mental health – Orbis T&CLtd

This is in response to the coverage of the guidance in Scotland

The guidance was not and never has been about ‘banning’ the word ‘bully’. The point is being misrepresented and used to score points without taking in the full guidance.

The guidance is for adults who need to respond to and deal with bullying. For years parents and schools focussed on establishing whether someone was a bully or not rather than deal with what they’d done.

Telling someone they are a bully doesn’t or hardly ever changes their behaviour – if it did – this would have worked years ago – it didn’t.Children are not adults – their character is still developing and labelling can confirm traits and behaviours before a child has a chance to learn alternatives or change what people seem to believe about them.

When we tell children they –

Talk too much

Are a bully

A liar

Are lazy

Can’t manage their anger

They can internalise this and believe they’ve no control over it. This happens all the time. When we focus on their behaviour, on what they did – we are in a better place to help them change and in this case, stop bullying.

Telling them ‘that this is what you did wrong’ – and ‘these are the consequences’ – ‘here is what we expect instead’ – is more useful than giving them the label of bully.

Some children stop bullying – they make amends – the label can stick.I have more first hand experiences than I can count where a child’s bullying was not treated seriously because adults didn’t think they were a bully – and times where everything a child does is bullying because everyone thinks they’re a bully.

Also I’ve seen parents who won’t accept their child is bullying because they don’t accept their child is a bully – but if I describe your child’s actions and that it’s unacceptable – that’s a better conversation and one that may actually stop their behaviour.

This thinking about labelling stops us sorting things out. All we ever asked in the guidance was to focus on addressing behaviour and impact – not deciding on who is or isn’t a bully. It’s got nothing to do with not hurting people’s feelings – it’s to give the adults the right kind of guidance to actually stop bullying.

And it’s based on what thousands of children and young people that have been bullied have shared with me over the years.

It’s not an SNP thing either – they never put this in the guidance – initially in 2011 believe it or not – it was me – based on thousands of engagement’s with children and young people.

It’s vital we don’t mince our words when dealing with bullying – call it out – call it bullying and that it’s never ever okay. When someone is bullying – point out exactly what they’re doing that’s bullying – don’t hint at it – be straight. I’ll never worry about hurting someone who bullies feelings – I’ll tell them what they’re doing is bullying – but I will give them a chance to change and to learn.

Brian Donnelly

I have been trying for a while to start to write about the work I have been doing with families over the last couple of years. I’ve learned so much from so many families from across different local authority areas, that’s its almost impossible to boil it all down to be able to answer the question I get asked a lot, ‘what’s the one thing you’ve learned?’.

I tend to start waffling about how things are like jigsaw we need to piece together to see the bigger picture, so many things affect our children, their families and the people who work in their schools.

Yes, the influence of social media, yes, the impact of lockdown, yes, the political landscape, yes, making education a political football, and so on and on.

But the one thing I would say, in terms of what I have learned it’s this – the answer lies with families. Success, genuine change has only come about when the family, me and the school, work together.

Working on one thing at a time that has a ripple effect on what you do next. To measure small incremental changes and focus on seeing behaviour and the impact it has. Not what it might mean or what CAMHS might diagnose, but what can we do today? What can you do when they get home from school?

As I reflect on this, I feel I will write several Blog’s to cover the myriad of insights this work has led to. Or even make some videos.

So, with that in mind, here are some of the areas I’d like to cover

The focus on your child’s happiness over all other feelings and experiences
The Snowplough – clearing the path of any obstacles – long term implications
Treating everyone like they have trauma / pathologizing everything
‘The world revolves around me’
The influence of social media – on parents, children and teachers
The path to change – real examples of changes in behaviour and in stress
Why ‘it’s okay to be angry’ is not a helpful approach, its incomplete.
Same issues – different wellies. The same issues exist in affluent/rural areas.
Behaviour expectations through values and relationships – The actual path to success
Fidget toys are a distraction – not a stress reducer.
ACE’s took us up the wrong path

My observations have been consistent across different authorities and individual schools. From my perspective, there is no doubt that attitudes to parenting have changed. The fear that is present that a child may have a difficult or negative experience has led to the evolution of a kind of parenting where parents are more concerned with how their child views them, rather than helping their child learn skills to deal with the kind of things happen in schools.

Things like disappointment, embarrassment, friends not talking, being bad at something, not liking a teacher and the one that really stands out, dealing with feelings of boredom.

The reliance on parents to solve all issues and to step in or to demand the school reframes its approach to their child, is leading to children struggling with their own behaviour and relationships all through school and into young adult life. Friendships can be fragile, work, college and independence are becoming harder to manage.

This is extensively written about and my work here in Scotland echoes this. In every school I work in, I see a high number of children who still present on what I frame as the ‘toddler phase’ of development, specifically the belief we associate with this developmental stage that the world revolves around you. When I ask parents if they think their 9/10/11/12-year-old believes the world still revolves around them, they usually respond very enthusiastically that that’s what life at home feels like. It’s then easier to plan on how to address this as it’s not about who caused it? but how can we change it?

I deal with many families where mum and dad are not on the same page on this, one parent is the tough one and one is the soft one, this brings real stress to their relationship.

I’ve helped many parents gain a better sense of ‘control’ at home and stop negotiating every aspect of their child life, what they wanted to wear, eat, when they felt like sleeping, what they should do today, or more commonly what they didn’t want to do today. This does involve some short-term pushback and emotional difficulty but in time they see the benefits and the knock-on effect it can have on sleeping, friendships, school and crucially, their stress.

I rarely ask for feedback from these, but I’d love to be interested on how people would like to engage on this, I’m thinking of videos to cover these issues, one that can support families as well as teachers and staff.

So, would people like that? To read stuff or listen?

Let me know

brian@orbistc.com

Tag: mental health

Let’s talk about labelling and using the word ‘Bully’

Trying to share what Ive learned – looking for some feedback