Teaching Kids To Be Good People | Annie Fox's Blog

“My friend’s not acting like a friend!”

May 5, 2014

The kind of friends you can be yourself with

Since 1997 a big chunk of my email questions have been variations of…

What do I do if my friend is nice to me sometimes and sometimes mean to me?
What do I do if my friend is talking behind my back but then when I confront her about it she says she doesn’t know what I’m talking about?
What do I do if my friend always has to have things his way and when he doesn’t, he gets kinda mean?”

This morning I did a Skype in the Classroom session with 14 and 15 year olds in Croatia. The topic: Real Friends vs the Other Kind. These kids were polite, respectful and appreciative of our time together. Their English was very impressive! What also impressed me were the questions they asked: thoughtful, honest, revealing. Even though they were so far away, they had many of the same concerns and confusions about friendship as the kids who’ve been emailing me for 17 years. Doesn’t matter if the letter writer is 10 or 19. Doesn’t matter if s/he lives in Detroit, London, Singapore or Zaire. It often boils down to this: “Why is my friend not acting like a friend and what can I do about it?”

We each have to learn the difference between a real friend and the other kind. Sometimes those lessons come with a lot of hurt feelings. Maybe we’d suffer less if, when we are young, we could get help setting concrete standards for behavior in a friendship. Parents and teachers could do a much better job helping us understand that when we pay attention to how we feel when we are with people we can trust, then we will know what it’s like to feel safe, respected and appreciated in a friendship. Trusted adults should also help kids understand that friendship is a 2-way street. We have to hold ourselves to the same high standard of real friendship that we hold other people to. And if they are unable or unwilling to treat us the way a real friend should, then we have the right (and the obligation to ourselves) to take a vacation from that friendship and reach out to other people who share our values.

How do we teach kids the difference between real friends and the other kind?” Watch my 3 minute video answer on Vidoyen.

Filed under: Education,Parenting,Teaching Kids To Be Good People,Vidoyen — Tags: friendship issues, real friends vs. the other kind, Skype in the Classroom, Teens, Tweens — Annie @ 6:35 pm

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Every person who bugs you is not a “bully”

April 29, 2014

There have always been kids who seem to get pleasure and a power-high from bugging other kids. Maybe there always will be. Thankfully, adults are getting wise to the fact that “Kids will be kids” is no excuse for peer-harassment. Over the past decade, we have learned some heart-breaking lessons about the tragic consequences of unstopped harassment. Our education has come through the irreparable damange caused to targeted kids and their families. These days, at least on paper, parents and educators are much less tolerant of “mean kid” behavior than we have been in the past.

Of course, we’re talking about bullying (online and off) but I’ve purposely not yet used the word because it’s overused to the point of being meaningless.

Let’s get one thing straight, the definition of bullying is not: Everything that other people do that you don’t like. A rude, one-time comment is not bullying. A friend telling you that she doesn’t want to be your friend any more is not bullying. When everything is called bullying, kids miss the point and nothing changes for the good. So let’s be clear. Peer harassment is a) ongoing b) unwanted and c) typically involves a power disparity between the two people. For example, boss to employee, coach to player, parent to child, older sibling to younger, “popular” kid to less popular kid.

In my most recent 3 minute Vidoyen video I answered the question: How can parents and educators do a better job reducing bullying?

How to stop it? I’ve got answers

Filed under: Cruel's Not Cool,Parenting,Teaching Kids To Be Good People — Tags: bullying, cyberbullying, peer harassment, School Climate, Vidoyen — Annie @ 12:28 pm

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GirlWorld: Twisted values, twisted friendships

March 25, 2014

We can be mean to her and still be nice, can’t we?

“Do unto others” makes no sense to middle schoolers. (Ideally it should, but that’s not how TweenWorld currently operates.) To help our kids navigate the turbulent and toxic waters of peer relationships, we’ve got to wake up and smell the reality stinking up their world (online and off).

Of course both girls and boys have middle school friendship woes. And yes, both boys and girls can become Peer Approval Addicts. But girls often take their feelings of hurt, jealousy, betrayal and rejection to dramatic and damaging heights. So let’s talk about girl friendships.

The social garbage girls throw at each other is the stuff of rumors, gossip, harassment, and exclusion. And it often happens under the radar. Because even though a girl may be eviscerating a former bff at school and online, she still wants to think of herself as a nice girl. (I said it was twisted, didn’t I?)

50 Ways to Fix a Friendship without the DRAMA

I wrote The Girls’ Q&A Book on Friendship for 8-12 year olds and the adults who care about them. Let’s face it, parents are rarely aware of what’s going on on the battlefield of their daughters’ friendships. It usually comes to light when their girl feels victimized and can no longer contain her distress. At that moment she may spill the whole story of her so-called friend’s bad behavior. In response a parent might logically advise:

“Tell her how you feel about this. Tell her she’s got to stop.”

“I can’t tell her that!”

“Why not? It’s true!”

“Because it will hurt her feelings!”

“Excuse me!? You won’t tell her she’s hurt you because you don’t want to hurt her feelings?! What about your feelings?”

“Forget about it, Mom/Dad. I’m sorry I said anything. You just don’t get it.”

Bingo! Parents can’t fathom the logic here. But to the girl, the logic is clear. She will swallow her pain because she (justifiably) fears that complaining about bad treatment will cause her friend and all the others in their friendship circle to ditch the plaintiff, swiftly and completely. Our targeted daughter will be friendless and she knows it. And because that is a fate worse than death she puts up with the ongoing abuse. Pretends it doesn’t hurt. Continues to think of these girls as her friends and continues to hang out with them and be abused.

Her confusion over the love-hate/comfort-pain mix may cloud her judgment when she starts dating. If she puts up with emotional abuse in a friendship why assume she’ll choose a thoughtful caring romantic partner over one who dominates, demeans and controls?

As parents we need to help our daughters develop enough self-respect to demand respectful treatment from others, especially those closest to them. Let’s help them acknowledge the truth of what’s going on in their friendships. We won’t be able to change “mean” girl behavior in others, but we can, at the very least, help our daughters acknowledge that their pain at the hands of friends is real, undeserved and unacceptable. Then we can point out their options:

1. Stay silent. Stick with friends who hurt you and expect more of the same.

2. Talk to them about it and let them know you’re no longer giving them permission to disrespect you. If nothing changes, consider option #3.

3. Take a (permanent) vacation from the drama. Reach out to people who share your values about what it means to be a real friend.

Here’s to Real Friends vs. the Other Kind and to less friendship drama!

Filed under: Annie's Books,Girls' Friendship,Parenting,Teaching Kids To Be Good People,Teens — Tags: Friendship, girls friendship issues, Girls' Friendship Q&A book, Middle School, parenting tweens — Annie @ 1:49 pm

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Presidents’ Day Acts of Kindness Challenge

February 16, 2014

Acts of kindness create a chain reaction

UPDATE: When it comes to kids learning kindness, we’re not looking for perfection, only progress. We’d love to hear about your kids’ progress. Tweet, FB, Instagram or Pinterest, posts, photos or videos related to kindness, it could be a great story, a photo of your kindness chain, a video of someone in your family being kind to a family member, the sky is the limit! Then on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday this week (Feb 18-20), use hashtags #OlympicMoms #OlympicDads to share your acts of kindness and we’ll find your post with our super cool TINT content curation tool. We’ll gift one mom/family per day a My Growing Up Chart. As my pal, Dr. Lynne Kenney says, “Being kind wins the GOLD!”

Tomorrow is a school holiday here in the States (Happy Birthday General Washington. You too, Mr. Lincoln!) And today wraps up National Random Acts of Kindness Week. In case you missed it, no worries. I’ve officially declared an extension of] RAK. Why? Because without kindness, a day with the kids home from school can be a very loooooong snarky day indeed… especially if the cold keeps the younguns inside and at each others’ throats. Also, it seems fitting to stretch out this kindness thing because we’ve got another week of the Olympic Games, which are as much about cooperation and respect as they are about competition.

In honor of all of this, I hereby challenge you to challenge yourself and your kids to spend the next week being especially kind to people in your family, friends, neighbors and whomever you meet (online or off).

A Chain of Kindness (mini-art project to prevent spikes in cabin fever)

Here’s a fun way for kids to become aware of opportunities to be kind and helpful. It will also give them a visual experience of how acts of kindness “add up” and make all of us feel happier and more connected.

What you’ll need:

Colored paper (plain white paper works too)
Scissors
Tape or glue (staples work as well)
Pens, markers or crayons

How: Talk to your kids about kindness.

Conversations that Count: Questions for you and your kids to ponder together: What are some examples of being kind? What might happen if there was more kindness in the world? What do you think gets in the way of people being kinder to each other?

Discussion drivers: Think about a recent time you were kind to someone without being asked to do it. How did you feel? What response did you get from the other person? How did that feel? Now think about a time someone was kind to you. How did you feel? How did you express that?

The Kindness Challenge: As a family, let’s challenge ourselves to increase our acts of kindness over the next 7 days.

Choose a piece of colored paper and cut a strip about 11 X 2 inches.
Write a sentence about what you did in the past week, that was kind – one act of kindness per strip. Sign your name.
Connect your strip with someone else’s, etc. and create “links” using the glue.
Got more than one recent act of kindness? Make another link!
Add to the chain any time you want.

To help the chain grow faster (and the family actively looking for opportunities to be kind) hang the chain in a place where everyone can see it and keep the art materials readily available.

Enjoy… in kindness and let me know how it goes! We can create a chain of kindness story comments right here!