Ch. Master Greg Moody, Ph.D.

The Podcast:

Dr. Greg Moody, LAC, Chief Master Instructor:

Hey everybody. We’re going to talk about part [inaudible 00:00:07] and what to do. So, I’m going to share our screen here a little bit and get moving on our topic today. So what we talked about last time is what you can do as a parent to help your kid when they’re being bullied. We’ll talk about how to be preventative later, but right now, we’re going to talk about what to do if it’s already happened and your kids being bullied. I think that’s a really important topic for parents.

Dr. Greg Moody, LAC, Chief Master Instructor:

We last time talked about how to work with your kid, not blaming your kid and what to do to help them at the time of the incident. What we’re going to talk about today is what to do next when we have to talk to the child’s teacher or principal. Parents are often reluctant to talk to the teacher or principal because they feel like maybe that’s not their place. Maybe they shouldn’t go talk to the school official.

Dr. Greg Moody, LAC, Chief Master Instructor:

Maybe they’re even worried that if they do talk to the school official, they’ll make it worse, because the official’ll make my kids stand out and then it’ll make, them a target for further bullying, and these are legitimate concerns. Your child might have even told you, “I talked to my teacher and they said something to the class,” say, hey, stop picking on my child, and then they got picked on more.

Dr. Greg Moody, LAC, Chief Master Instructor:

The issue is that if you don’t do something, it’ll often get worse, so it may not stop unless you do something about it. Number one, understand it may not stop unless you talk to them. So, talk to the school officials, but let’s talk about how to do that.

Dr. Greg Moody, LAC, Chief Master Instructor:

Number two is keep your emotions in check. So, we want to give factual information, and that’s why in our last part, we talked about make sure you thoroughly listen, provide empathy for your child and make sure that they’re comfortable sharing all the information. Sometimes the information about bullying is very emotional, and it’d be hard for your kid to talk about. It’d be hard for them to say what the other child said to them.

Dr. Greg Moody, LAC, Chief Master Instructor:

Maybe it’s a bad word that they don’t normally say to you as the parent, and if they say that word out loud, they would typically get in trouble at home. It’s okay for them to say what happened, and it’s okay for them to say anything to you as a parent. When you’re talking to your child ahead of time, make sure that you’re fully… This is a reason it’s important to be fully engaged in what happens, be empathetic and find out the whole story.

Dr. Greg Moody, LAC, Chief Master Instructor:

Then when you talk to the school official, you can give factual information about your child’s experience and make sure that you tell them the who, what, when, where and how, so you know everything about, again, the who, and that would include all the kids that are involved, not just the kid who’s bullying your child, maybe all the kids. There’s often more kids involved.

Dr. Greg Moody, LAC, Chief Master Instructor:

Let them know who’s been helping, who are the helpers and supporters of your child, and who’s been positive, and all the other parties, including the teachers that might have been helpful. The teachers that might have said something and be very specific about it. Try to be as accurate as possible. The what, when did it happen and where, this is very important. Again, bullying happens in all kinds of different spaces. It’s very important to know, because maybe there’s a hole where the teachers are monitoring class, and then the how.

Dr. Greg Moody, LAC, Chief Master Instructor:

The third is, make sure you know, that you work with the staff. That doesn’t mean do their jobs for them, but you want to help them find a solution to stop the bullying for the sake of the child. But also you know that the kids who are bullying or doing that, if you’ve listened to the whole series of podcasts, not because they have low self-esteem or these other myths that we’ve talked about, but you know that in the long term, it’s not good for any of the kids.

Dr. Greg Moody, LAC, Chief Master Instructor:

It’s not good for the kid who’s doing the bullying. It’s not good for your child, and it’s not good for the sake of the classroom environment or the school as well, so you know that it’s not positive for anybody involved. If you communicate like I’m doing now, it’s going to come across a lot better than if you are just coming across as, “I don’t care about anybody except for my kid, and you guys need to fix it for my kid.”

Dr. Greg Moody, LAC, Chief Master Instructor:

Well, that’s going to come across as, admittedly, understandably, very… It’s understandable that you be very focused on your kid, but having a broader understanding that this isn’t good for anybody, it’s not good for the kid who’s bullying my kid. There’s a lot of bad outcomes for that child in the long run. It’s not good for my kid as well, obviously, so we need to fix this for the good of everybody.

Dr. Greg Moody, LAC, Chief Master Instructor:

Number four, do not under any circumstances contact the parent of the student who’s bullying. This will not end well. This often is a parent’s first response. You know this kid, you’re going to call up Johnny’s mom and say, “Hey, your kid’s been bothering my kid.” It often makes matters worse. School officials have that role and they need to do that job.,So that it’s a third party that can do it in a less emotional way.

Dr. Greg Moody, LAC, Chief Master Instructor:

Your expectation should be, number five, that the bullying should stop. You should have a 100% expectation that this stops. You should not have an expectation it reduces or only happens once in a while. You should have an expectation that it happens, it stops. Now, it may not be overnight, but you should be talking regularly with your child and with the school staff and find out, is it stopped? If it persists, then you should contact the school authorities again.

Dr. Greg Moody, LAC, Chief Master Instructor:

So, this is a good step by step. Again, talk to the school officials don’t hold back from that. When you do, keep the emotions in-check, understanding that this is not good for anybody, it doesn’t help their school environment. Understand also, they may not be aware of the problem. You might feel like, “Hey, you ought to be aware of the problem. You guys are the ones watching these kids. You should be checking the kids in the classroom. How could you guys possibly let this happen?”

Dr. Greg Moody, LAC, Chief Master Instructor:

Well, that’s going to escalate into a bad situation. It’s not going to help your child. What’s going to help your child is you coming in with the factual information, “My child’s been bullied at school by this child. This is where it’s happened. These are the other kids involved. This is when it’s happened and this is what’s been going on. Now, I want to work with you as a staff member, as a staff, to resolve the situation and make sure this doesn’t continue.” That’s a very common, reasonable explanation.

Dr. Greg Moody, LAC, Chief Master Instructor:

If the staff objects, then they you can have a conversation further from there. But if you come in from that place, then you’re more likely to have a really good result. Your expectation should be that the bullying stops and let them know, “That’s my expectation.” You can imagine a parent, understandably, very upset that their kid’s being picked on and they come in wanting to yell and scream and be upset at the school.

Dr. Greg Moody, LAC, Chief Master Instructor:

But again, that puts everybody on the defensive, and it’s not a very productive way to fix the situation. As a parent myself, I understand why that would be a reaction that you might want to have. But again, we need to make sure that we get you results. We want to get you results that stop the bullying, not make the situation worse and get everybody more upset.

Dr. Greg Moody, LAC, Chief Master Instructor:

Now, the next piece is, is how can you help your kid be more resilient to bullying, and this doesn’t negate any of the stuff we just said. We don’t expect your kid to be bullied, or we had the expectation that your kid shouldn’t be bullied. That’s not okay. The reality of it is that sometimes there will be bullying in school, and we want to help develop kids that are strong and confident, and aren’t going to be bullied as much.

Dr. Greg Moody, LAC, Chief Master Instructor:

Later, we’re going to talk about our study of martial arts and how that is an activity that helps. But one of the activities, in addition to martial arts, has developed some other talents or positive attributes. This helps your kid’s self-esteem. So, building your kid’s self-esteem will help your child be more resilient. If you remember, for earlier sessions, we talked about kids who get bullied tend to have lower self-esteem, kids who get bullied, not kids who bully, tend to have lower self-esteem.

Dr. Greg Moody, LAC, Chief Master Instructor:

So, if kids who get bullied tend to have lower self-esteem, then part of the way you can overcome that is start building self-esteem. One way to build self-esteem is to get more self, to get more self means to build more talent, skills and experiences. Activities like athletics, music, art, additional help in school, if they need some additional help so that they feel confident about what they’re doing among heres or her peers.

Dr. Greg Moody, LAC, Chief Master Instructor:

Now, martial arts is a special case of this. We’ll go into detail a little bit later, but what we know for martial arts is when kids get their black belt, that takes about two to three years, they’re less likely to get bullied compared to any school-based bullying prevention program that we’ve ever measured. So, that’s a pretty exciting result. We know that other activities that they do, if they’re involved in other things, does reduce the potential for them getting bullied.

Dr. Greg Moody, LAC, Chief Master Instructor:

Another thing to do is encourage more contact with friendly peers. This is important that they’re peers, they’re kids their own age, they’re kids that are in their classroom, but also maybe it could be kids that outside of their classroom. But they have other friends that they can spend time with and they learn to do more collaboration and learn to do more work.

Dr. Greg Moody, LAC, Chief Master Instructor:

This helps them gather a larger social group and helps them build more confidence as well in their own social skills. Outside social groups is also important. That can make them feel like they’ve got other outlets other than school, where the primary instances of bullying happened, that they can have some relief time.

Dr. Greg Moody, LAC, Chief Master Instructor:

Number four would be safety strategies, so safety strategies can help them understand when it’s okay to ask for help from an adult, when they’re feeling threatened, what bullying’s like, like the things that we’ve talked about today, or during these sessions, who he or she should go to for help and role play that. “If somebody pushed you, what would you do? Would you push them back? Well, if you do, then you could, but if they’re bigger than you, then that’s probably not going to work out too good.

Dr. Greg Moody, LAC, Chief Master Instructor:

“So, what would you do then? Could you get away and get some space? And then what would you do then? Would you go and get some help?” “Yeah, that’s a good idea.” “Who would you get some help from?” Then talk to them about that. These are reasonable things to talk to them about and role play through those and have fun with it. But these are things that a lot of times we don’t think about, because it doesn’t happen every day.

Dr. Greg Moody, LAC, Chief Master Instructor:

Make sure that your child knows that bull that telling and reporting bullying, telling is not tattling. So, let’s talk about the difference between tattling and telling this is critical for kids to know. Very frequently, they don’t know the difference, and actually teachers and parents don’t know the difference. What’s the difference between tattling and telling?

Dr. Greg Moody, LAC, Chief Master Instructor:

Tattling is when you’re trying to get attention for yourself or get somebody else in trouble. So, “Hey, look at me. Hey, look at me. Look at what I did over here. Look at what I did over here.” Or I’m saying, “Look at what Johnny did. He just pulled the crayons down from the shelf. Look at what they did. Johnny bothered Sally. Johnny bothered Sally. Look, teacher, Johnny bothered Sally.”

Dr. Greg Moody, LAC, Chief Master Instructor:

Or at home, if you’re a parent, if you have a couple kids, you might be hearing, “Hey, Sally grabbed my stuff. Sally grabbed my stuff. Sally touched me.” That would be tattling. You’re trying to get somebody else in trouble, and you’re getting attention for yourself. So you’re getting attention or trying to get somebody else in trouble. That’s tattling. There’s no real purpose for this other than to get somebody else in trouble.

Dr. Greg Moody, LAC, Chief Master Instructor:

So, is that necessary communication to a parent? No. And is it necessary communication to a teacher? No. It might be something that as a parent or a teacher, you might want to know that they pushed somebody or that they grabbed the crayons down from the place that they’re not supposed to, or that they did something they’re not supposed to. It might be important information or it might be information you’d like to know, but probably if they never told you that, the world wouldn’t end, it wouldn’t be that big a deal. It wouldn’t be catastrophic.

Dr. Greg Moody, LAC, Chief Master Instructor:

So, if they never tattled, it wouldn’t be that important information for you, so you start ignoring when they tattle. Or it irritates you when they tattle, and you tell them, “Stop tattling,” Or you get mad at them when they tat. Tattling never works out that well for anybody, it irritates you, it irritates the kid they’re trying to get in trouble. It doesn’t work out well, but kids do this because they want to get attention.

Dr. Greg Moody, LAC, Chief Master Instructor:

Telling or reporting is trying to get help, and this doesn’t have to be a bullying situation. This could just be, “Hey, Mrs. Jones,” if that’s my teacher, “I would like some help on my homework, or I would like some help on this problem.” That’s not tattling. That’s just asking for help, “Mrs. Jones. I need some help because Johnny is pushing me.” That’s telling.

Dr. Greg Moody, LAC, Chief Master Instructor:

Now, telling can sound like tattling if I’m saying, “Hey, Johnny’s pushing me. Hey, Johnny’s pushing me. Hey, Johnny’s pushing me. That sounds like tattling.” So, you have to talk to your kid about what the difference is. “Is Johnny pushing you because you just pushed him and you guys are getting in a little bit of a fight and you’re just arguing with each other?” “Well, that’s not really bullying. You two just aren’t getting along. Tell me what the situation is. It sounds like you guys aren’t getting along.”

Dr. Greg Moody, LAC, Chief Master Instructor:

So, you might have two siblings that aren’t getting along and they’re in the backseat and ones arguing with the other and they’re pushing each other and they’re pushing each other and they’re throwing potato chips at each other. Is that bullying? Not by our definition. There’s no imbalance of power. There’s no intention to hurt. It’s not, well, it’s repeated. It might be repeated over time. They may be doing it all the time.

Dr. Greg Moody, LAC, Chief Master Instructor:

One says, “Hey, Billy’s pushing me,” or, “Billy’s throwing potato chips at me.” That’s definitely tattling. Now, you may do something else to get that to stop. But that would be tattling not telling. If it was something where something went wrong, they need some help. That’s telling. So, talking to them about the difference when they actually need help is completely different. Tattling versus telling, educating them on that.

Dr. Greg Moody, LAC, Chief Master Instructor:

By the way, adults do this, adults do this at work. We call it gossip. Tattling is gossip. We’d like to talk about what other people do, what other people’s problems are, who dated who, who’s in a bad relationship, who did this, who did that, all kinds of other stuff. That’s called gossip. It happens all the time, and we want get that taken care of, or we don’t want to do that as much, but people are probably going to do that until the end of time. So tattling in adult terminology, we call gossip. Don’t you like to ignore that sometimes as well?

Dr. Greg Moody, LAC, Chief Master Instructor:

Let’s talk about a couple other things to help your kid be more resilient. Number five is determine is there a problem with learning or social skills? Does your child need a little bit more training on certain social skills? Or do they have a hyperactivity or impulsivity issue? Are they talking a lot or are they doing something that’s triggering some bullying?

Dr. Greg Moody, LAC, Chief Master Instructor:

Now, that doesn’t mean it’s okay to bully them. If your child has an ADHD issue or there’s something, maybe they have autism, something else going on. Those kids tend to be bullied more. It’s not okay to bully. We’re not saying that. What it may mean is you can help support them by helping them with some social skills, with some other things that they can learn, to help them make more friends, to help them do other things. The kids may be reacting to what they’re doing because maybe they’re standing out, or they’re easy targets or they may be annoyed by them because they’re doing something in class that might trigger the other child.

Dr. Greg Moody, LAC, Chief Master Instructor:

It doesn’t make bullying. It doesn’t mean it’s okay. It’s a very different designation here, but we can take that as something that we can learn, we can help your child learn some different ways of adapting so that it helps them in general work with all other kids, not to placate a bully or anything like that.

Dr. Greg Moody, LAC, Chief Master Instructor:

Who’s good to work with your kids on that? Counselors are great. I certainly, as a counselor myself and a psychotherapist, recommend counseling for kids. It’s probably a very underused tool. Also, there’s a lot of classes and programs for kids. I think all kids can benefit from and just seek those out.

Dr. Greg Moody, LAC, Chief Master Instructor:

It’s an underused skill, social skills training for kids, and I find that when parents work with kids on these types of skills together, that both the parent and the child improve in how they interact with people in their environment. Even for us adults, when we work with our kids with these kind of things, then we do better when we’re at work.

Dr. Greg Moody, LAC, Chief Master Instructor:

Number six, home, these are great things to role play, even the social skills and the other interactions, listening and the things that we’ve talked about so far. If you can make sure that at home they have a good environment, so that they can talk and you can listen. Also, an environment where it doesn’t mean they get away with anything they want, or they are overly coddled or you’re overly permissive. But an environment where they have a strong support structure, and they get pushed hard enough to accomplish goals so that they build a lot of strength and talents and skills.

Dr. Greg Moody, LAC, Chief Master Instructor:

The balance of those things is very important at home. Those are going to be important things to make sure or maintain so that kids are resilient to bullying. They’re not going to be resilient to bullying if they aren’t constantly nudged and pushed by their parents to accomplish a lot of things on their own. Then when they go out in the world and somebody throws them a curve ball, like what a bully does, they’re not going to be able to handle it.

Dr. Greg Moody, LAC, Chief Master Instructor:

At the same time, they need to be able to know that when they come and talk to their parents about something really challenging, that it’s okay and the parent’s going to listen. Those two things need to go hand in hand. That’s not always easy for us as parents. This is a challenge that we need to accept as parents as we work with our kids.

Dr. Greg Moody, LAC, Chief Master Instructor:

So, there’s five things, six things rather, that we need to make sure we do, Help kids develop talents, encourage kids to make contact with other kids in his or her class, make sure that they’re in a supportive environment, help kids meet new friends outside of class, that’s the third thing. Teach kids safety strategies, so we know where and when to go.

Dr. Greg Moody, LAC, Chief Master Instructor:

If this part of the playground’s always where kids get bullied or get picked on, that may not be the best place to go. Make sure we role play when reporting should happen, when role play isn’t happening, know the difference between tattling and telling, find out if there’s any social skill issues that we can help our kids with. We all could use some help on improving social skills and how we interact with other people at any age.

Dr. Greg Moody, LAC, Chief Master Instructor:

Then lastly, make sure that home is an environment that pushes them hard enough and makes sure that it’s supportive enough, that they can talk to you about anything. So, that’s some of the skills that you can use to help make sure that you understand how to work with the school administration and also make your kids resilient to bullying.

Dr. Greg Moody, LAC, Chief Master Instructor:

Next time, we’ll talk about some other topics, about how to be proactive and preemptive with some skills that we take out of our work with kids in our martial arts program as well, so that you can learn them without even being in a martial arts program and preemptively make your kids very safe from bullying in the first place and be proactive about it. Thanks a lot.

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Dr. Moody is also a licensed psychotherapist and maintains a practice at Integrated Mental Health Associates (IntegratedMHA.com) where he specializes in couples therapy and mens issues.