As summer winds down and a new school year rounds the corner, it’s quite normal for the entire family to have mixed emotions. The more relaxed, carefree days that encompass our summer schedule are about to be traded in for a more rigid and structured timeframe. And as much as my kids enjoy their laid back summer routine, after 8 weeks at home they start to get a bit stir crazy and actually look forward to heading back to the classroom.
One big reason my kids welcome this transition is because they are reunited with their school friends—the kids they don’t get to interact with on a regular basis if it weren’t for the time they spend with them in a classroom setting as well as on team sports and other club activities. Yet just as they anticipate kindling school friendships they also realize they will also come in contact with classmates that aren’t always kind and can cause them grief throughout the year.
As your child prepares for his new school year, Mighty Mommy shares 4 ways he can be armed and ready to handle any troublemaker’s that cross his path so the focus can remain on the positive influences in his life rather than the negative ones.
#1: Set and Review Your Family’s Acceptable Behaviors
Most kids crave one thing in common—acceptance. They want to fit in and be accepted by their peer group. Because of this, they don’t always think about the consequences of bad behavior and poor choices as a result of caving in to peer pressure.
In Bad Influences? Advice For Parents Who Think Their Kid’s Friends Are Weird, Dirty Or Troublemakers Matthew Goldfine, PhD, a clinical child psychologist explains that the potentially bad influence is a classmate that acts out, makes the kinds of poor choices that you’re always cautioning your children about, and are often reprimanded by the teacher. “Studies show that delinquency can be almost contagious. Your task is to figure out what kind of troublemaker this one is. There’s no magic trick to help you with this, but you can start with the list of behaviors that are unacceptable to you and your spouse, and if you hear that this new friend is engaging in them—and worse, egging on your kid—then you shouldn’t feel bad about breaking up the friendship ASAP. Goldfine says that other warning signs are “clear intentions that this child wants to make other people angry, unhappy or hurt through their actions.”
At the beginning of this new school year, sit down with your kids and review what your family deems acceptable behaviors by not only them but by their school friends and potential new friends. They need to be reminded about your family’s values and that you will not be encouraging any friendships with classmates that don’t make the grade in this area.
#2. Combat the Cyberbully Friend
Toxic friends run the gamut from being a constant tattletale to being bossy on the playground. Many times they are simply distracting to those around them and are quite frankly considered annoying little pills. As aggravating as these traits are in a classmate, unfortunately there are more serious behaviors they can display on a regular basis taking things to a whole new level—that of bullying.
In Bully-Proof Your Child: How to Deal with Bullies it states that bullying in schools has become a national epidemic. A study published in the Journal of School Health found that 19 percent of U.S. elementary students are bullied. And each day, more than 160,000 kids stay home from school because they fear being bullied, according to a survey by the National Education Association, a public-education advocacy group.
If you suspect that your child is being bullied, talk to them right away. Let your child know that it's not his or her fault, and that bullying says more about the bully than the victim. For example, last year, my middle school daughter admitted she was being bullied on Instagram from a supposed friend. After some discussion, we realized this was serious so we addressed the matter with her school guidance department and assistant principal. Our school has a no-tolerance policy for bullying, but most students are afraid to speak up because of fear of retaliation as well as humiliation amongst peers.
The school handled the matter swiftly and with confidentiality. As it turned out, several other students were also the targets of the same bully, and we also learned that the student who was bullying was the victim of abuse in her own home, which is often the case. If I hadn’t probed into what was bothering my daughter, however, I doubt she’d have come to me on her own terms.
#3. Bounce Away a Teaser
One of the most painful parts of parenting is watching your child being rejected or teased by other kids. Most young children become upset automatically if they are called a name or ridiculed in any way, but sadly we as parents cannot always protect our kids from these hurtful situations so the best thing we can do is teach them useful strategies to help them deal with teasing.
When your child experiences teasing, it is important to see the problem from the child's point of view.
When your child experiences teasing, it is important to see the problem from the child's point of view. Sit down and listen attentively to your child in a nonjudgmental way and ask him to describe exactly what’s happening when he’s being teased. Ask questions—what exactly is the other child making fun of him for? Where is it happening? Who is the teaser? Get as many facts as you can and comfort your child by letting him know that you care and that you want to help him.
One of my favorite techniques for combating a teaser is something I learned from my children’s nursery school, and it was simply teaching them to visualize. Many young children respond well to visualizing words "bouncing off" of them. It provides them with the image of not having to accept or believe what is said. This image can be created by showing how Nerf balls bounce off a person or by pretending to be a duck where things just roll off their feathers. Another effective visualization is for a child to pretend he has a shield around him that helps the teases and bad words bounce off. Again, this technique gives children the message that they can refuse these hurtful put-downs.
#4: Plant Seeds
When our kids are younger and in elementary and early middle-school years, it’s much easier to have an influence on their friendships, but as they enter their teen years, it definitely gets much trickier. "Kids count on their parents to have high standards for their friendships; any child under 12 is not old enough to make these decisions solo," says parenting expert Christine Carter, Ph.D., author of Raising Happiness.
In When Bad Friends Happen to Good Kids Carter recommends planting subtle questions in your child’s mind in regards to her choice in friends. “If you've noticed that bossy Sally always dictates any activity she and your daughter do together, you can say, "You're going to see Thor? Boy, you really have changed." Your daughter might ask, "How so?" You can reply, "You used to hate superhero movies. But since Sally picked the last three films you went to, I figured this one was your call." OK, maybe that's not so subtle. Sometimes it's all right to break out the Mjölnir (a.k.a. Hammer of the Gods — which you'd know if you'd seen Thor).
"You plant the question in her mind — 'What do you see in Jane? She seems really critical to me,'" suggests Carter. "Don't expect an immediate revelation. More likely it'll take some time to trigger a response."
A month down the road, you might notice that your daughter isn't hanging out with Bossypants Sally or Underminer Jane so much. Do not gloat. "If you glory in the end of the bad friendship, your teen will feel like she's been played and might wind up reversing her decision," Carter says.
My youngest daughter has been experiencing a couple of very one-sided friendships recently, and Carter’s technique was extremely helpful. I asked her some indirect questions such as “Does Abby treat all her friends the way she treats you? She doesn’t like the same music you do, or style in clothing, and I thought I overheard her tell you she hates when you braid your hair. What is it that you two have in common and enjoy doing together?" By planting these seeds, I was able to help her start thinking about how poorly this girl talked to her on a regular basis. My daughter and this classmate still have a relationship in school, but they very rarely hang out together outside of the classroom now.
How do you help your child handle toxic friendships? Share your thoughts in the comment section at http://ift.tt/1zMEe2L, post your ideas on the Mighty Mommy Facebook page, or email me at mommy@quickanddirtytips.com.
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