
I have also worked with physically disabled children, using wheelchairs or cerebral palsy, and you could tell the ones who were very protected and those who were more used to getting on with it. Like the girl who used a wheelchair, could not walk at all, but played outside with siblings and friends frequently. She had great emotional resilience because she was very confident. She knew she was a worthwhile person.
Kids like me who were quiet, poor self esteem and unassertive on the other hand, do attract bullies because bullies can see that we find it hard to stand up for ourselves. And standing up for yourself can include telling a teacher.

And interesting that those most in favour of building emotional resilience, are those who have been bullied.

I'm really not making excuses for bullies, but an example with my DD1 is that she's very sensitive to having people correct the way she says things. Fair enough, I understand. But when she said she liked a certain biscuit because of the "almondy taste" and her sister said 'it has coconut in it ' I told her off when she snapped her head off with the excuse that she didn't like her words corrected. She doesn't get to be sensitive about just getting things wrong. We all get things wrong, and it's not doing her any good to give her a pass for that.

Very good points here. I wonder if I'm being over sensitive because I know ds wouldn't have to put up with it if it was racist etc.

For example. They use a class online learning tool and another child typed in

Ds is autistic.

It was deleted and he was told to retype.

He typed in

Ds autism boy.

It was deleted and he was told to stop it.

He typed in

Ds is a spastic.

This came up in front of the whole class. The boy was kicked out of the game and told to see teacher at end of day - he got a 30 minute detention.

Yet meanwhile the students were reading Of mice and men in English. Ds was walking with a friend who was talking about homework and used the N word in context of the conversation re the book. Teacher overheard, no excuses or explanation accepted because they have a black child in their gear group. Child excluded for a day.

Yet one is bullying in my mind and one was misuse of appropriate language but not direct racism.

But one is expected to to be dealt with by resilience.

I'm definitely keeping an open mind as like a lougle I'm strict on ds with regards his reactions to things and needing to manage things. I think think there's a line they shouldn't have to cross with resilience.

Oh and I totally believe ds version of how his friend used the N word because ds literally reruns conversations exactly as they happened. Plus he was under Camhs at the time and told his psychologist he was anxious now about English and knowing words he could and couldn't say because the rules for different bad words were different!
That's how we found out about the disablist language.