Oakland Mediation Center Aids Parents of Bullied Students

Nearly 20 adults gathered for , a free seminar Thursday evening at the .

Kenzi Bisbing, White Lake resident and youth services manager for the Oakland Mediation Center, was the speaker for the evening. She said she specializes in anti-bully group training for schools.

Most of the parents at Thursday's seminar have children in elementary school, which is when most bullying occurs, Bisbing said. Others had children in middle school and high school. Some administrators from area schools also came for the workshop.

“Bullying seems to be happening earlier and earlier,” said Leslie Fitzgerald of White Lake.

She explained a situation with her second-grade daughter that she said may be on the "borderline" of bullying. Fitzgerald came to the workshop seeking answers to find out what to do and how to tell whether the situation was just girls being girls.

Prior to the workshop, she had been looking for information online, but “there were some really helpful things here that I hadn’t heard before,” she said Thursday.

Bisbing spoke of how parents can address the issue of being bullied, how they to teach their children to handle those types of situations — and what kind of support is healthy and what isn’t.

Conflict vs. bullying

The distinction between conflict and bullying was an underlying message of the evening.

To distinguish conflict from bullying, Bisbing used herself as an example. She said that when she was in grade school, she once drank milk and it came out her nose. Her friends laughed at her and called her Kenzi Milk Nose. That was teasing.

But that kind of situation can progress into conflict if, after repetitive teasing, she asks her friends to stop because she no longer wants to be known as Kenzi Milk Nose — but they don't stop.

Bullying comes into play if a third party, who is not one of her friends, starts calling her by the nickname and does so to be mean.

“They’re not calling me Kenzi Milk Nose because I’ve suddenly warped all these social statuses and I’m now one of their friends and in their inner circle,” Bisbing said.

She noted that the difference between conflict and bullying is important to know, because otherwise it is hard to know how to handle a situation.

Bisbing said that if the conflict is at school, then it is OK for faculty members to bring the students who are quarreling into the same room with each set of parents to discuss the matter.

However, if the issue is a blatant act of bullying, then Bisbing advises not bringing children together to work it out — because that tends to revictimize the child being bullied, she said.

Many people in the room found that fact interesting, and a couple admitted that was the route either they had requested or that their child's school had suggested.

“I remember being bullied and having the two girls and I in the same room," said Karla Clevenger of Highland, a mother of two young children. "It didn’t work then, so I’m glad to hear they’re not suggesting it now."

Preparing a child

Another portion of the lecture that surprised many in the audience was what to do and what not do when telling a child how to handle a bullying situation.

Bisbing said one of the worst things to tell the child is to ignore the problem — something many of the parents in the room admitted they had said. That usually doesn’t help the problem, Bisbing said.

Better advice is to tell the child that if he or she is being taunted, leave the room or calmly tell the bully to stop. That way, the bully doesn't get the reaction he or she was looking for.

“In bullying situations, you want to do more than just tell them to ignore it, because just ignoring it isn’t going to make it stop,” Bisbing said.

She also noted that putting any blame on bullied children or criticizing their actions will close them off to discussing the matter — and will not increase their self-esteem.

In order to prepare for bullying matters or to curb the problem once it begins, Bisbing presented ways to help children “become resilient to bullying.” These methods include developing talents by pushing children to learn something new that they have an interest in. It is also helpful if that something could be a social activity so they could develop friendships, another key component toward becoming resilient.

Local school initiatives

and each has acknowledged bullying problems, but both schools are working actively to curb issues with in-classroom counseling activities and presentations.

Bob Behnke, principal at Lakeland High School, pointed to social media as one of the major contributors to bullying today. Pat Hinzy, social worker at White Lake Middle School, noted seeing quite a bit of cyberbullying but said administrators aren’t afraid to get involved in the situation because it influences their school environment.

“What we tell kids is even though it happened at home, we can still confront the situation," Hinzy said.

Despite the high-profile attention it gets, however, cyberbullying is not the most common form of bullying, Bisbing said. According to statistics, she said, verbal bullying is most evident form, followed by rumors.

Resources if your child is bullied

Books suggested by White Lake Township Library

• Odd Girl Speaks Out by Rachel Simmons
• Letters to a Bullied Girl by Olivia Gardner, Emily Buder and Sarah Buder
• Everything You Need to Know About Cliques by Heather Moehn
• The Bully Blockers Club by Teresa Bateman
• Frenemies by Megan Crane

Websites suggested by the Oakland Mediation Center

• stopbullyingnow.hrsa.gov
• bullyinginfo.org