When Parents Are Bullied

Much has been written in both the academic and popular literature about bullying -- what to do if your child is bullied, how to avoid raising a child who bullies, tips for parents and teachers who encounter bullying, and more. But we recently encountered a book that looks at bullying from a different perspective, one that we previously would not have thought about in terms of bullying - when children bully their parents.

When Kids Call the Shots, by psychotherapist Sean Grover, LCSW, looks at children who might be labelled "bossy" or "difficult" or "temperamental" and considers their behavior through a different lens. Grover views these children as bullies, and the targets of their bullying behavior are their parents. Understanding how and why this behavior develops and what parents can do to change their child's behavior is the focus of Grover's book, which grew out of his more than 20 years of working with both children and adults and his own experiences as a parent.

The book examines different ways that children become bullies, focusing on the three most common kinds of bullies: the defiant bully, the anxious bully, and the manipulative bully. Grover looks at the forces that drive each of these kinds of behaviors in children and then discusses the kinds of parents who are most prone to being bullied by their children. He continues with steps families can take to put together a support team (school officials, mental health professionals, and others) and ways parents can act to stop bullying behaviors. Grover spends time discussing family crises that may trigger bullying behaviors, things like divorce, trauma, and financial hardship. 

The book has a positive approach and a hopeful message, focusing on the fact that there are reasons why children behave this way and why parents may be feeding into this behavior. And his specific guidance on how parents can improve their family dynamic is something that should be helpful for parents asking the question: "What happened to my sweet, adorable child?"

West End Day School

We sometimes encounter young children who struggle in school for reasons that go beyond learning differences. For children whose emotional needs require a more supportive, therapeutic setting than mainstream schools -- or even most schools focused on learning differences -- can provide, West End Day School offers an important alternative for New York families.

We had the opportunity yesterday to visit this oasis of calm and support on the upper West Side of Manhattan, and were impressed by the school's approach and by the way we observed it being put into practice. Carrie Catapano, a licensed social worker and Head of School, explained that the students who were served by the school were those dealing with emotional vulnerabilities, perhaps brought on by a family crisis, separation issues, school phobia, or simply an inability to manage in a more stressful school setting. The school features a very small student body -- around 40 to 50 students at maximum -- and a highly individualized program with support for both the student and family. West End Day has a policy of keeping places for new students open so that it can offer admission to students who need this special setting at any point in the school year. As Ms. Catapano and Katy Meyer, MSEd, Education Head of the school pointed out, a student who is in need of the supportive, therapeutic setting of West End Day can't wait for the beginning of a school year for the kind of help he or she requires.

This focus on emotional and social needs does not come at the expense of academics. Extremely small classes, broken down by both ability levels and student readiness to learn in a classroom setting, employ Smart Boards in every room, and follow New York State Standards. Scientifically proven instruction methods geared towards each child's specific learning needs are employed in all academic areas. Although West End Day School is not on the list of schools for which New York will provide direct payment, the school will help parents find assistance with Carter funding to help them with tuition expenses.

Dog Days

The heat of August has unleashed a number of references to the "dog days of summer" which got us thinking about real dogs and how they have also been in the news lately.

We recently came across a piece in the Claremont Ohio Sun about how giving elementary school students a chance to read aloud to therapy dogs has had a positive impact on the students' reading scores and confidence.

We looked a little further and learned that programs using dogs as reading companions for struggling readers have been put into practice in a number of communities, from Janesville, Wisconsin to Baltimore, Maryland.

In fact, Therapy Dogs International has developed a program called Tail Waggin' Tutors that uses trained dogs to work with school children. You can contact them to find out more about how to set up a program in your school.