Teaching Our Kids How to “Bounce Back” From Bullying with Dr. Michele Borba, Ed.D
00:00:00 Alyssa
You're listening to Voices of Your Village, and today we get to chat about teaching our kids how to bounce back from bullying with Dr. Michele Borba. Dr. Michele Borba is an internationally -renowned educator, award -winning author, and parenting, child and bullying expert recognized for her solution -based strategies to strengthen children's empathy, character, and reduce bullying. She's an NBC contributor who has appeared over 150 times on the Today Show and featured on countless shows, including Dr. Phil, Dateline, The View, and CNN. Her 24 books have been translated in 20 languages, including End Peer Cruelty: Build Empathy, Building Moral Intelligence, Unselfie: Why Empathetic Kids Succeed and Are All About Me World, and her latest book is Thrivers: The Surprising Reasons Why Some Kids Struggle and others shine. She offers realistic, research -based advice culled from a career of working with over 1 million parents and educators worldwide. I got to dive into this topic with her, and then Rach and I also went deeper into what this looks like as a parent and on that personal note in the breakdown. All right, folks, let's dive in.
00:01:22 Alyssa
Hey there, I'm Alyssa Blask Campbell. I'm a mom with a master's degree in early childhood education and co -creator of the Collaborative Emotion Processing Method. I'm here to walk alongside you through the messy, vulnerable parts of being humans raising other humans with deep thoughts and actionable tips. Let's dive in together.
00:01:45 Alyssa
Do you have tiny humans that are now grown humans?
00:01:47 Michele
I have tiny humans. I have three tiny humans that became three big human boys, but I have two grandkids five and three It's just so fun, but almost six and four.
00:01:58 Alyssa
Sure. What have you what has shifted for you from parenthood to grandparenthood?
00:02:02 Michele
Oh my gosh, the things that have shifted there is unbelievable I think the most important thing is you realize how much you can prioritize with them as a little guys and you just realize what really really matters you spend more time in the play just down on the floor with the mud, the sand, and the dirt. And you also realize there's takeovers. It's okay, you can do it all over again, start from the start. It's just an absolutely glorious thing. We spend most of the time with books, and Legos, and blocks, and making cookies.
00:02:33 Alyssa
I love it. I'm one of five kids, and I'm number four of five, and I interviewed my mom years ago, and I have four brothers. So the three older boys are all very close in age. It was like 18 months, and then two years apart, And then there's a four -year gap and then me and then a five -year gap and my younger brother. So there's 13 years between her oldest and her youngest. And so I had asked her, like, what did you take into parenting my younger brother that you had learned from the four of us? And she was like, just to play. And that so much doesn't matter. That she was like, all these things that, like, I wanted to make sure you knew how to clean up your toys. And you had all these things in order and whatever. And then I got to him and was like, yeah, we're just in our jammies and it's 3 p .m. And we've been playing chutes and ladders and playing outside and I'm the catcher for his baseball game or whatever. Yeah, I was like, oh, I love that reflection.
00:03:29 Michele
You know what? We didn't realize is how much that play matters because when I started looking at the latest research I was really concerned about mental health and well -being before the pandemic hit I kept going why is it spiraling like this? And why is it coming down to younger and younger kids? And one of the biggest things that I saw was the difference in today's children. They're not playing. Just child -directed play added to their list because it adds agency, and it's a crucial, crucial piece of their lives.
00:04:00 Alyssa
Isn't that huge? And we make it all so much more complicated, I think, than it has to be. And it's like, just let them play.
00:04:08 Michele
Yeah.
00:04:08 Alyssa
Yeah, pare down that schedule. That's, for me, I have a three -and -a -half -year -old and an eight -month -old. So I'm like, in it.
00:04:15 Michele
Aww.
00:04:16 Alyssa
Yeah, it's so precious. And so busy and all the things. And when my three -and -a -half -year -old comes home from childcare, it is tempting to be like, oh, we're gonna go and do something. And I have to really just be like, nope, we're gonna chill. He's gonna, we're gonna be in the backyard and he's gonna play and just unwind from his day. And those are our most regulated evenings and most connected. It's when I stop trying to do more and just do less.
00:04:43 Michele
You know what? You just said the most wonderful word that I think is so core to resilience, and that is helping a child learn the way to unwind. And it's different from every child, but the fascinating thing is they discovered that just nature and mud and sand and dirt are absolutely some of the simplest ways to unwind. And if your child isn't a mud, sand and dirt kid, then you can watch each one of your children and figure out what's the secret to helping that child unwind. For some kids, it's a book. For some kids, it's snuggling up with their teddy bear. For some kids, it's just sitting there and wanting a hug. But finding that unwind method is gonna be so wonderful for you the rest of your life because self -regulation is just for, to resilience, empathy, everything you want in your child, healthy well -being, emotional intelligence. Think of one thing, it isn't. It's hard not to.
00:05:34 Alyssa
It's so huge, and I love that you noted that it's not one -size -fits -all, that it is kid -to -kid, that my three -year -old can have like a toolbox, and for him it has to be real tools. He's not into kid tools. He wants real tools and something that he can take apart and put back together and figure out and tinker. He has a little engineer brain.
00:05:56 Michele
I love that, and it's their go -to. So after a while, when you keep noticing it, in fact I always tell parents one of the the best things you can do for your children is just have an index card handy for each one, but don't let them see you doing this. Watch each one a little closer because you're going to come up with the most wonderful thing. You're going to figure out who they are. What did they go to? What did they love? What is their strength? What is their asset that if you can be more of a talent scout, when there's three, four and five, we now know that hobbies or interests, and it doesn't mean that you're going to be an Einstein. and it doesn't mean you have to be great at piano or painting, but it's your go -to thing. The fascinating thing is I talked to college professors and university presidents years later. We'll take our kids and we're going to upscale them. And they said one of the things that they're finding with today's kids is they don't have balance in their life because they've never had a chance to develop a hobby or an interest. And the number one time they're most likely to drop about end of freshman year, first semester of college. Well, we can rewind that because the two things they say they're lacking are the unwinding concept of the regulation and knowing who they are. So they're being programmed into, here's what I want you to be as opposed to who you are and what brings you joy because that's the height of happiness.
00:07:15 Alyssa
It's so, so real. And us just as the adults stepping back, letting them be, letting them be themselves. Oh, I love that. Um, we have been getting a lot of questions around things like bullying and how do I help my kids stand up for themselves? And I am excited to kind of dance with you on this because bullying, I've realized it's like a triggering word for me. I, the idea of assigning a kid a label as a bully is hard. It's really hard for me to grapple with.
00:07:47 Michele
Yes.
00:07:48 Alyssa
And I think it's the opposite of inclusion, that we have all this talk about inclusion. And instead of looking at like, what's that kid's need that's not being met? And how do we support them and advocate for that? There's the punishment reward system often put into place. So as I wade into this topic, I want to acknowledge that bias of mine, that like that word is really hard for me. It's one that gets me. But I think it's really important to look at, like, how do we help kids learn how to stand up for themselves and assert themselves? I'll give you an example that I think you can run with here. I was at pickup and, you know, my little guy was maybe two and a half, three -ish. It was last year at one point. And I'm picking him up and this kid came close to him and my child just dropped his toy and walked away. The other kid picked it up and was playing with it and we're on the way home. And I was like, hey, but I noticed that you dropped your toy and walked away when that person came close to you. And I said, if you want to keep playing with it, I can help you with what you can say or do if you want to have a turn. And he said, Mama, if I keep playing with it and I say something or I do something, he might hurt my body. But if I drop it and I just come back when he's all done, he won't hurt my body. And I was like, okay, great survival strategy, first of all. And let's dive a little deeper into this. But I would love to like, I think it's such a common thing. And when we think of bullies and standing up for ourselves and all that jazz, I don't think we often bring it back to what does it look like at two? What does it look like at three? What does it look like to lay that foundation?
00:09:32 Michele
Well, first of all, you did something absolutely textbook perfect, so way to go, mom. And that was, you responded instead of reacting. So what you did was just make it okay and comfortable for your child to open up and tell you. And we can't gather the information of the most important things about it, who's doing it, where is it happening, when is it happening, and how are you responding? But you got all of that in just a simple, relaxed way of responding. So the first thing is realize the majority of our kids don't come to us and tell us because they don't want to disappoint us and that was the piece when I was looking at the research on bullying going Oh my gosh, second of all, it's starting at a much earlier age so we're having this discussion and everybody's looking like wow is that something that's really important when I'm talking about a preschooler? Yeah, it is. As they get a little older four or five, they become far more intentional So let's first of all clear the deck as to what it is and then what we can do about it because it's a multifaceted thing and every child is going to have to deal with it and deal with it in a different way, you've got to find once again, what's your child's way of doing it. When I do workshops, which are my favorite things to do with young kids I always put a baseball cap on because I say here's what bullying is and it has three parts to it. This is more of a lesson for the adult as it is for the kid, but bullying is different from just aggression. Because the first thing is it's always cruel or mean, okay? That's one. Number two, it's never an accident. So it isn't like the kid trips and your child falls because he falls over the child's knee or something. He didn't, it wasn't an accident. It was purposeful. And the third thing that's really important to keep in mind is that it's always a power imbalance. Bullies are manipulative and cunning. They figure out who is more vulnerable. That's the key word here. And that's who they choose. So if you look at your child and you say, maybe he's younger or maybe he's not as tall, it doesn't make any difference. He can still hold his own. If we start helping them learn, I think the most important thing at a young age, and that's voice. First and most importantly, you're not just helping him stand up to a bully. When you help your child learn voice, you're teaching him resilience. You're teaching him to stand up for himself and you're doing one of the most important things that a resilient child has is agency. I got this, mom's not gonna defend me. So the next thing about it is, watch what you're currently doing. Because if you're always being the rescuer or you're always being the voice and teaching your child, Oh, that's okay. I can do it for you. What you'll do is your child will continue to depend on you. One little point on that one, because here's what the research says. They watched us moms. They watched us when we were dealing with our two -year -olds. This is a fascinating study from Yale. And they watched us with our shyer, more introverted kids. And they found that those of us who were always kind of hovering, who were always going, well, that's okay. Here's what he means to say. They were always telling the child, well, you should do this, or here's what you could do next time. What happened is they kept following the child up, three, four, five, six, but also when they got to high school, those children who were less likely to be the introverted and more likely to stand up for themselves had parents at that two and three and four year old who started stepping back and giving the child warmup time or I'm here for you, but I know you can speak up because all of the skills we're going to be talking about right now, Alyssa, you've got to be able to practice them. And you've got to be able to have mom or dad there. You're the security level for the child, but you've also got to be able to let the child know, you got this, I'm here for you, but you're the one that's going to have to learn how to talk.
00:13:38 Alyssa
Alright, I love this because what we're looking at here is we talk about this a lot on the podcast and in our work that you don't build new skills in the hard moments. You pull from the toolbox that you built in that hard moment. And so when we are giving them opportunities to practice in a way where we're there and we're their safe person, but they get to step away and practice this and have the warm -up time. We're not saying like, nope, you got to go answer right now. You got to go. We're not forcing them into the situation. We're saying, sure, you can have warm -up time. I'm going to be here and I'm not going to do it for you. And you can do it when you're ready or you can ask me a question. You, I will still be there to guide you and support you, but I'm not going to do it for you. And when we can provide those learning opportunities for them in a regulated state where we're there as a safe, secure person and as their base, then they can pull those into the moments where we're not there.
00:14:33 Michele
Yes, yes, yes. Because the other thing we've got to do, I think a couple of things, and then we can look at how do we do this. But other than the practice and making sure we're stepping back, I mean, maybe the first thing about all of this is to just take a serious moment and be very just kind of a self -critical moment in the heat of the situation. What are you currently doing? What's your operating mode? Are you the rescue mode? Are you standing with your child or are you stepping back? And if you're always being the rescuer then you make a new pledge never do for your child what your child can do for himself because that's going to be your pledge that you want to do the rest of your life. In reality, I think the key that we need to keep in mind is this is not just to stand up to the bully. This is to be able to stand up and handle life. And what we're looking at is right now, more risk -averse teens, more risk -averse college kids who aren't speaking up because they haven't had enough practice opportunities. Well, you start that when they're two, start it when they're a year and a half, whatever. And then you do what we always do, which we're great at at age two. You did it, you did it. And then we don't do that enough when they're three, four, and five. So step one. The other thing is, I love that you said practice in the moment. But you can't practice during the challenge moment when they're in the meltdown and the temper tantrum. But look for those calming moments. Because Norma Feshbach, just so you know, this is research based from UCLA. She looked at aggressive children. She looked at the opposite end, the kids who weren't being bullied, but the bully. And she discovered that a lot of them just didn't know another way, or they got into the habit of that research. But she said, role -playing was critical. Well, we can do that because it's absolutely what our little ones love to do. Let's try that with doggie. Let's practice with your teddy bear. Let's practice with your sister. Let's practice the same thing. The more they practice in the warm, secure, fortified moment of in our environment where they feel safe, then they can do it in the real life. But they can't without a lot of opportunities just with you and me and when they feel safe.
00:16:44 Alyssa
Yeah, and I think that's something that gets lost too, that like the practice of it, it's not like practiced it once, all right, great, they're gonna nail it next time. It is repeated practice, practice, practice. One of my favorite games that we'll play in our family is just a what if game. Like we're driving in the car or we're at dinner or whatever and I'll say, what if when you go into school tomorrow, you're hoping to play with the cash register and somebody's using it, what could you do? Right, and like in these moments where we're outside of it and we're just having a conversation, he gets to have this little practice and brainstorm and sometimes he'll say, help, I don't know. And so I'll say like, well, what would you want somebody to do if you were in that scenario? So still kind of like asking those questions.
00:17:31 Michele
I love it.
00:17:33 Alyssa
Getting them thinking.
00:17:34 Michele
You know, I'm dealing with, almost every day I'm speaking in a different location. One of the things that preschool teachers are telling us all that we know is that our children right now are in social skill regression. They've lost it because they haven't been practicing the what if games, the now it's my turn, now it's your turn. How do you speak up? The other thing that another researcher, Mary Bedreaux says we do wrong is that we ask a question and then we don't pause long enough for the child to process it.
00:18:03 Alyssa
Oh, it's one of my pet peeves, Michele.
00:18:06 Michele
Yeah, well, I had a feeling. So what you do is that you realize, okay, I asked the question and we want the instant answer because we've got so much on our plate. But if we pause, we're talking 15 seconds of just pause and just hum to yourself. We find that every child, from the kid who wouldn't have said anything says one word, the kid who would have said a sentence now says, you know, a paragraph, and the kid who would have said a paragraph now gives you a dissertation. But if you pause, you give children time to think. So what we're finding is that the most important thing in all of this is these are all learned skills. But they take practice, they take us to be calm, they take us to be, let's just figure it out if it's role -playing or active or just over and over again, because the goal is whatever skill you want your child to learn, keep practicing it Until you see that your child can do it without you.
00:19:01 Alyssa
Yeah yeah, and that they I think what can get lost is people are like Oh, then I know that they can do this and then we expect it all the time, like
00:19:10 Michele
Yeah,
00:19:11 Alyssa
They're old enough to know better there whatever and I'm like, listen I am an adult with two kids and have a lot of skills and it doesn't mean I have access to them all the time. That like there are you know so if my husband comes home from work and I've had a long day and I'm spent and I have a kid on my body and another kid who's whining because he's ready for dinner and I'm making dinner and my husband says something to me and I'm annoyed by it, I'm not snappy and sarcastic and rude because I'm like, it's going to be the most productive way to have this conversation. No, it happens because I'm dysregulated and recognizing that like we want to help support this skill set and recognize that kids won't always have the capacity. So sometimes I'm gonna put my kids shoes on him even though I know he can put them on because he's had a long day and he spent and I also want him to know that he can ask for help. That-
00:20:03 Michele
I love that. I love that. I think that's so wonderful to be able to tell your child or you know to come to me anytime you need it but you also need to ask your child. Who are your other safety nets?
00:20:16 Alyssa
Yeah,
00:20:16 Michele
Who are those people you can go to when mommy or daddy aren't around and then listen because if your child doesn't have one, that's a red flag that you need to create one. Who is the neighbor next door? Can you can you call grandma if she's lives around, who is the teacher at your school? Those are critical and then the final thing and then we'll get into the what are some skills that we can teach as it make sure you also when you're practicing that one skill, whatever it is pass it on to your husband. Here's what we're working on. Or pass it on to grandma that when she Facetimes, she can practice it with the child. The more you keep practicing in a different settings, pass it on to the teacher. Here's what we're doing. What are you doing? Or let's all get on board together. You're gonna optimize your results.
00:21:02 Alyssa
It's why I think one of the questions that every teacher should ask families when they're starting the new school year is, what are you working on at home and what are your goals? Because if we don't know that, then, I mean, I have, because of who I am, because I am a former teacher, I will step in and I'm like, here's what we're working on. He's working on these things. Whether they're asked of me or not, but I wanna make sure that I know what are you working on? What are you seeing at school that you're gonna see stuff that I don't see because he's in a peer group, he's in a different setting. What are you working on that we can also tag team at home and we can reinforce at home? How do we be part of each other's team?
00:21:41 Michele
How do we, exactly, that's the key. Get on board with somebody else and then figure out what your skill is. And if I was to say, what's the one skill you want to work on during preschool and you're going to scaffold it because you've got to figure out which part of this skill can your child do. In the end, what I want every child to learn, I was writing a book called Thrivers and it was how do you help kids thrive? And what are the core skills of resilience? And the most, one of the most popular skills in it is called CALM, C -A -L -M. Now, there's four parts to it, and it's a rare two -year -old is going to be able to do all four. But if you say, here's what we're going to do, and we're going to keep working on, the first one is, in calm, when something like that happens, like to your son, the cooler you are, the better in a situation. Remember, bullies like it. They pick on kids who are more vulnerable. And the red flag is, when they see a kid crying, looking upset, pouting, going hunched over, what begins to happen is the child goes, that's the kid I'm gonna pick on, particularly as they get older. They're not so savvy when they're younger. But the key is, remember, we talked to self -regulation. If you cry and if you pout, it makes the other kid look like they've won. So what are you gonna do to be able to regulate? Is that easy to teach? No, but it's a core skill at the beginning that you've gotta say, that's my prime goal that I'm gonna teach before he gets into first grade or second grade or third grade. But I can start when they're little and the first one you can do when they're little is the breath or turn and walk for a minute, then you can come back.
00:23:18 Alyssa
Yeah, and I think like recognizing that the aggressor in this or the bully in this they're not consciously choosing their nervous system
00:23:29 Michele
Yes,
00:23:30 Alyssa
Subconsciously saying where can I feel in control or feel power? Likely from any trauma or experiences they've already had where they don't feel like they have control or their body feels out of control. And so if we're seeing this, recognizing that the aggressor's doing it on a nervous system level that's subconscious. And so what's happening for your child is that if they're in this dysregulated state, I think of like animals in the wild, right? If like there's one that kind of appears vulnerable that the other animal's gonna say like, great, that's the animal I'm going toward, that it is so primal when you're looking for power or control or dominance to find where somebody might be vulnerable. And I think what's tricky here is that I think vulnerability is a strength and not a weakness. And so I'm wondering, what does it look like to promote vulnerability of it is such a healthy form of expression to cry or to express your emotions or needs I'm thinking of all of Brené Brown's work around vulnerability and how crucial it is. And so how do we empower kids to be vulnerable and to kind of stand in that truth and, and have their, the, the cool part of this, of the calm?
00:24:50 Michele
Well, the key in life is the answer to it is empathy. And it's, it's going in a downward spiral with our kids. If you have empathy and both of them have it, then in reality, you're going to look out for the other person and you go, how would I feel if that happened to me? That's a hard skill to teach, but the first way you teach it is just be able to talk emotions and point them out for either one, any child, whether you're the upstander, that's how you get children to be able to step in and go, wait a minute, stop, that's not right. You're making him feel bad because you can't feel empathy. That's feeling with another person. Empathy is, oh my gosh, look at his face or look at his body or listen to his voice tone. That means all we need to do is add feeling words to our vocabulary a lot more in natural settings. Not six o 'clock, let's do emotional literacy. But, oh my gosh, look at that. When Sally gets mad, really, really mad, and we're reading that book together, how would you feel if that were Sally? Look at her face, make your face look like that. We discover even two -year -olds can do that. I remember when I got a phone call and the doctor was on the other line telling me that my mom was diagnosed with Alzheimer's. Well, I just became a basket case and I couldn't do whatever I could. I couldn't curtail the tears. And I remember my two -year -old at that point looking at me, seeing the tears, not knowing what to do. And so he ran and got something absolutely profound because it's the only thing he knew how to do it. He put a Band -Aid on my tear and that was what he did. Now we can teach him later or what are some things that you can do to help someone? But the key is, he's two, and he already knew it, and researchers are saying, if we just start pointing out emotions a lot more, we can help the vulnerable child, we can help the kid who can step in and help, we can help the child, the bully, and realize you don't do that. In our house, we step up to one another and let's look at how we can feel for the other person.
00:26:56 Alyssa
I love that, and one of the ways that we have been practicing this in my household is for my three -year -old who hasn't yet been on the bully side of it but has been on the receiving end of like dysregulation from other kids and aggression and asking my three -year -old I wonder what that kid's learning still? I wonder what they're still learning I wonder if they're learning how to say I want to have a turn with that or if I wonder if they're still learning how to say can I play too yes and helping him and now we've had a couple instances is recently where somebody like came and like took something from him or he got pushed down and he has said what do you think they're learning and
00:27:38 Michele
Love that
00:27:39 Alyssa
It's so cool to see him having empathy for this human recognizing this kid isn't a bad kid who's doing something bad on purpose but he's a good kid who's having a hard time and that he can have empathy for this other child and still stand up for himself. And now he just the other day said, I won't let you hurt my body. And then he said, if you want to play, you can say, can I play too? And I was like, yes.
00:28:07 Michele
But notice that took a lot of repetition.
00:28:09 Alyssa
Oh my gosh, Michele, so many repetitions.
00:28:12 Michele
But I think the first, the key, the payoff here is that it's going to have enormous help for your child in terms of wellbeing. That the child is gonna be able to come to you and be able to say, mom, I'm really sad. How glorious or be able to identify his feelings as well as the feelings of others. And there's dozens of simple little ways you can do it. Harvey Karp, the pediatrician tells us one of the simplest ways to stop the temper tantrum is immediately say the feeling. Are you feeling mad? To identify the emotion before the kid has the meltdown or the exorcism is a glorious way to help the child realize that that's the feeling I have, and pretty soon he'll be able to say the feeling back. You can do feeling charades, just back and forth in the house to be able to play a simple game or in the car, or turn off the volume on the TV when he's watching, you know, whatever it is. How do you think Minnie Mouse is feeling right now? You can't hear her, but look at her face. When they can identify those feelings from the books we read, from the discussions we have, you're doing the first thing of helping the child learn to cool down because now, eventually, if you keep saying, looks like you're getting upset, looks like you're getting upset. Take that slow breath. What you're doing is you're naming it so that you're helping the child reframe it so we can tell you, yeah, I am. So what are you going to do instead? And pretty soon he'll take it. That's the two year old be able to actually process it like you're doing and saying, she looks upset. What can I do?
00:29:46 Alyssa
Yeah. Yeah. All right. Let's move on to A.
00:29:48 Michele
A is assert, and it's coming up with when you want to say to your child, why didn't you say anything to him? It's usually because they don't know what to say. So I love what you do is to brainstorm, you don't have to use that term, but brainstorm what could you have said differently? Let's role play it. You can say really simply, no, or I don't want to, or stop it, or cut it out, or as they get older, let's go play something else. Or I'll take it for a little bit and you take it for the next time. But at the beginning, is there one or two lines that your child can say back and forth and back and forth to practice in that role play so he stands up for himself?
00:30:30 Alyssa
I love that. And for us, it's so much in the modeling, right? That like when his baby sister comes over to him and tries to connect with him, but she grabs at his face and I say, oh, I won't let you grab his face. And then I get to go into, did you want to enter into play? Were you trying to play with him? And he gets to see that from us, right? That we are over and over saying, oh, I won't let you do this. And that's the language we use. I won't let you. And then we connect. Is this what you were trying? That's where we get the curious about what are they learning? And it's been so cool to see him start to put that into practice with other kids of like, not just the assert of, I won't let you do this, but then the addition of, how do I connect? What is it that they're looking for? And how do I provide that emotion coaching piece for this other child who's dysregulated? That's been really cool to see. And I did research in building emotional intelligence and it was a part of our research that was so rad was seeing kids who are preschool age starting to do the emotion coaching part with each other when we've been modeling these other things. I think it happens so much younger than we give them credit for.
00:31:40 Michele
Oh, the researchers are on your side. Science is clearly saying, even infants, what they've found is that a baby in a, in a, just a newborn nursery, if another baby cries, they start to cry. The most fascinating thing is that they actually put the recording of the baby crying back in his own crib. He heard himself crying, he didn't cry. It was when he heard the other baby cry, it was like, oh my gosh, they have already the seeds of humanity. But we've just got to keep talking emotions. Keep talking 'em naturally, keep talking it so it's not timeout It's time in let's talk about it. And I love the term emotion coaching because I remember I had a I taught special ed for the longest time and I had this little guy named Ricky. Oh my gosh. He was just an absolute pistol and the most confident child Great self -esteem and emotional literacy that was profound and he had the most severe learning disability you could possibly imagine But he'd every day come to me and I'd stand at the door to greet everybody and he'd be able to label, how are you doing Mrs. Borba, well you look a little tired today Mrs. Borba because your eyes are baggy, or you look really happy today Mrs. Borba. How did he figure that out? I saw him one time in October, he was cutting out 50 ,000 hearts and I thought he should be cutting out pumpkins, but I sang, what you doing there? He said, I'm making my mom a card. I said, oh sweetheart, is it her birthday? He goes, no, she just always makes my feelings feel so good. I went, what does this mother do to boost his confidence and emotions that are phenomenal in terms of literacy? So I invited her coming in the class to help me with a project when in reality, I just wanted to see what the heck do you do? And within seconds, she did something that research says is profound and we can all copy. She walked into the room. No brainer. He goes to hug her. But immediately she drops everything gives her presence to her child We're talking one to two minutes kneels down and looks directly in his face and while he's talking a mile and a half a minute, all she does is rephrase his emotions. Oh Ricky that must have made you feel so proud. Oh Ricky. You look so happy. Oh Ricky. I'm so glad you have such joy. Well, he only needed about 30 seconds and he was just absolutely so wound up from his mom's just loving here's who you are. So emotion coaching, simple everyday moments.
00:34:05 Alyssa
He gets to feel seen and learn how to see other people.
00:34:08 Michele
Exactly, but we can do that.
00:34:10 Alyssa
Yeah, it's so beautiful. I love that.
00:34:12 Michele
And that gets to L.
00:34:14 Alyssa
Yeah, what's L?
00:34:15 Michele
L is look strong or look up. What we're actually looking at is, Ricky's mom was actually role modeling that to him. She was looking at him and she was actually looking, I tell kids, the vulnerable kid looks down. The strong, confident kid who's assertive looks up. That's a hard haul to do. I remember with some kids, I'd put a hot -dot sticker right here. Look here, and we'd all look at each other, and we'd look up here, because looking in the eyes was hard. But eventually, they were able to, like, you know, seven or eight or nine, be able to have eye contact. But they've actually discovered, this is so poor, a major researcher, she looked at hours of footage of kids out on playgrounds, and then she rewound them of which kid is most likely to be bullied. And the number one thing was not what they said or what they wore, but how they stood.
00:35:09 Alyssa
Yeah, the nonverbal communication.
00:35:11 Michele
Nonverbal communication, and we don't do that enough, particularly in an age where our kids are so digitally driven, they're learning to look down, not up. Look at the phone screen. Don't look at the person. So, that face -to -face connection, all you need to do is if you just look here, the fascinating thing is your whole body looks stronger, and now you look like you have strong, assertive body language. You don't have to tell your child that. You just have to say when you're talking, no, no, no, look at me. And you can practice that at home, because your kids are looking down. Let's all do around the dinner hour. Let's just look at each other, and where are you going to look? Right here.
00:35:49 Alyssa
Well and I'm thinking here about our neurodivergent children, that might be real challenging.
00:35:56 Michele
It is challenging, so you adopt it, because I also taught autistic children. And I found that, again, they were looking down here and not. So we looked behind you. And it was okay, because the other thing that will happen is after a while, with some children or a deafblind child, that's really hard too, which I had, what you do is you adapt. and you adapt to any model you can because the M in C -A -L -M, C is calm, A is assert, L is look eye to eye or look strong. If you can't look the strong piece, M you can make your voice sound like you mean it. So if you use a passive voice, stop it, listen to my voice, stop it, now listen to my voice, stop it. Which do you think that kid will gonna listen to and take seriously. Yeah. So let's practice strong voice and make your voice like you mean it.
00:36:51 Alyssa
Yeah. So I'm thinking of Dr. Steven Nowicki's work on nonverbal communication and how huge that is here. He wrote Raising a Socially Successful Child. And so much of it is on that nonverbal communication. And that's coming up a lot here of how to support kids with these feels to me just so primal of that like kind of predator prey of if you are feeling dysregulated or you're feeling like your world's out of control and you're looking to assert control or feel safe and dominant then you will look where you can find that right that you might be looking at kind of like prey for lack of a better, just like that primal language here and that prey is gonna be more meek and demure and that when we are looking at prey that is gonna pop up and fight back and say no and be assertive, then from a predator -prey perspective, the predator is saying, I won't be able to have control or dominance as easily there. And I think what's really key for adults to understand is that, I'm gonna put bully here in quotes, bully perspective, it's not intentional. They're not saying, I'm gonna go seek this out. It is literally their nervous system saying, we need to feel in control of something because so much in our life doesn't feel like we're in control. There is so much that we are not in control of and we're looking to feel safe and control is safety. And so for these kids to be able to also, for us to have compassion for them as we're looking at, how do we support the kids from that victim side of it? What can you do with your body? How can you assert yourself? Also looking at that aggressor side and saying, how do we support that? That that's gonna be a huge part here of helping all kids learn and thrive.
00:38:45 Michele
I agree with you because I do think that young kids, it's not intentionally causing another kid pain. That's bullying. But you're using aggressive behavior patterns. And I think the key point is to remember that behavior is learned. It can be unlearned, but one of the reasons you use the behavior is you don't know a different way. So, if you have the opposite, you've got a child who's aggressive, you do heavy, heavy levels of empathy. You do heavy levels of expectations, no, in this family we're a kind family. We treat each other nicely. In fact, they looked at three things that we can do to boost children's conscience, empathy, and just well -being and kindness. They looked at kids who had higher levels of empathy, who were the upstanders, who would sit there and actually help each other when somebody was hurt. The first thing is they were raised in environments where they saw the example. So if you want a child who's empathetic, ask yourself, what are they seeing from you? The kinder we are, no, no, no, oh my gosh, let's go bake some cookies and let's give it to the neighbor next door, and they see you doing it, they're more likely to copy. The second thing is expect it. No, no, no, the minute that the child defrays and goes against it, maybe it's aggressive behavior, that's when you can tell the child, no, let's do that again, because in this family, we're a kind family. Call yourself whatever you want, but it's, we're the kind family, or we do the right thing family, if you have that as the mantra. The third thing is experiences. They had experiences to do good or be kind. And if you did something aggressive, so what are you gonna do instead? The best discipline is not just so sit and time out, but the discipline is to replace it with, what are you gonna do next time? Because a lot of kids don't know, what they found is that role playing for the aggressive child was absolutely core because now he could play over and over again, how to ask nicely, how to take turns, those beginning social skills that if you lack them are gonna cause up their aggression because he doesn't know the healthier way to do it. We just need to practice them over and over again.
00:40:54 Alyssa
The practice piece is so huge, and I agree. I think looking at like, what is their intent? And I also am in the camp that believes that even with the bully down the road, the intent isn't actually mean, it's for control. I think they're all good kids who are saying, something feels out of my control, whether it's from a sensory perspective, my nervous system feels out of control, I'm overstimulated, I'm whatever, and I don't yet know the other skill set here. Like I don't know how else to do this, or that I want to be able to feel included and like I belong, and I don't know another way to do that yet. That it's truly this lacking in a skill set that we as the adult get to look at what is the core of this? What's really driving this? How do we teach that skill set?
00:41:50 Michele
I think that's the lesson right there, and we've talked about a lot of lessons, but one of them is, when you see your child, every kid's gonna have a bad day, just like us. But when you see a new pattern, and you see a repeat of the behavior, this is when you have to put your detective hat on and say, why? What's driving the behavior? What's the regressed skill? Or what is the need that the child has that he doesn't know that we gotta delve in on? And then the other thing is, get on board with the teacher. Get on board with anybody who comes into contact with your child who cares about your child and keep reinforcing that same skill by practicing it and rehearsing it. Kids learn skills by you showing them not you telling them. Model it yourself and it'll take a while has as long as it takes. Keep doing it until your child can do it without you.
00:42:44 Alyssa
Modeling is so huge I wrote in Tiny Humans Big Emotions that sometimes I open my mouth and my mom comes out. Like, sometimes that's great. Sometimes we totally want to pass that on and sometimes I want to pass on something different. But regardless, it comes out because it was what was modeled, right? And we're modeling all the time, whether we're doing it intentionally or not. And so when we can start to pay attention to what are we modeling, we can get a real clue into, oh, that's where this thing's coming from.
00:43:13 Michele
You know, I love everything you're saying, and we're just so in sync. I think one more thing that we've got to keep in mind as parents and teachers, it's a different world and the grades and the flashcards aren't going to be the done all. In fact, what we realize is that one of the core skills that every child is going to need is resilience or the ability to thrive, and it's everything we're talking about. That when I looked at what helps a child thrive, the most important thing is that thrivers are made, not born. You teach these and you don't teach them in the moment of the challenge, but you realize, ah, here's the new skill I need. What we're also talking about here is we've talked about some character strengths and we haven't been naming them, but look at what we're looking at. I identified seven that were core to Every Child for Resilience. One was self -regulation or self -control. You can't handle life without it because there goes your executive function. The second one is you mentioned curiosity, your what -if games, the more open you are to possibilities, the less likely you are to raise the white flag when the problem comes because you're a kid that's gonna go, what else could I have done instead? We're talking about empathy, which is the social confidence piece, which is essential for resilience. And that's the piece to be able to get along. It's a social glue that holds the world together. Confidence, that's the beginning piece. The more you do it, the more you can say you did it. You did it all by yourself. You're layering all these together. You talk integrity, you mentioned integrity, that's number five. What you're looking at is all these skills kind of working together. It isn't one skill that helps children thrive or become emotionally intelligent. It's a series of them and you're just layering them until your child can do them without you and that's what's gonna raise a stronger generation of kids.
00:45:06 Alyssa
That's so, so right, Michele. Thank you so much. Thank you for your work in this space. Thank you for your books to guide us in this.
00:45:13 Michele
Oh, you're welcome.
00:45:14 Alyssa
Where can folks find you, connect with you, learn more about your resources?
00:45:18 Michele
I'm micheleborba.com. I'm a 1L, Michele, and Borba rhymes with Zorba, so there you go. That's my website, micheleborba.com. You'll also find dozens of little video clips. The book that you'd want to read, I think, is Thrivers because that's the one that has all the skills we're talking about, but the other thing that's kind of fun is this one just came out. It's called I Got This. It's for younger and younger kids and how to teach them superpowers. So, there's anything you want, but it's divvying in and going, that's the skill they need right now. We're going to keep practicing it, and that's how we're going to raise up a group of thrivers.
00:45:55 Michele
I love it. Thank you so much.
00:45:57 Michele
You're welcome. Thank you.
00:45:58 Alyssa
Stay tuned after this note from our sponsors. Rach and I will be right back with the breakdown.
00:46:02
[Music]
00:46:10 Alyssa
What up, what up?
00:46:12 Rachel
Oh, man. It's cold. It's windy. I think that my dog might have partially torn his ACL.
00:46:21 Alyssa
You think, really? That was the like hobbling, like pain? What do you do next? Like just take him for an X -ray? MRI? What do you do? $7 billion later?
00:46:35 Rachel
That's, this is my fear. I'm not jumping to conclusions right now. He does fit the symptom profile, which sucks. For likely a partial tear. And like with his activity level, it just makes sense. So I'm a little sick to my stomach about it, but we're gonna do rest and pain meds for a week. See where we land. On the off chance it's just like a muscle thing. And then, yeah, it would be like a vet evaluation. And because of his age and activity level, he should have surgery to repair it, if that is what it is. You can do non -surgical stuff, but that really only works for like calm dogs who aren't gonna
00:47:17 Alyssa
Run all over the place after a four -wheeler.
00:47:21 Rachel
Correct, like it'll scar over, but then like with his activity level, he would just rupture it.
00:47:26 Alyssa
Sure.
00:47:26 Rachel
So yeah, it's about a $6 ,000 surgery if that's where we end up. So not feeling great about that.
00:47:34 Alyssa
Yeah.
00:47:35 Rachel
And also feeling like annoyed at how like attached I am to this animal. You know what I mean?
00:47:42 Alyssa
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Mm -hmm. Yep. Totally. He's a great dog.
00:47:48 Rachel
Yeah. Before I owned him, I would have been like $6 ,000 on a dog. Give me a flippin' break. And now I'm like, okay, how can I make this work? Hmm.
00:47:58 Alyssa
Yeah. He's a great dog.
00:48:00 Rachel
He's such a good dog. My kids are so deeply attached to him.
00:48:05 Alyssa
My kids are also deeply attached to him. They were with him for three days. So literally, Mila, the other day, today, was grabbing her bow out of her hair. So the dog's name is Bo for folks tuning in. And she was grabbing her bow out of her hair. And I said, bow, that's your bow. And she goes, arf, arf, and started looking around. And I was like, oh, no, it's the same. Yeah, that makes sense. We can call that a clip.
00:48:33 Rachel
Yeah, so from that lens of my kid's emotional attachment to him, I'm like, yeah, I will do a lot to keep this dog healthy.
00:48:42 Alyssa
Billion dollars? Sure.
00:48:44 Rachel
I know. I don't have $6 ,000. Cody and I were talking about it. It's like, hmm. Not sure how this all is going to shake out. That's where I'm at today.
00:48:54 Alyssa
Is pet insurance a thing?
00:48:58 Rachel
It is, but is it legal or ethical to get it after your dog has a known injury?
00:49:04 Alyssa
No, no, no. For sure. Not now. I'm not saying do that now. I was just wondering if that's like a thing. I mean, it's not like health insurance helps us very much.
00:49:14 Rachel
That's how I, I don't think that it's like worth it.
00:49:17 Alyssa
Yeah.
00:49:18 Rachel
Cause he had surgery a year ago after like running into a fence and slicing his shoulder open.
00:49:24 Alyssa
Yeah.
00:49:25 Rachel
And at that point, Cody and I were like, should we get pet insurance? But I like read online and it doesn't seem like it's worth it. It seems pretty similar to human healthcare.
00:49:33 Alyssa
I was trying to explain our healthcare to one of my friends in Austria when we were there. She was like, what do you mean you pay every month and then you still pay when you do things? She was like, aren't you paying every month so that you then don't pay when you do things? And I was like, oh, no, that would make sense. Yeah, that would make total sense. No, nope. It's a business. It's a very profitable business here in the United States. And she was like, yeah, but it's healthcare. It's not like you're buying something for your house that you're choosing. And I was like, yeah, no, I yep. I have no rational explanation for why we have profited on wellness and health. And that it's actually sick care, because most people can't afford wellness.
00:50:23 Rachel
Correct.
00:50:24 Alyssa
And just like wild, I was like trying to explain it. And she was like, it like didn't compute. She was like, I don't get it.
00:50:31 Rachel
Because it's illogical.
00:50:33 Alyssa
Correct. Yeah. Yep. She was like, so if you go to like, like Sagey had been to urgent care and we were talking about that, which is like how this all came up, um, when he was like two that summer where he had pneumonia and we ended up in urgent care in the Poconos, obviously, because first day of vacation.
00:50:51 Rachel
Oh yeah. I remember.
00:50:53 Alyssa
Uh, yeah. Or not an urgent care in the ER, I mean, and I was sharing about like how much it costs for us to go to the ER because he couldn't breathe and to just get him the medicine and support he needed to be able to breathe. And she was like, what? Like flabbergasted with how much it costs. And she was like, but you have insurance. And I was like, yeah, yeah. And she's like, but what is it? What if you can't afford it? Like then you just owe the hospital money because they did what just needed to happen for your kid to live. And I was like, yeah. Yeah.
00:51:28 Rachel
Yeah. And then you get sent to collections if you can't pay it.
00:51:33 Alyssa
She was just like mind -blown. It's insane.
00:51:36 Rachel
Because it doesn't make sense.
00:51:37 Alyssa
It's insane.
00:51:38 Rachel
It just doesn't make sense.
00:51:40 Alyssa
Oh, my God. Make it make sense. Make it make sense. I just can't believe that we're all just like, yeah, but this is the system. We're just living in it. Of all the things that folks are like, let's change this system in our country, that they're like, I'm going to go all in on changing this one. It's wild to me that like insurance and that setup hasn't been one that people are like, hey, y 'all, let's come together on this. I mean, obviously, Obamacare got us the furthest we've gotten in terms of affordability for stuff, but it's just like so baked into the system.
00:52:18 Rachel
Yeah, it's so and like it's the ideology behind it is so ingrained in American culture.
00:52:26 Alyssa
Yeah.
00:52:26 Rachel
Yeah. It's just it's wild. I was just talking to my sister about this because we have relatively good insurance like compared to a lot of others.
00:52:38 Alyssa
Your insurance is so much better than mine. Yeah.
00:52:40 Rachel
But like I had to get a skin biopsy and it costs $600 dollars.
00:52:47 Alyssa
Yeah. And you're a cancer survivor. So like
00:52:49 Rachel
after insurance.
00:52:51 Alyssa
Yeah, exactly. It's nuts.
00:52:53 Rachel
Yeah. I'm not going to not get a biopsy if the doctor says that I need one.
00:52:57 Alyssa
Right. So nuts. It's insane.
00:53:04 Rachel
It really is. And like, if I go back and think about like, like a PET scan cost $10,000. And that was eight years ago. So I'm sure it's more now.
00:53:16 Alyssa
It's nuts.
00:53:16 Rachel
That's 20 minutes in a tube.
00:53:19 Alyssa
Yeah,
00:53:19 Rachel
To the tune of $10 ,000
00:53:21 Alyssa
That you needed as a cancer patient.
00:53:24 Rachel
Had to have had to have. Yep.
00:53:27 Alyssa
Yeah. So nuts. So nuts. Oh, who are we talking about today?
00:53:35 Rachel
What an uplifting start.
00:53:36 Alyssa
Yeah. Cheers everybody.
00:53:38 Rachel
We are talking about helping kids bounce back from bullying with Michele Borba.
00:53:48 Alyssa
Sure. Thoughts and feelings on this?
00:53:51 Rachel
You know that bullying is a trigger for me.
00:53:54 Alyssa
Yeah, I've been looking forward to this with you.
00:53:57 Rachel
I was bullied for years aggressively.
00:54:01 Alyssa
How did that look? What type of like, what were things that you experienced?
00:54:08 Rachel
So I was like a chubbier kid and so it looked like being called fat or whale or like people estimating my weight from like grades two through fifth grade. So like every bus ride there were comments about my weight, laughter about my weight, lunchtime, same deal. Sometimes there were notes passed in class. It was just, like, relentless.
00:54:41 Alyssa
So terrible.
00:54:41 Rachel
And ultimately, ultimately, I stopped eating.
00:54:45 Alyssa
Obviously
00:54:45 Rachel
So the teasing stopped. Yeah, the teasing stopped around like the end of fifth grade, because I then was actively navigating anorexia and was underweight. So yeah, with that in mind, you can probably understand why bullying is such a trigger for me.
00:55:04 Alyssa
Totally. Yeah, you and I have danced on this topic too. I think when I was listening and partaking in this conversation, one of my big pet peeves is like the victim blaming part of the conversation where it's like, here's how to have kids be resilient is I think the right, it's like, here's how to have people not get raped. It's like, no, but let's focus on the people doing the thing, right? And so and not as a you're a bad person, but instead as a like, what is that kid need? What need is not being met, that they are trying to meet through this other behavior. And I think so often the focus is on, yeah, either how to help kids be resilient, who are the victims of, or how to punish the perpetrator of it, the bully, if you will.
00:56:08 Rachel
Yeah. And we go into this in the book that we just finished writing.
00:56:14 Alyssa
Cheers.
00:56:14 Rachel
And I think a couple of things come up for me. There is not going to be an instantaneous fix to bullying, right? Which I think a lot of caregivers and teachers or administrators want there to be like, all right, we're going to have one conversation with these children. And like, that's it, this is going to be done. And typically that's through the like zero tolerance policies that a lot of schools have implemented, which really focuses on punishing the perpetrator. But research is showing that that's making things worse.
00:56:48 Alyssa
Yeah. Well, because duh, right? Like, if we don't meet the need driving the behavior, you can punish or reward all day long. We're still going to see surface behavior until that need is met.
00:57:02 Rachel
Correct. And I would love to reframe it as like, yep, it's not one conversation that's going to solve this.
00:57:10 Alyssa
Correct. Yeah. And that, like, Like, I think too, and we talk so much about this in our book, Big Kids, Bigger Feelings, it's coming out in Fall of 2025. We talk so much about the need for inclusion and belonging and connection. And I think a lot of people see that as a want and not a need. And so they're looking at needs like, does this kid's body need to move? Maybe they're even looking at that. if they're looking at anything, we're looking sometimes at sensory needs. But the need for connection and inclusion and belonging is so strong, especially as we move in like kindergarten and beyond into the elementary school years. And I think until we see that as a need and really focus on it, yeah, we're going to treat it as a want and then we miss the root of the behavior.
00:58:05 Rachel
I think one thing that comes up for me is that this is a skill building thing on both sides. It's like, of course, children should know how to self -advocate. And I think that's a really important skill for all humans to have. I also would love to get to a place where instead of trying to punish the perpetrator to get the behaviors to stop, we could also be building skills for them. And asking questions like, why is this child seeking power? Why is this child seeking control? Because I think that's often like the driving force behind a lot of these behaviors.
00:58:41 Alyssa
Correct.
00:58:41 Rachel
Wanting to feel powerful, wanting to feel in control, wanting to feel secure in their social standing.
00:58:48 Alyssa
I was going to say, like wanting to feel connected and like they belong and like they're included. And if I bully this person or I make fun of this person, then other kids, if they laugh or they join in with me, now I feel connected to somebody, not to the person that I'm doing this to, but I feel connected to the people around me or I feel like I belong here, I have a value or a role or worth here. Yeah, that's exactly what I mean.
00:59:20 Rachel
Another thing that I struggle with is the idea that kids who are emotionally vulnerable are more likely to be a target, because I would love to get to a place where all kids get to be emotionally vulnerable and it doesn't make you a target.
00:59:32 Alyssa
Correct, I think it's a problematic message.
00:59:34 Rachel
Same. And it made me think of Rebels with a Cause and how like when we don't allow, and of course this was the book is about boys primarily, but when we don't allow children to be emotionally vulnerable, the ramifications of that are real.
00:59:52 Alyssa
Yeah, 100%. We see it specifically in boys and men. And I was thinking about this because I had a conversation recently with a 10 -year -old, and we were talking about school and peers and what they do when they're disappointed about something. And I said, do you ever cry when you're disappointed? And he said, only at home. And I was like, yeah, what do you think would happen if you cried at school or with your friends? And he was like, oh, he like laughed it off. He's like, I wouldn't do that. And I was like, yeah, what do you think would happen? He was like, well, they would make fun of me. Like I would be a cry baby or something. And I was like, yeah, so this kid can't express disappointment, but what he probably can express is anger. He's probably allowed to be mad. He's allowed to assert power over. And so if he doesn't know what he can do with disappointment if there isn't an outlet for that, We're going to start to see other surface behaviors. We will potentially see him put down another kid, tease another kid, bully another kid if he isn't allowed to express his feelings in another way.
01:01:12 Rachel
Absolutely. And for me, there's this push pull of like, I want my kids to be socially accepted in the world that they're currently existing in. And I also do not want to perpetuate this culture of like, if you are emotionally vulnerable, then you make yourself a victim of bullying or potentially a victim of bullying or being left out or not belonging or whatever, like I, that is not something that I want to perpetuate.
01:01:39 Alyssa
Totally. Well, and I think like, I wonder if like the path forward is kind of like more in small group than in large group of if kids can have one or two relationships in which they can be vulnerable with peers, where they feel safe and connected and like they can trust that person, even if they can't be vulnerable in large group yet, right? Like if they cried in the classroom, they might get made fun of, but maybe when they're playing with a friend and something comes up and they cry that they're safe to do that there, you know, like thinking of what does that path forward look like? And if more and more kids can feel it in small group, could it shift into large group? Could we see a culture shift there?
01:02:26 Rachel
Yeah, I love that. That actually makes me think of, so Nora's teacher, their class is fifth and sixth grade. And if one of them is like upset and crying in the bathroom, she will allow some of the other students to go into the bathroom and offer support.
01:02:45 Alyssa
I love that.
01:02:46 Rachel
Even if it's during class time. And I just love it so much.
01:02:50 Alyssa
Yeah, that peer support. Well, and I think like, yeah, a shift away from like, how do you show up as like, quote, strong, and in control, so that somebody doesn't bully you? Like, that's what was triggering for me about this conversation. And, and I do want kids to have tools for resilience. I do think like, when I started dating Zach. I'm one of five kids. He's an only child. Right at the very beginning of our relationship when he was doing just like annoying things, I said to him, I was like, oh, you didn't have siblings to tell you that that's so annoying, to like make fun of you for something and so that it stops. And like, I do think there's a like, I don't know. I don't know if making fun of them is like the right way, the ideal path forward. But I do think that there is some like value in being able to laugh at yourself, like being able to take criticism and feedback, being able to not get your way, and not, making sure that like, we aren't creating a world where our goal is that kids don't have hard feelings, right? That instead that they can navigate them and talk about them. I even think like, I was talking to Kylie about, so we just stayed at Rachel's house, my kids and her kids together. And on Sunday morning before we left, Sagey was playing with this like train set of Abel's and Abel was like zooming this Magnatile car around. Everyone's like in jammies, it's the morning and Sagey, which he tells us all the time at home, turned to Abel and said, excuse me, Abel, I really like in the morning to have quietness. And that car is really loud. Could you please stop doing that or do it on another surface? And then it would be quiet for my ears. It's too loud for my ears. And Abel was like, oh, okay, yeah. And then you were like, Abes, if you want to do it, you can do it down the hall. And that's like a spot for him. And Cody, your husband just looked at me and was like, wow, that was awesome. I was like, yeah, I mean, it doesn't always play out that way. But to see, especially little boys, have the skill set to communicate about their experiences and emotions is something that I think is truly invaluable and so possible, right? That like, sure, there are other times where Sagey's going to cover his ears and scream, stop, I don't like that, right? It's going to come out like that sometimes. And we can scaffold and support. But seeing those little glimpses of none of us needed to be there for them to have a conversation and conflict and navigate that and advocate for their needs. And I was like, that's so rad to get to witness. And I think so necessary that Sage does need to be inconvenienced sometimes. He needs to be in spaces where it's going to be louder. And sometimes he's advocating for his needs by asking someone to pause. Or when there were a lot of kids over at the house, when more cousins were there, he went and took space in another room, right? But like, he needs to learn that for himself. And sometimes it's gonna also mean things like him being excluded from stuff and learning what that feels like and how to communicate about it and when to communicate with the peers, when to communicate with adults. like those are all things he needs to learn in this world. And so I want to make sure we're not trying to create a world where kids don't have hard feelings. I really agree with Michele Borba's work on like resilience. And when it comes to bullying, I just am like, ooh, to put that all on the victim and not look at all at the perpetrator of the harm and dive into the need behind it is, I think, problematic.
01:06:53 Rachel
I agree. And I think it's so much of this is normalizing. I think about when Abel was crying in his room because he didn't want to share his toys anymore. And he told me that he was going to stay in there for 70 hours. And Sage came up to me and was like, where's Abey? And I explained to him, ultimately, the root for Abel was that it was over -simulated, right?
01:07:15 Alyssa
Totally.
01:07:16 Rachel
So I'm explaining to Sage, yep, his body's feeling out of control. And I knew it was over -simulation because when I tried to soothe Abel, he asked me to leave. But normalizing that too of like, I'm not like shaming Abel or I'm not irritated that he's in his room. And I'm not saying like, get out here. You need to be nice. You know, like those types of things that like, there's a part of me because I received that in childhood that wants to be like, okay, you're not going to throw a fit over a train. We have guests, get out there. You know what I mean? And then there's the other part of it, it's like,
01:07:51 Alyssa
Oh, yeah
01:07:51 Rachel
No, it's okay that you need space. It's okay that you feel frustrated about sharing and we're still going to share things, but you get to take space and regulate here. And just normalizing that for children, I think goes such a long way in this where like, yeah, you're not making yourself a victim when you're vulnerable like that. It's okay to show up in the world in that way.
01:08:19 Alyssa
Yeah. I fully agree. One of the phrases we've been using with Sage for a little while now is just asking him, like, hey bud, I noticed it's been hard for you to be kind this morning or while we're at breakfast or whatever. I wonder what's going on for you, just to help him build that awareness and then we'll sometimes offer things up like, oh, sis has been really loud this morning. I'm wondering if your body's feeling overwhelmed with the sound or just helping him tune into those things so that he can build awareness of like, oh yeah, it's not that I'm mad at you for not being kind. I want you to start to notice what's happening in your body so that you can advocate and communicate about it. And that foundation takes a while to build. And so when we look at kids who, say you have a nine -year -old in school, where we're seeing like bullying happening, also knowing that like Rome wasn't built in a day. And so as we help kids start to build these tools for noticing and regulating and choosing a different action or different words, it's gonna take time and intention. And I'm so glad that we go into this in the book because I think it's a really necessary conversation to have around adult expectations here and also how to talk in group about behaviors that isn't shaming, that isn't going to just punish and shame the person who perpetrated it, the bully, if you will, but also is going to dive into like, hey, I noticed that this was happening for you and it's not kind. And so I'm wondering what's going on. I want to help you figure this out.
01:10:06 Rachel
Yeah, a collaborative approach and not just collaboration between kids and adults, but collaboration between children. How do we make this dynamic shift so that everybody feels safe here?
01:10:19 Alyssa
I wonder what it would have felt like for you, Rach, if that had been called to attention in the classroom and handled in a way like that. I think there's also fear of not bringing conflict into a bigger group because we don't want to add more embarrassment or whatever for the like victim of it. And I think what ends up happening then is it's like the shame and silence and secrecy were just like builds.
01:10:51 Rachel
Totally.
01:10:52 Alyssa
And I think it would be it's accepting that like there would be discomfort, right? If we said like, hey, earlier today, someone was saying that Rachel was fat. Hmm. I wonder how that feels for Rachel. And I wonder why somebody would say that, what are they trying to do? I wonder if they wanted to feel powerful or they were trying to feel included and see if other people might join them and they would then feel included. What do you guys think? And turning it over to the class to also be able to like be a part of these discussions. And I think then it helps the onlookers realize, is, oh, when I see somebody doing that, what's going on for them?
01:11:41 Rachel
Yeah, and for the perpetrator to know that those types of behaviors are not the only way to feel, you know, it's demonstrating in real time for that child, like, hey, here's a pro -social way for me to connect and collaborate with my peers.
01:11:58 Alyssa
Right, exactly. I think there's a fear of like calling attention to it, and that if we just don't, and you, even if an adult came and talked to just you or brought you and the bully together to have a conversation, that like, that's the most number of people I feel like there's comfort in. And I wonder if it comes back to that root of like, we don't wanna be in that discomfort in whole group.
01:12:22 Rachel
Yeah, I also think there's a fear that like, if you take a collaborative approach that you're not, like you're not serving justice to the, you know what I mean? Like there's this feeling of really wanting to make sure that like the perpetrator is punished so that they know that they're doing something wrong. Like, yeah, they already know.
01:12:42 Alyssa
Correct.
01:12:43 Rachel
They already know.
01:12:45 Alyssa
And the punishment doesn't change the outcome because it doesn't meet the need.
01:12:51 Rachel
No. And we have research and statistics that demonstrate that.
01:12:55 Alyssa
Yeah. And I think what we have to get comfy with is talking about the behavior and not the person. Man, that wasn't the kind of thing to do. And that I know that y 'all are kind people. And so I'm wondering what's happening. And really voicing that curiosity where, especially as kids get older, they get to be co -creators of that. Like, yeah, what is happening? And helping them get curious. I think one thing that's really important here is that the children are the curriculum. There's so much focus, especially in elementary, middle, and high school, around staying on task and on time, like, this is math time, or this is time for science, or whatever. And we're so afraid of veering off that, that kids won't be, quote, learning. When we know the most productive learning that will happen is around social emotional development, and then when we have that in place, then, and only then, will kids be able to really learn the content, but it requires us to acknowledge that children are the curriculum. Sometimes I'm going to pause a lesson and say, whoa, I just saw somebody pass a note and I'm curious what's going on over there. You're not in trouble. I want to figure this out together as a class. I wonder what you're trying to do. Just allowing that pivot away from the scripted curriculum into children as the curriculum.
01:14:25 Rachel
Yeah, and the reality is that if there is a culture of bullying in your classroom, there will be children who are not able to focus on learning. So it's not actually productive to try to keep yourselves on task because you already have students that are far removed from what's happening academically.
01:14:41 Alyssa
Correct. Correct. Both the receiver of the bullying and the other kids who are going to be like peripherally involved.
01:14:50 Rachel
Correct.
01:14:50 Alyssa
Or the kids were like, you know, I was chatting with Zach a while ago about because he his parents got divorced when he was in early elementary school and his mom was with a woman, is still with the same woman. And I was like, what was that like? Because now in present day Burlington, it's quite commonplace, right? That there would be two moms. And it wasn't when he was growing up. And he said that there was one kid that he had watched like get bullied for it, for talking about and sharing about his two mom family and get bullied for it. And so his goal was to fly under the radar as much as possible. That if people don't know, or the least amount that people know, the safest I am. And so I think of kids like him where like when the bullying's happening, they're not tuning into the content because they are just on alert of like, Okay, how do I stay in freeze mode here? How do I get as small as possible? I'm not listening to this content, but I'm not acting out in class. I'm not participating in the bullying, but I'm very much not learning because I'm just trying to be as small.
01:16:06 Rachel
I'm actively trying to avoid becoming a victim here.
01:16:09 Alyssa
Correct. And how like that also is happening even for the kids where it looks like we have quote good behavior. And it probably looked like he had skills for resilience and really he had skills for survival. And those are different.
01:16:25 Rachel
Absolutely, yeah.
01:16:29 Alyssa
Rachel, thank you. Thanks for vulnerably sharing your story. And I'm excited for folks to get our next book, Big Kids, Bigger Feelings, which has so much that dives into this jazz. And like, how do we support kids with these tools so that we can navigate hard stuff like bullying.
01:16:49 Rachel
Yeah, that's actually one, that chapter is one of the, I'm most excited for people to access the information in that chapter.
01:16:55 Alyssa
Me too.
01:16:56 Rachel
Yeah.
01:16:58 Alyssa
Me too. Thanks for co -writing with me here, sister.
01:17:02 Alyssa
Thanks for tuning in to Voices of Your Village. Check out the transcript at voicesofyourvillage.com. Did you know that we have a special community over on Instagram hanging out every day with more free content? Come join us at @seed.and.sew S -E -W. Take a screenshot of you tuning in, share it on the ‘Gram and tag @seed.and.sew to let me know your key takeaway. If you're digging this podcast, make sure to subscribe so you don't miss an episode. We love collaborating with you to raise emotionally intelligent humans.
Connect with Dr. Michele Borba:
Instagram: @drmicheleborba
Website: https://micheleborba.com/
Order the book: I Got This: I Have Bounce Back Superpowers, Thrivers: The Surprising Reasons Why Some Kids Struggle and Others Shine
Connect with us:
Instagram: @seed.and.sew
Podcast page: Voices of Your Village
Seed and Sew's Regulation Quiz: Take the Quiz
Order Tiny Humans, Big Emotions now!
Website: seedandsew.org
Music by: Ruby Adams and Bensound
