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October 9, 2013
I just came off a radio interview on the topic of teen dating violence. (Excellent timing for my Kindness and Respect Challenge. )One of the other guest experts, Associate Professor Emily Rothman of Boston University School of Public Health, said that 10% of teens report having experienced physical violence in a dating relationship. (Hitting, slapping, kicking, sexual coersion, etc.) Apparently that number has been fairly constant over the past 15-20 years. What has been increasing is emotional/psychological abuse in dating relationships. That ranges from name-calling, insults and threats, to dictating what a partner can wear and who s/he can talk to. 25-30% of teens report having experienced emotional/psychological dating abuse. Any controlling behavior (typically on the part of males toward females) is disrespectful. It also frequently leads to physical violence. Because many girls value their close relationships so much it can be hard for them to stand up for themselves and set boundaries.
In this recent email a girl describes to me the disrespectful treatment she gets in a friendship. Substitute the word “boyfriend” for “best friend” and you’ll see we’re talking about a common challenge for teen girls: “How do I get the respect I deserve from the people I care about?”
Hey Terra,
I have a best friend and she’s keeping me in jail. (Well, that’s what I think.) It’s like she won’t let me be friends with anyone or else she’ll be jealous. If she’s jealous, she’ll seek for revenge and I will be miserable and not able to concentrate on my studies. I’ve always wanted to tell her that I don’t wanna be her best friend anymore but I don’t have the confidence to say that. My heart says it’s the best thing to do. Do you think it’s the right decision?
Don’t Wanna Be a Doormat
Dear Don’t Wanna Be,
I agree with your heart. From what you describe, this “best friend” of yours isn’t acting like a friend at all. In your own words she:
• gets jealous if you are friends with anyone
• seeks for revenge
What kind of “friend” is that!?
Do I have to tell you your next best move? Nah. You already know what you need to do. This friendship is not a healthy one. It lacks the key ingredient: mutual respect. This is bullying prevention month. And what’s going on in this friendship is a form of bullying.
You need to end this. I know that is a scary thought. So take some slow deep breaths, right here, right now, and calm yourself. Get your confidence up and say to yourself, “I deserve friends who treat me with respect.” Think it and say it over and over until you can say it with confidence and know that it’s true.
Get to that point and you should be able to say something like this to your friend, “When you try to control who I am friends with by getting jealous and angry at me, I feel like I am in jail. Friends shouldn’t treat each other that way. It’s disrespectful. I’ve been feeling like this for a while but I haven’t told you. Even though I was scared I should have told you. Friends should be able to talk to each other about the hard stuff. I apologize. We don’t seem bring out the best in each other. That is why I am taking a break from this friendship.”
I hope this helps.
In friendship,
Terra
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Tune in tomorrow (Day 10) for an update from Don’t Wanna Be a Doormat
*(Excerpted from my upcoming The Girls Q&A Book on Friendship)
UPDATE October 3, 2014: The Girls Q&A Book on Friendship: 50 Ways to Fix a Friendship Without the DRAMA is now available in print and on Kindle (the ebook can be read on any device, your mobile phone, tablet, or computer with the free Kindle reader app). Visit GirlsQandA.com for an excerpt, reviews, and to order your copy.
October 2, 2013
Yesterday was a good day. I was reminded how this kindness and respect thing can have ripple effects. When we’re on the receiving end of an act of kindness it touches and transforms us, if only for a short while. And during that window of transformation we’re more caring, more open, and yes, more vulnerable to our human tendency to look out for one another. And so… we are more likely to be kind to the next human.
Illustration in point: On the way up to Fawn Ridge where we like to hike, I tried to parallel park beside a rocky hillside. Got a little too close and knocked off some plastic thing from under my car. Which, by the way, I didn’t notice until two hours later when I returned to my car and some kind guy pointed it out.
That was last week and yesterday I finally made it to the dealership to get the plastic thing reattached. I left the car while they examined it and visited a nearby Target where I got a call from the woman at the dealership telling me the repair would cost $200.
I’m like, “Woah! No thanks. I’m gonna pass.”
Woman: OK. We won’t do the work.
Returning to fetch my car, I’m greeted by the manager holding an invoice in the amount of $73. Since it was only Day 1 of my Kindness and Respect Challenge, I took some slow deep breaths and calmly asked, “Why am I paying for work that wasn’t done?”
Fair question, right?
Manager: We did reattach it (the plastic under thingie). We also replaced a missing bolt on your license plate. No charge. We would have washed car but our machine isn’t working. Sorry about that. Here’s a coupon for a local car wash.
Me (mightily confused): You reattached it? But… uh… I thought… Wait! How much do I owe you?
Manager: $25
Me (mightily relieved): Oh! OK!
So I left feeling like I’d just been bathed in a shower of kindness. The afterglow stayed with me as I drove home along Lincoln Avenue and spotted a woman in an electric cart driving on the sidewalk. She hit a bump and her helmet flew off the back seat without her noticing. Still glowing, I pulled over, waited for her, rolled down the window and said, “You lost your helmet back there.”
She smiled, beautifully, and thanked me. That’s not why I did it, but it felt good.
What happened to you yesterday?
PS Check out Day 3 of the Kindness and Respect Challenge.
September 23, 2013
A friend just informed me that her 14-year-old granddaughter, Samantha, was approached by a few classmates on the first day of school and told, “Everyone hates you, Samantha. You know that, don’t you?”
Apparently Sami was clueless, so the news understandably did her in for the rest of the day. She wasn’t too keen on going to school the next morning, either.
We know kids are kids and they often need our help. So what’s our usual helpful advice in these situations?
A) Ignore those mean girls.
B) Pretend it doesn’t bother you.
C) Give them a taste of their own bitchiness right back at them.
D) Diffuse the tension with humor.
E) If the harassment gets really bad, switch schools.
F) None of the above.
F is the answer, even though most well-meaning adults believe the remedy to bullying is in the hand’s of the victim. (See A-E) Apparently we’re not trying to change the abuser’s behavior… only the victim’s response! Does anyone but me see how crazy that is?
 I'm gonna do what I want and you can't stop me! Think about it this way: If a preschooler brought a baseball bat to school and started beating other kids over the head, teachers would disarm the abuser in a hot New York minute. They wouldn’t waste a second telling the victims to “ignore” the abuse. They’d shut-down the bat-wielder. Then they’d bring in BatKid’s parents and work together to educate that child and help him or her become a caring and responsible member of the school community. That’s the appropriate and effective way to help the victims and the aggressive child as well.
So what’s in the way of taking the same direct, common sense preschool approach to mean-kid behavior in middle and high schools? Can someone please tell me because I’ve been working on this stuff for over 30 years and I still don’t get why the solution eludes us.
September 15, 2013
 Another make-shift memorial mourns another bullying victim Another kid pushed to the edge by bullies. Another disheartened sheriff addresses a news conference. “(She) was absolutely terrorized on social media.” Another disbelieving mom tries making sense of life without her little girl. “I never, ever thought it would happen to me or my daughter.”
This tragedy happened in Florida, though it could have been any place. Fitting, since the internet isn’t really any place but, at the same time, it’s every place. This case of peer abuse picked up fuel on ask.fm before it exploded Monday inside a 12 year’s mind, with the thought her life was worthless. Do ask.fm and other social media sites have any responsibility for the vicious behavior of its users? Yes. Because it happened on their turf. Could they do more to make their sites “safer.” Absolutely. Kids haven’t yet learned to manage their destructive emotions. They flip out of control frequently. That’s why adults monitor what goes on during school recess. Someone has to keep the peace because kids can’t do it themselves. Is it a perfect system? No, but it helps.
Social media is the largest unsupervised playground, yet where are the monitors? If anyone 15 years ago thought that kids online would naturally treat each other with respect, he’s surely woken up by now. We’re all awake now, aren’t we?
Social media sites need human moderation. That won’t completely solve the problem of bullying, but it will help to lessen it. Parents, find out which sites your kids frequent and what level of moderation (if any) those companies use. Bottom line: Your kids should not be on social media sites that don’t have human moderation in real time. Anything less puts your child at an unacceptable level of risk. Take away your business and see if that gets them to clean up their act.
Pressuring social media sites to take responsibility for the well-being of their tween and teen users, is an essential step. We also have to do our part, as parents and teachers. Our children seriously need an education at home and at school. Kids are so vulnerable to peer approval addiction, their thinking about right and wrong can get totally warped in the moment. Parents, kids, teachers, school administrators, counselors, coaches, youth leaders, mentors, all of us need to do more to reel in the culture of cruelty. Every day in which we react to a tragedy with a make-shift memorial, instead of the daily work of building schools and communities of compassion and respect, is a day we’ve failed our kids.
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