Odd Girl Out (41 page)

 

coaching your daughter as she confronts a peer

If your daughter is considering confronting a peer—or if you want her to—you can guide her with some of these ideas. To learn more about the skills girls need to navigate difficult conversations, check out my latest book,
The Curse of the Good Girl: Raising Authentic Girls with Courage and Confidence.

Conflict is an opportunity to get what you want.
As we have seen throughout this book, many girls view conflict as catastrophic to relationship. However, conflict can be an opportunity to create change in a relationship that matters to you. You talk with someone because you need something from her: you need her to stop doing something, or to start. As you consult with your daughter about her options, share instances of successfully resolved conflicts that you have had: moments when you have spoken your truth respectfully and been rewarded for it. Try, as much as you can, to loosen her negative associations with conflict.

If it doesn't go your way, it's not necessarily a loss.
Your daughter may do her very best to confront a peer in a way that is sincere and thoughtful. If the other girl reacts poorly, it does not mean your daughter did something wrong. It is vital to convey to girls that they can be responsible for only how they act, not how others respond. There are too many girls who, because of their lack of comfort with conflict, associate any kind of challenging conversation with disaster (these are often the same girls who, if you say anything negative in a mild tone of voice, report that "She yelled at me!"). These girls will not under any circumstances be able to hear the truth your daughter needs to convey.

Just as a strong feeling like anger can be a sign that something is wrong within ourselves, a friend's failure to listen or respond with compassion is an important signal that a relationship may not be healthy. As painful as this kind of disappointment may be, it does offer three benefits: one, an avenue opens to leave the relationship; two, you strengthen your sense of what healthy intimacy looks like; and three, you discover what you are seeking in your closest relationships.

Resist the urge to advise your daughter to end a friendship over a single mistake. Remember that girls are still learning how to be in relationship with each other. They are also more tolerant of their friends than you are. That is a good thing: Girls need opportunities to work through issues together and without adults. This will feel uncomfortable for you, and it should. It is not natural to enjoy watching your child wrestle with something painful. But it is what she needs to develop skills and standards for healthy friendships. Obviously, tolerance should have its limits. Still, remain mindful of how your own alarm may be different from your daughter's.

Practice always helps.
No one wakes up one day a "grownup" who is effortlessly able to speak her mind and heart. It takes courage, skills, and practice. The ability to have a difficult conversation gracefully does not simply happen to us. Learning to communicate is an ongoing process.

Practicing your toughest conversations first, as a role-play, is a terrific thing to do with your daughter. If you suggest it and her eyes start to roll, let her know this isn't a "kid" suggestion. Explain that adults rehearse difficult conversations all the time, with good reason: just as practicing piano or soccer makes you a better player, practicing how you communicate makes you more effective in your relationships.

In times of crisis, Ellen, a psychotherapist, found role-playing extremely effective in helping her daughter, Roma. She asked Roma and her ally to act out different scenarios of confrontation with their tormentor, Jane. "I was encouraging them to speak their truths," Ellen explained, "and to not be afraid of what [Jane] was going to say to other kids, and not let that control them. I would get very, very specific wading through with them—'Yeah, but if I say that, she'll say this!'—and I would help them figure out what they would say next. It was how to handle a situation."

Too often we dispense advice to children in a vertical way: "Tell her this!" or "Have you just tried walking away?" Role-playing is more horizontal and interactive. It makes the strategy three-dimensional and real for your daughter, while at the same time giving you a presence in her social world that will comfort both of you. Having a friend or sibling participate can shore up your child's sense of moral support and decrease the terror of isolation.

You can role-play in the car or the kitchen. Have your daughter coach you to act the way she thinks the other person would in an actual conversation. Perhaps your daughter thinks her peer will deny the problem, burst into tears, begin yelling, or just walk away. Play the part, and don't be quick to give in or give up. It doesn't help to hand your daughter an instant happy ending. By role-playing different outcomes, you indirectly affirm that people are unpredictable and, as mentioned earlier, you can be responsible for only your own reaction. Your daughter is also more invested in the outcome because she owns her plan of action.

Nerves are a big reason why girls avoid confrontation. Remind your daughter that being nervous means you care. The nerves that flare before a soccer game are driven by your investment in the match; if you didn't care, it wouldn't bother you.

 

interventions

So you've empathized. You've allowed your daughter to wrestle with her choices and try out a few. It wasn't enough. Now it's time to reach out and get help. If you are planning to call the school, read on. In talking with administrators, counselors, and classroom teachers, I have heard stories about parents that both horrify and inspire. Below are the wisdom and strategies I've accrued from these conversations. Use this section as a kind of "insider information" on what school professionals respond to and recoil from.

A quick note: If the only time your child's school hears from you is when you have a problem, you disadvantage yourself significantly. Teachers should get to know you in multiple contexts: normal everyday chitchat (you would be surprised how happy it can make a teacher when a parent simply takes the time to say, "How are you?"), messages of praise or simple recognition, and at events or activities where you contribute to the classroom. Short of this, staff may link conversations with you to feelings of inadequacy; that is, they will automatically associate you with an unhappy experience in which they may have come up short for your family.

Do your homework.
Before you do anything, stop and think. Do you have all the information you need? It is understandable to want to contact the school immediately. However, the most effective parent will be able to derail a school's attempt to hand the problem back to the family. This means knowing, to the fullest extent possible, the status of your child's development. Get the facts from your daughter as a journalist would: find out who's doing it, how long it's been happening, what is happening, and if the teacher knows.

Do some more recon.
What are her social relationships like outside the classroom? Have you spoken recently with her coaches and other instructors? What kind of disposition is your daughter perceived by others as having? Be open to the answers you may get. If you hear something that surprises or disappoints you, stay grounded. Although no child ever deserves to be bullied, stories are always more complicated than they first appear, especially with girls. You are much better off going in with that knowledge than being ambushed by it.

Reach out to other parents who have experienced similar situations. It is easy to get lost in an echo chamber of your own thoughts and feelings. Your peers can contribute strategies you haven't thought of, contacts at the school and elsewhere, and the comfort of knowing you are not alone.

Do not hesitate to contact a psychologist, social worker, or other professional counselor to help you or your daughter. This is not a failure on your part. If your daughter struggles to confide in you or someone at the school, time with an objective outsider may be exactly what you both need.

Respect her wishes.
Before you pick up the phone to call the school, consider your daughter. Does
she
want you to call? Unless your child's life is endangered, exploiting parental authority to override your child's desire is unfair. She may have little left but her autonomy, and anyway, you're not the one who's going to spend seven hours a day in that classroom. Naomi remembered her parents' panicked response to her distraught behavior: "It was like I really broke down. The stress was too much, and they wanted to take me out of school. They wanted to call the school. I was like, don't, I'll die, I'll get killed, you don't understand, do not make a case out of it. I thought there was no limit. I can't—how can I emphasize enough that this was
real
to me. These were kids; adults didn't have power. I witnessed every day adults being out of the loop and kids having the power."

Even if you swear the teacher to secrecy, you can't predict what might happen. One teacher promised a girl that she would not mention the bullying in class, then pulled the perpetrating clique into the hallway and made them promise to be nice to her. The girls made a game out of pretending to be sugary sweet for the rest of the year, an agonizing fate.

Obviously there are exceptions. If your child's welfare is seriously endangered, you have to make an executive decision in her best interests. If you do this, proceed with the utmost sensitivity and caution.

Respect school protocol.
Schools, like all organizations, are inherently political. At the end of the day, school leaders are mandated to keep both your child and their staff safe. Invariably and to some degree, the agitated parent will be on the "other side." Keep in mind that an organization's relationships and personalities matter as much as the business it does. This is never more true than when you contact your child's school about bullying. How you represent yourself is as important as what you say, and how you manage your relationships will affect an incident's outcome. As a parent, you have to protect your child and do it in a way you can both be proud of.

Avoid going from zero to sixty: do not begin your contact with the school by calling the principal, superintendent, or other senior officials. Call the school counselor or assistant principal first. If your child is in elementary school, speak to the classroom teacher before anyone else. Teachers understandably bristle when parents go over their heads; it makes them feel condescended to or ignored. Worse, when teachers spot parents in an administrator's office without prior notice, most assume they are going to be reprimanded. Demanding the highest authority and ignoring existing protocols lay the foundation for a potentially adversarial relationship between you and the staff at your child's school. These are people you need on your side.

Understand that most schools have a system in place for situations like yours (not necessarily an effective system, but a system nonetheless). "There are steps that the school has to follow when they get a bullying complaint," Julia Taylor, a North Carolina high-school counselor, told me. "We cannot just charge the alleged offender without investigation. There are always two sides to every story."

Set a goal.
What are you seeking from this interaction with the school? Determine your goal before you begin. Be as specific as you can: do you want the school to investigate the problem, move your child's seat, give her a place to eat when she is alone at lunch, mediate among her friends? Write down notes you can use for a phone call or a meeting. Have the notes with you when it's time to speak so you stick to your talking points.

Be open to what others have to say.
As upset as you are, you still need to have a conversation. Avoid the path of the middle-school parent who walked into a principal's office, pulled out a legal pad, and read for fifteen minutes, allowing no interruption. The most effective parents are upset but able to have a dialogue. John Magner, a Virginia school counselor, said, "I appreciate when a parent is open to listening and determining
with
the counselor what did actually happen with their child."

In order to investigate the problem, the school official you speak with may want to explore your daughter's contribution to the situation. Being willing to consider the possibilities is not a betrayal of your daughter, nor does it justify what has happened to her. It reflects your grip on the reality that information must be gathered, kids' conflicts are complex, and situations take time to fully understand.

School professionals are most emphatic on this point. "The parents who are least effective can't understand that their daughter, no matter how minor it may be, plays a role in the situation that is occurring. They see a black knight, white knight situation," said Brian Gatens, a New Jersey school administrator. Instant defensiveness and outrage about the role your child may have played in an incident is unproductive in the extreme. Saying "my daughter would never do that" virtually always leaves the listener thinking you don't get your kid. Taylor, the school counselor, said, "Girls are capable of doing everything you raised them not to do. I have yet to hear of a girl getting in the car or running through the front door [of] her house and announcing, 'Guess what, Mom, I was, like, totally aggressive all day! First, I spread a rumor about a girl, then I called her a bitch to her face, next, I skipped Algebra, and then I texted my friends all fourth period.'"

At a functionally responsive school, a target's contribution does not erase the accountability of the aggressor. However, be open to the possibility that as you learn more details from the school, the punishment you imagined may no longer be appropriate. Consider that the intent and impact of an incident may diverge; it is not always the case that a child set out to hurt your daughter. In these instances, the proposed solution may do little to relieve your anger and distress.

Lose your mind, then find it again.
According to Gatens, it is always easier to work with parents who understand that their child is experiencing behavior that is "age appropriate, but inappropriate." These parents recognize that situations like theirs are not uncommon, and that the problem will be addressed.