Bullying and Estelle Erasmus [New York Times]

[Read too: Facing Bullying]

The New York Times publisher, Roberta Zeff, mentioned that an article by Estelle Erasmus drew hundreds of comments from the readers. My comment was one of them. It was accepted by the newspaper and released among the rest. 

So I transcribed the editor's enlightening letter. 

I certainly wasn't angry and I didn't complain.

__________________

Dear Readers,

Last week Estelle Erasmus wrote about an approach to dealing with bullying that worked for her daughter. The very short version of the idea, promoted by the school psychologist and author Izzy Kalman, is to deny the person teasing you the satisfaction of seeing that you’re upset.

Ms. Erasmus (@EstelleSErasmus) role-played with her daughter to give her a script for responding calmly to some friends who had excluded her at a play date: “If they say they don’t want to play with you, say very politely, ‘It’s a free country. It’s O.K. if you don’t want to play with me,’ ” she writes. 

Bullying, of course, takes many forms – this strategy worked well for Ms. Erasmus’s daughter, but may not work for everyone.

The story has drawn hundreds of comments, with some readers angrily complaining that the advice would demand too much from children who are already being picked on and others saying they’d tried it and found that it can help a targeted child to take control of the problem.

Ms. Erasmus talked about the piece this morning on “Good Morning America,” and I asked her to tell us more about it here.

RZ: What made you decide to use this approach with your daughter?

EE: She told me in the car going home that she was hurt, and as a mom I connected to her feeling of pain, her feeling of isolation, of being shunned from the group, because that is something I had experienced in middle school.

I came upon Mr. Kalman’s Psychology Today column, and it was a more empowering message. I had never seen that before and it made me remember a guidance counselor who had once told me to try role-playing. It changed my perception of me being a victim.

How did your daughter respond?

Role play showed her that she had some power; it was not just me commiserating with her. My daughter knows I love her, she knows I support her. What she needed from me was the words and how to make them work. 

My whole focus of doing the role playing was not to create a passive situation but to empower her. It would have not served her for me to swoop in and helicopter with the other parents to solve her problem.

Were you surprised by the reaction to the piece?

I thought, “Ah-ha, this is striking something in people. There is a need for this kind of information.”

That piece and much more are below.

And if you or someone you know has little kids, from birth through preschool, check out the NYT Parenting site. You can also find more from Well online here and Well Family here.

Have a wonderful week!

Roberta Zeff 

Editor, Well Family