Guest Blog: How to Help Little Girls Deal with Bullying

by Michelle Anthony

With the increased attention on the tragic effects of bullying, parents are more aware how early these situations start—in elementary school or even preschool. Yet these early struggles are actually a gift: it is then that girls are most highly influenced by their parents.

All Girls Will Be Mean

The reality is: all girls—even your very nice, sweet daughter—can, will, and in fact needs to be mean…sometimes. Early meanness serves an important developmental function, and provides parents the opportunity to support their daughters in making kind choices as they grow, and in managing the unkind choices of others, now and in the future.

The Developmental Role of Meanness

I am not suggesting that parents encourage or ignore meanness, rather just the opposite. When the unkind acts happen (and they will), parents can instead work with their daughter using a simple coherent plan that will allow them to become a part of her team, and support her in developing the skills that will allow her to confidently navigate the social waters of growing up female.

In elementary school, girls (like all of us) are looking to feel important in their relationships, to discover their own power. And just as the toddler will fall many times before she walks, so too will your daughter take her missteps in achieving power. Sometimes this means fumbling in her attempts to assert herself or in knowing how to manage social cruelty. Other times, blunders include unkind, thoughtless, or downright mean acts. But here is where the four step plan comes in, and here is where parents can make all the difference, whether your child has experienced meanness, or perpetrated it!

The Four Step Plan

Step 1: OBSERVE your child’s behaviors. What is happening right now, and what are the contributing background factors? Notice whether this is an isolated incident or a component of multiple relationships.

Step 2: CONNECT Before you step in and try and fix anything, CONNECT over what your child is seeking, feeling, or experiencing. Empathize without judging: Connect vs. Direct; Connect vs. Correct. If your child is the target: "It must be hard to have your best friend exclude you. What were you feeling when that happened?" If your child is acting meanly: "I can see your friendship with Sasha is important, even though that means you have to ignore and exclude other girls. What makes that friendship so special?" Understanding the underlying feeling or motive behind her actions will allow you to help your daughter manage her emotions or meet her needs in more positive, beneficial ways.

Step 3: GUIDE your child by coming up with a list (together) of alternative choices to allow her to deal with her feelings (e.g., ways to empower her when she feels excluded) or meet those natural developmental drives (e.g., acknowledge it’s appropriate to value a friend, but how she displays loyalty needs to change). Your role is important in helping your child learn ways to assert herself effectively and in defining your limits around what’s acceptable. However, when you better understand what she is experiencing, you are best able to guide her most effectively—not only in this situation, but also future ones, where you may not be as present. To find the appropriate tools to do this, check out the ideas and activities in Little Girls Can Be Mean: Four steps to bully-proof girls in the early grades.

Step 4: SUPPORT HER TO ACT on one or two items of her choosing (to start). It might be private (e.g., doing a role play for how to interface with her friend) or public (e.g., making a friendship bracelet to reach out to a child she has wronged). Either way, using the Four Step plan allows the two of you to remain a team, and for you to be a source of support, knowledge, and guidance in helping your child develop her power and influence in kind, productive, and appropriate ways.

Michelle Anthony, MA, PhD is co-author of the newly released Little Girls Can Be Mean: Four steps to bully-proof girls in the early grades. She is an expert in developmental psychology, mother to three young children, and certified teacher. She is co-founder of Wide-Eyed Learning, a company devoted to facilitating communication and learning between parents and children. Follow her on Twitter @michelleanthon.