Bullying and Self-Esteem

April 29, 2016 ~ brianorbistc ~ Leave a comment

I have been talking a lot to colleagues about this issue and felt it might be an interesting issue to put out here for some discussion. I will kick off by stating my personal position: we have got this wrong for years. The linking of people who bully to low self-esteem and a belief that improving children’s self-esteem when they have been bullied is all we need to do, is taking us down the wrong path.

The focus and almost universal acceptance of self-esteem as the singular capacity we all need in order to have better lives and experiences doesn’t ever really stand up to scrutiny. So what is self-esteem?

Definitions tend to cover the following –

How you feel about yourself — your self-worth or your pride or confidence in yourself; A person’s overall sense of self-worth or personal value that involves beliefs about the self, such as the appraisal of one’s own appearance, beliefs, emotions, and behaviours.

We have for years seemed to accept that we must make sure nothing we do ‘damages’ a child’s self-esteem. From the mythically ridiculous beliefs that awards for excellence in participation and non-competitive sports days will help our children and young people flourish, to some genuinely helpful learning, like being able to identify and talk about how you feel.

‘People who bully have low self-esteem’. This is a generalisation, it can sometimes be the case but a lot of children who bully possess very high self-esteem, they feel great about themselves, are confident in how they feel and look to the point they can identify and target others. It is a truly unhelpful generalisation to suggest children who bully are secretly all cowards who have low self-esteem and are scared of the people they bully. Some are of course but most are not. When we start to believe the stereotypes we then ignore people who are bullying because they don’t fit in with how we think they should look or act. Children who bully need to have their behaviour challenged, their prejudices challenged and their values and beliefs that what they are doing is okay challenged.

Do we ever talk of ways to help lower self-esteem in children? ‘Oh that child is far too confident and thinks they are the bee’s knees, they need brought down a peg or two’. Now I am not suggesting some adults don’t think like that but it’s definitely not in the self-esteem workbook. So could a focus on improving self-esteem of some children who bully really do anything other than make them worse? Or does this lead to the absurd notion that they can perhaps get bullied a bit to lower their self-esteem to the required level for acceptable social functioning? I am not suggesting this but merely that our approach to self-esteem is a one way street.

‘Bullying can cause low self-esteem’. Of course it can, being bullied can make you feel terrible about yourself, it can affect your confidence, and how you see yourself. If you are bullied it will impact on the self-esteem you have, high or low. Bullying affects your agency, your ability to feel in control and make choices – we need to help restore that feeling, you need this whether you have high or low self-esteem.

The challenge is when we focus solely on self-esteem as theanswer to or the cause of bullying. Trying only things we believe will improve a child’s self-esteem might not work. Telling a bullied child they are wonderful and the person picking on them is just horrible and envious of who they are can satisfy how we feel as adults but does little for the person being bullied. It’s not focussing on solutions.

Involving them in what they want to happen, exploring ways to manage these risks and to take steps to feel better and identify the ways they want to cope and respond is far more effective. They will be learning great life skills, learning how to manage relationships and difficulties. A focus on trying to make sure all our children and young people have high and/or improved self-esteem will not make them immune to bullying. They need to know how to respond, to explore choices and find ways to cope that they can have control over.

This improves their resilience and it might improve how they feel about themselves but they may still go through life with low self-esteem. They may still not boast about their skills and wonderfulness and may continue to underplay any achievements and take a while to get to know people, but that might be just fine for them. This is not a deficit that always needs corrected.

A few years ago I spoke at a school awards ceremony and genuinely struggled with what to say to a bunch of 14 year olds and their parents and grandparents. Some would feel bored, some would feel awesome and some might not have had anyone there to celebrate their achievements with. Everyone gets something though! No one leaves without an award of some description. So after a bit of thinking I decided to go for the message I have always believed in since I was a teenager and also one that has helped me through work and study as an adult.

I said ‘There will always someone who is infinitely better at something than you are, at playing the guitar, at singing, or at English, Maths or football. As good as you are, and it is good to be good at something, it is great to excel at things but if you can accept someone somewhere will be a bit faster, a bit smarter or just a bit better – you will do just fine’. I encouraged them not to judge their own success by what others achieve but by how hard they worked. This input actually went down quite well with the children and young people but with many parents and especially their grandparents.

For some pupils getting a B in English is a huge achievement, they have made sacrifices, worked as hard as possible, overturned challenges and that B signifies a developing growth mind-set, the beginning of a new belief that they can achieve things through hard work. It is a success. They may sit next to someone who has always got an A, will always get an A and it seems to come naturally to them. These pupils should not be judged against each other or one simply gets more praise for the higher mark, it’s the effort we must praise. The pupil with the A might have low self-esteem, they might be quiet and withdrawn and would never tell anyone that they think they are great at anything but they listen, they study hard and do well.

This is not about making these pupils ‘feel better’ about themselves, nor is it about improving their self-esteem. There is research that shows quite clearly there is no link between high self-esteem and academic achievement. In fact very high self-esteem has been shown to be a barrier to achievement in later life as these people find criticism harder to take and cannot reflect that they may have done poorly. I would always at this stage direct people to Jean Twenge’s wonderful book ’Generation Me’ to look at her extensive research and wonderful discussion of the impact this has had over the last 30 years.

There are two examples I use a lot from popular culture that I think highlight where we have ended up in relation to self-esteem as the be all and end all.

The first is X factor. It is an easy target I know and I have enjoyed watching it at times as much as the next person, although not for a few years to be fair! . I know it makes great car crash telly but what is interesting is the mantra given out by the judges and contestants and crucially by their families that ‘if you believe it and follow your dream and you can do it’ ‘How much do you want this?’ ‘I want this so bad and will do anything to get it, I will work so hard, and I am passionate and desperate’ ‘I want to make my mum proud’.

‘Yes, but can you sing?’ would be my response. You can want it all day, you can feel entitled to it, inspired by people, desperate for success and fame and fortune as a singer but if you cannot sing a note, you won’t win it. There is real devastation on the faces of contestants who sing as badly as I do which if I may quote Billy Connelly, is ‘like a goose farting in the fog’. The disbelief on their mums faces while wearing a t-shirt with their child’s face on it saying ‘X Factor champion 2015’. A parent who has always said they were a ‘wonderful singer and could easily win the X Factor with a voice like that’ has seen some people genuinely unable to accept the critique that they sang badly. They assume the problem is the judges not spotting the brilliance and potential their mum has seen.

I am a parent of three and I am guilty of not wanting to do anything that makes them feel bad, it is a perfectly natural thing to want to do but if I felt any one of my children was in fact a terrible singer, I am not sure I would go along or even encourage a televised audition! All in the hope that encouraging them to believe in themselves would improve their self-esteem and they could be immune or less susceptible to negative experiences. I’m just setting them up for life to give them a few slaps in the face.

The other is from Carrie Bradshaw in Sex and the City

‘The most exciting, challenging and significant relationship of all is the one you have with yourself’ and also she has reminded us ‘Don’t forget to fall in love with yourself first.’

I remember at the time watching this and feeling ‘what a dreadful line’ I had discussed a few times at home that I though the character of Carrie is, well ‘a bit selfish’ and of course should have kept Aidan rather than Big but that’s not the point here – the advice given appears just so self-centred. It is ‘me first then I can cope with others’. I think that if people do feel like this they may never be truly ‘happy’ or feel their self-esteem is at the required level. How about focusing on how other people feel? Or seeing things from their point of view? Be challenged on things or help people who it more, and then you need might find that relationships aren’t as difficult as you might have thought.

The point if all this, I suppose is, that the focus on self-esteem and indeed on the ‘self’ may actually contribute a lack of empathy, a lack of compassion or in some cases the belief that all we have to do is try things we are told ‘improve your self-esteem’ and all will be well. It is possible to go through life with low-self-esteem and excel, to lead your field academically, or in music or arts or just in your own house. Low self-esteem doesn’t mean you lack ability or competence; you just frame these things differently and for some, they may decide to give some things up early as a result or for others they may persevere and work harder because they are self-critical.

None of this negates the impact of bullying; it can and does have significant long-term impacts on people and how they feel about themselves and their ability to trust or sustain relationships. All I want to do is reframe it a little and move the focus away from the self and onto teaching empathy and compassion. Our job is to help our children to develop the skills they need to manage relationships and to deal with adversity. A focus on making everyone feel great about themselves is unfair on those who go through life a bit doubtful and self-critical and it implies they are in a deficit of some sort. It can imply that all the really successful happy people in the world have high self-esteem, or that it is a pre-requisite of success. This just oversimplifies who we are and the way we relate to each other.

All children and young people need adults who love them and who thinks they are wonderful, someone who accepts them and is there for them. We do this because we need love, praise and recognition to develop properly and not get lost on trying to imbibe a false or misleading sense of who you are and what you need to be like to be happy and safe or that if you do have lower self-esteem you are somehow immediately at a disadvantage.

Brian

Parents and carers – responding to bullying

January 25, 2016 ~ brianorbistc ~ Leave a comment

This blog contains some of the supporting advice we have given to parents and carers about how you actually respond to bullying – the processes we need to go through and to include children and young people going forward to help them regain a sense of control ands influence over their lives.

How do I know if it’s bullying?

When we talk about bullying we are talking about something that is both behaviour and impact. Behaviour that can make people feel hurt, frightened, scared, left out or worried – and the impact of this behaviour leaves them feeling less in control of themselves.

We know that bullying takes something away from people; that is one of the things that makes it different from other behaviours. It takes away people’s ability to feel in control of themselves and to take effective action. We callthis our agency. Bullying strips away a person’s capacity for agency.

It’s important to remember this when we respond to bullying behaviour. If we can accept that it takes something away from someone, our focus has to be on helping them to get it back; helping them get back that feeling of being in control and being themselves again. That’s why we have to involve young people in what they want to happen, what they would like to happen, and what they are worried about happening.

And sometimes we need to take a lead from them as to what pace we go at. If we can do that, we can help restore that feeling of being in control.

We are teaching children very important life skills. We are teaching them to negotiate difficult relationships and that’s a factor of life for everyone. It’s a skill we all need as adults, to learn how to get on with people and to learn how to dislike someone in a respectful manner. That’s how we approach bullying.

What advice should I give?

Hearing that your child is being bullied brings out an understandably emotional response. It’s difficult for parents and carers to hear. It’s difficult because you feel so strongly about it and when you hear your child is being bullied, you are not always at your best.

Sometimes the advice we give children and young people at this time isn’t necessarily the best advice. Being told to hit someone back if you are being bullied is actually a common response; children and young people have told us this is something they hear. We know it exists as an option to use but we know, by and large, it’s not necessarily the best or safest option to take.

It doesn’t take into account people that can’t or won’t hit back; people that have mobility problems or who are too scared, or people who won’t like the thought of violence. So there always has to be an alternative to it. We don’t go through life answering challenges and relationship difficulties by resorting to violence, yet we tend to tell children if they are being bullied they should hit back – whether they are being physically bullied or bullied online, that’s the advice we tend to give.

There is never one, single, answer when it comes to bullying, it’s about knowing how to think about it and how to approach it.

Sometimes you have to ask your child, ‘what do you want to happen?’

‘tell me what you have done so far?’

‘what would you like me to do?’

‘what do you think would happen if, say, I was to go up to the school and talk to them about it?’.

If they are worried that you would make it worse, you might have to try something else because most children want bullying to stop with the minimum of fuss.

‘What do you think would happen if I spoke to someone’s mum?’ or

‘is there someone else you can talk to?’

It’s about exploring options; thinking about what you can do and sometimes having to say, as a parent, ‘look if I’m worried and I don’t think you’re safe, I’m going to step in’, and explain why you are doing it.

This process of exploring what you can both do role models a way of thinking and the aim is to agree a way forward – a plan you can agree to and agree to review if it’s not working. You will have a positive impact on their anxiety levels as they can discuss things with you and they can see your desire to help rather than you being angry or upset. It is not about as a parent or carer having all the answers – it is about asking each other questions, talking and most importantly listening, to get closer to an answer together.

Listening isn’t always easy – especially if we are emotional but the one thing children and young people have told me consistently over the years is that they want listened to when they are being bullied.

The temptation to run off and solve it is an understandable one, but we should always take a moment, pause and think, ‘how do I give my child back a sense of being in control?’ because it’s that sense of being in control that has been taken from them, and that has to focus your response. Sometimes your child might ask you not to do anything straight away – to give then the chance to go back into school and see how things are.

What if my child is bullying someone else?

If your child has been accused of bullying or you suspect your child is bullying, you have to address their behaviour and the impact that it has had. Children who are bullying others need help to repair relationships; they need help to understand that what they’ve done is wrong. Sometimes they know the impact of what their behaviour is; that’s why they’re doing it, but sometimes they need help to understand the effect their behaviour is having on someone else.

It’s important when we deal with children who are bullying that we don’t label them. We talk about their behaviour and we talk about the impact that it has, we don’t label them as bullies. There isn’t any one stereotypical ‘bully’. Bullying is behaviour that makes people feel a certain way – and many of us will have acted in a certain way that made someone feel hurt, frightened or left out. It’s much easier to change your behaviour if I say, ‘when you did that to him, that was bullying’. I’m much more likely to get a better response then if I say, ‘because you did that, you are a bully’.

People won’t recognise that label, parents will object to that label and you don’t change behaviour by labelling people. You change behaviour by telling people what they did, why it was wrong, and what you expect instead.

Gender is Everyone’s Agenda

May 8, 2014 ~ brianorbistc ~ Leave a comment

I have copied my opening speech from this weeks ‘Gender is Everyone’s Agenda Conference – some more thought son this event to follow

The name of this conference was chosen very deliberately – gender is everyone’s agenda

This title emerged as we began exploring the challenges young people face and looking at the work being done by the range of agencies – many you will see today – just how much of their lives can be affected by gender inequality

We start of the games or the clothes boys or girls are expected to wear or are marketed at parents, to name calling bullying, insults, stereotypes, to threats and fear and abuse because they don’t conform to what is seen as normal behaviour, or they don’t do what is expected of girls when a boy asks you out or wants your picture, to feeling safe being out, to being targeted online, being exploited or abused witnessing and experiencing domestic violence or being attacked in the street..

This spectrum is where some of us sit – a lot of us found that we play a small part on this huge spectrum or behaviours or issues – but there is no one monopoly position on them – neither in policy or practice – all of these issues and many more are underpinned by gender inequality – they all adversely affect girls more than boys.

Aggression and violence towards girls whether online, in school, in relationships is a complex phenomenon – not a new one either – the pressure to conform to norms or to be sexually active or to do what your friends tell you boys or girls are supposed to do – or are supposed to respond to if their girlfriend or boyfriend texts or speaks to another person are challenges we have been facing for years and at times we have tried to focus on each part of the spectrum of behaviours or looked at what the media does and then blamed that

When you look then at what each of us is doing on our small parts of the spectrum are doing – you ask – are they being consistent? Does it add up? It many places it does but many of us share the same frustrations at trying to get communities and schools and funders to look up and see the bigger picture.

We first became involved and were the catalyst for the partnership forming that brings you todays conference – based on our one area of influence – bullying

The term sexual bullying was being used more and more often and was appearing in policy and was being used to describe all manner of behaviours from homophobia to sexual assault – we felt this ran the risk of diluting serious behaviour – forcing someone, threatening to do something sexual they do not want to, isn’t bullying it abuse. Putting your hand u a girls skirt is not bullying – it is assault – these examples did and still do exist in policy in parts of the UK.

I as noticed a change when we were presenting evidence to the parliament on cyberbullying and after I spoke 5 other agencies spoke about exploitation and child abuse online – these are very very serious issues that need real policy and legislative focus – but we felt the term ‘cyberbullying’ was becoming an umbrella term for all negative and abusive behaviour online. I felt that if parliament is looking for evidence on exploitation and abuse online – we shouldn’t be in the room.

These two challenging issues converged and we decided it was time to talk to colleagues who were working on these very serious very relevant issues – we could learn from them about the areas they work in ad we could share what we did –so that we knew what children could expect from Childline, what Zero Tolerance was talking about in schools about relationships and violence and they knew what the anti-bullying messages were, what LGBT Youth Scotland say about domestic violence and violence that is routed in people not meeting gender norms – this vital and rich work being done runs the risk of being done in isolation

We wanted to get people together and look for where we can develop a consistent message – in policy and on practice. Every one of us was dealing with behaviour and violence migrating to the online world too but when we peel it all back and look at what we do – we are responding to gender inequality – pictures of girls being shared and commented on around school is misogyny 2014 – boys simply have new means at their disposal to perpetuate the myths about relationships, norms and how we talk about boys and how we talk about girls.

So ourselves, LGBT Youth Scotland, police Scotland, Local Authority colleagues, the Mentors for Violence Programme, NSPCC Scotland, Edinburgh University, Zero tolerance and Rape Crisis Scotland formed a partnership –

This group has formed in response to a shared concern and common interest in addressing gender-based inequalities and sexual violence. It sets out a partnership approach to lead and influence gender-related policy and practice, as it relates to children and young people in Scotland. It aims to challenge accepted behaviour, attitudes and relationships, with the purpose of reducing sexual violence amongst young people, acknowledging that the status quo is no longer good enough.

When each of us responds to reports or is delivering our area of work – we now know more about what our colleagues are doing and when we address gender issues – we have a broader and more informed position for some young people the link form say gender based bullying to gender based violence is clear for others less so but in understanding what each of us can do on that spectrum or for some continuum of aggression and violence we hope that we can develop more effective responses as we share our learning our understanding and listen to each other.

I am very proud to be standing here today opening this conference – I am very proud that it is not a conference about online risks, there are plenty of them happening, or a conference just on violence, or bullying – but one that hopefully gets straight to the point – and that is how these are affected by gender inequality – I want us to get the conversation right – not always focussing on our own bits bit ask – how can we change attitudes and behaviours about gender

I suppose for me an example is when we look at what happens when sexting goes horribly wrong – a very important area – and we spend time on reflecting on social media sites, smart phones and the challenges they present – when the issue is actually what motivated the boy involved what told him what he was doing was okay – not how did he did it or where – but why.

That is what I mean about getting the conversation right.

Today is our attempt to articulate the problem – to explore some of the key issues and to share these with you and to listen to what you have to say

We have avoided the temptation to present you with speakers all do and for you to sit there and appreciate – although I am sure you will appreciate the small number we have for you today – but we wanted it to be an active day – where the workshops and the networking are the focus – so please enjoy the variety on show – use the time at lunch and breaks to go round the various stalls and make connections.

Finally a quick thanks to Our Funders today from The Scottish Government – both The Learning Directorate and the Equalities Unit – thank you for this and we hope you can see that today has been money very well spent.

Brian Donnelly