Maggie McKay (Host): Bullies have been around since the beginning of time, but now you add social media to the mix and it seems like an even more prevalent problem, especially for kids. Dr. Ram Chettiar, Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist at Children's Mercy Kansas City, joins us to discuss how to teach your children not to bully.

Welcome to the Parenti-ish Podcast, where experts at Children's Mercy Kansas City talk about the little everyday things parents experience with their babies, teens, and in-betweens. I'm your host, Maggie McKay. Thank you so much for being here today, Dr. Chettiar.

Ram Chettiar, DO: Hi, Maggie. Thanks for having me.

Host: Absolutely. Looking forward to learning more about this, because it is such a big problem. So to set the stage, how prevalent is bullying today? And is there a certain age when we see it take place more often?

Ram Chettiar, DO: Yeah. So, maybe we start with defining bullying. I think we oftentimes maybe misdefine it. And what bullying really is is three things. So, one, someone has to be hurt on purpose. Two, the pattern of behavior is repeated over time. And three, there's an imbalance of power, whether that be strength, age, popularity, or what have you. So, that's a little bit different from some other conflicts. So, for one, you can have a conflict where nobody is having fun, but there's an equal balance of power. Teasing, where everyone's kind of getting along, having a good time. And then, there's a mean moment, which we're all prone to once in a while, where we have a strong reaction to a situation, but it's not a repeated pattern.

So, bullying has been prevalent since humanity started. U.S. is about average compared to other countries when it comes to bullying, and the World Health Organization says we have about 21% of youth that report being bullied. So, this includes about one in four children who feel that they're excluded by peers, as well as about one in ten who report being physically bullied. And bullying can really happen at any age. So, it's important to note that kids as young as age three are able to identify racial differences and form racial bias. So, this is kind of the start of what can fuel bullying. Once kids get into the preschool years, they're placed in a room with other kids for the first time. So, we start seeing bullying even as young as preschool years.

But really, the most prevalent time that bullying occurs is the middle school years. That's when it's most serious. It remains pretty high through high school, though we do see slightly lower rates in high school. But more recently, we're seeing increasingly younger kids being bullied, and the main reason for that is smartphones. Once a child gets a smartphone, they are exposed to cyberbullying, at least at risk of being exposed to cyberbullying at that point. And in the U.S., the average age of getting a smartphone is 10, and it continues to go down, so we're seeing higher rates in the younger populations.

Host: Wow. So, in addition to cell phones, are there other underlying reasons children may resort to bullying behaviors?

Ram Chettiar, DO: Yeah. There's a lot of reasons that kids bully. This is a pretty complex question with a lot of factors. So, one thing I want to make clear is that bullying is a learned behavior. Kids aren't born being bullies. In fact, a lot of kids who bully have been bullied themselves or have seen bullying around them. A lot of times, bullying is due to modeled behavior, whether it be at home or in other settings. Kids have a strong desire to fit in. They're trying to form a self-identity at young ages, and this may lead to poor self-esteem struggling to find your peer group, and depression, anxiety, which we see arising in youth, and all these can be factors for bullying risk.

And, you know, peer differences end up being a big reason that kids are excluded from groups. So, people might be at risk of bullying if others perceive them as looking differently, having a different race or ethnicity, gender factors, disabilities, religion, sexual orientation. And kids who bully are often struggling to empathize with their peers. They might have trouble with regulating their emotions. So, you put all of these factors together and then you kind of come up with the bullying situations that we see today that we're all impacted by.

Host: I often notice through the years that sometimes, like you said, bullies had older brothers or sisters who bullied them. And then they'd come to school and bully other kids. And it was just so apparent. It just seemed that, you know, like you said, they can learn it at home, among other places, I'm sure. But remember A Christmas Story, the two bullies, those kids. And then, when they had their feet to the fire, he cried like a baby and a bully...

Ram Chettiar, DO: That's right.

Host: I mean, that to me, definition of a bully, that kid, that character in that movie. Anyway, if my child mentions they've seen bullying, how should I talk to them about this?

Ram Chettiar, DO: Yeah, that's a great question, and I think parents are always very kind of worried about this situation, but what I would say is it's huge that a child is coming up to an adult and talking about these situations. In fact, most kids who are bullied are afraid to talk about it. About 60 percent of those who are bullied do not notify an adult and that number declines quite a bit as you enter high school. So. Kids may fear backlash, rejection, social isolation. They might feel helpless or hopeless in their situation.

So when a child speaks to an adult about bullying, It's a big protective factor. That's how I view it. It's important to recognize the bravery that the child had when they came to you to talk to you about it. I think it's great to thank your child for putting their trust in you to talk about it. And the best thing an adult can do in that situation is be non-judgmental, listen, validate, and show them that you care. Show them that it's an important topic that they're bringing up.

And in addition to keeping the communication lines open, it's very important to assess for safety of course. A lot of bullying that happens, luckily, there may be no long-term consequences. But sometimes, bullying situations can be unsafe. And this is always the priority. So if safety is ever an issue, it's important to bring it up with the schools. Teachers, counselors, administrators can be really helpful. If there is a crime being committed, law enforcement should be involved, so we shouldn't be afraid to escalate this as far as it needs to go to keep everybody safe.

So, what an adult can do is they can teach their child about how to de-escalate bullying situations or stand up against bullying, assuming that it's safe to do so, because it might not always be safe. So, it's important that if parents recognize that bullying is happening, that they shouldn't be afraid to report it, because it's better to be safe than sorry.

Host: I know there are many school of thoughts on this one, but some parents believe like they should kind of take it into their own hands and call the parents of the bully. And I always think, "Oh, that's a slippery slope." What do you think about that?

Ram Chettiar, DO: I think this all depends on relationships. If the parents know each other really well, that might be a very reasonable conversation to have. If these parents are strangers to your family, that could be dicey. And in fact, it might have consequences for your own child. There could be backlash there, and that could cause more harm than good from a social perspective for the child.

Host: So, the big question, how can I encourage my child not to be a bully?

Ram Chettiar, DO: So, not to be a bully, basically you have to teach them how to be a good human. And I think all parents are striving to do that. Remember bullying is a learned behavior and can be unlearned. So, it all starts with strengthening empathy, putting yourself in someone else's shoes, and helping a child understand how their actions might impact those around them. So, a child might have difficulty managing frustrations or emotions. Working on coping strategies to help with this is really wonderful, maybe deep breathing, muscle relaxation. Teaching a child how to manage conflict is a crucial skill to learn and will serve you well even into the adult years. Helping a child recognize when they've hurt someone and maybe even apologizing to that person, because that can help with healing on both sides. And in the end, it simply comes down to treating everybody with respect, which is an important skill for both kids and adults these days.

Host: Especially these days, right? Boy. So, nobody wants to think that their child is the bully. But if I find out my child has been bullying a friend or a classmate, how should I react? Is there a way to discipline your child to change that behavior?

Ram Chettiar, DO: A parent realizes that their child might be involved in a bullying situation, I always encourage parents to just take a step back. It's often very heated situation. Emotions might be high. And then, kind of think about who your child is. All children are born good and they have a lot of good qualities to them and they might be going through something very difficult. This might be a cry for help. So, it's important to, one, recognize, "Is my child going through some problems of their own? Do they need some help, maybe from a mental health professional to identify underlying factors that could be contributing to the bullying?" And then, talking with your child. A lot of times kids who are doing bullying don't have a parental figure who they feel comfortable talking to all the time.

And reminding yourself, talking to your child means in a calm, accepting manner, really getting their understanding of what the situation is or what was going on. But beyond that, we do want to hold our children accountable for their actions, help them understand that bullying will not be tolerated, that there are clear rules and expectations, and that they recognize that this is not going to define them, that they have a lot of positive attributes. And let's try to figure out what our new identity is going to be moving forward. So, we just really want to build that positive relationship. And the more kids talk to parents, we find that that helps develop other positive relationships in other areas of their life.

Host: But do we take their phone away? Do we ground them? What do we do?

Ram Chettiar, DO: So, if there is bullying occurring by the phone, there might be some natural consequences. That might be restricting phone access, that might be checking in on some of their online activities, which are totally reasonable to do if we're worried about the safety of your child or those around them. So, that would be okay to do. It's also important that we don't hover over our children. We want our children to grow. I think we can all remember how we were in middle school and maybe we made decisions that weren't ideal, but we learn from them and move on. So, it is very reasonable to allow kids to make mistakes, learn from them and move on, understanding that they have people who care for them and love them and will not let them fail, that they are always supported unconditionally.

I don't want to forget, we also want to partner with the schools. They're the ones that are seeing a lot of bullying happening. Parents aren't always kind of on the forefront of this, so partnering with the schools can also help support your child who may be impacted by bullying on either side of the equation.

Host: Good advice. Well, you've given us so much useful information and so much to think about. Thank you so much. We appreciate you sharing your expertise.

Ram Chettiar, DO: Absolutely. Thanks for having me.

Host: Absolutely. Again, that's Dr. Ram Chettiar. To find out more, go to childrensmercy.org/parentish. And if you found this podcast helpful, please share it on your social channels and check out our entire podcast library for topics of interest to you. That concludes this episode of the Parent-ish podcast. For more parenting tips and tricks, visit us at parentish.org, where we help you celebrate the craziness and challenges of parenthood.