Everyone Needs a "Blocker": Leadership Lessons from Nebraska

Friendship.  It's a life saver.

I've been lucky.  I've had many friends but I've also gone through times in my life when people who I thought were my friends were somehow absent when I really needed one.

I've also had the situation when people who I didn't think I knew well, stepped up and really showed genuine friendship.  These are the unexpected "blockers" in our life.

The Nebraska football team is a great example of what we can all be -- people who offer an assist with enthusiasm.

Imagine if everyone, including and especially kids,  had this magical thing called support.

Be the magic today for someone who secretly needs a "blocker" but doesn't know how to ask.

Leadership is the anti-bully.

Untangling the Mess of Bullying

When Emily Bazelon's new book, Sticks and Stones, recently came out, it reignited the bullying prevention conversation.  It comes in ebbs and flows.  I can't comment on the book yet.  I'm hoping to get my copy soon but a recent interview in the Huffington Post made me want to pick up the phone and call her.

Why?  Because her answers were very balanced and reinforced the feeling I have about the entire subject.  She actually said "untangle" and of course, that made me want to read on.

We're doing our children a disservice if we look at this as a problem that we can just use a check list to fix.

Please read the piece.  It's short and to the point.  One of the questions asked is about the role of parents and I couldn't agree more.  We are giving the majority of the blame to schools and not talking about parents or the home...or I dare say, EARLY prevention.

So many books have come out lately about bullying.  I think that's great.  Awareness is the key but the next really important step is to start using ALL the tools at our disposal and start YOUNG.

There are so many reasons to start instilling leadership skills when children first start coming to school.  We can talk about bullying until we're blue in the face but if we don't start giving children skills to help them step up for themselves and for others when they're young, it's difficult to turn that ship around when they're in middle school.  Not impossible...but very difficult.

It's also a perfect age to engage parents in the leadership and learning process.  Parents tend to pay attention when their "little cupcake" is just starting out.  If we can help them make it a priority and part of school readiness, we'll be ahead of the game.  Parents grow right along with their kids.

As Ms. Bazelon points out, kids know the difference between "drama" and "bullying."  But do they know the difference between indifference and stepping up?  That's where we need to place our energies.

Leadership is the anti-bully.

The Leader In Me

By now, most people have heard through the news that Pennsylvania 12-year-old Bailey O'Neill died of injuries believed to be the result of physical bullying.  He tried to walk away but found himself being attacked and his head slammed to the ground.  He passed away days later. A day after his 12th birthday, his parents removed his life support.

As I sat in a recent The Leader In Me conference, I couldn't help wishing that all schools were required to go to a conference like this.  Leadership is one of the key strings in the tangled ball of bullying.  Bullying often becomes a one-note conversation and those that need to be listening the most, tune it out. I thought about the boys who attacked Bailey and wondered if they were ever encouraged to be leaders.

Based on Stephen Covey's 7 Habits of Highly Successful People, The Leader In Me is not a program necessarily, but the foundation of positive school climate.  

Amazingly, even pre-schoolers are effectively trained to:

•  Be Proactive
•  Begin With the End in Mind
•  Put First Things First
•  Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood
•  Synergize
•  Sharpen the Saw (Take Care of Yourself -- i.e., Exercise, Eat Well)

Part of the conference included school visits, as well as young students presenting at the conference itself.  I wouldn't have believed it if I didn't see it for myself.  Kids can be taught to be compassionate, work as a team, plan, prioritize, step up, and take responsibility for themselves.

It just makes sense.  There is a leader in every single child.  

(Awesome students from P.S. 20 in Brooklyn entertained us with the 7 Habits theme.)

There were many fantastic, inspiring speakers and presenters but perhaps the standout was a young girl in her early teens who was obviously very shy and reluctant to speak.  Out of the eight or nine kids in the group, she said the least...until the final question of the session was asked.  "Has The Leader in Me program affected you personally, and if so, how?"

You could almost see that her brain and her heart were struggling to decide whether she had the courage to ignore her fear and stand up in front of the nearly 200 people in the audience and answer.  She suddenly stood and said something like, "Before this, I was doing bad in school in every way.  I wasn't studying and I was getting into trouble.  Since the chance to learn how to be a leader came along, I decided that if I could learn how to do better, I could (then she began to cry) make my mother proud of me."  (Believe me, everyone cried with her as we all encouraged her with applause.)

When I heard about Bailey's death, I thought "Poor baby."  When I think of the boys who are responsible, I think "Poor babies."  They're all children who need to be taught skills and how to take responsibility for their lives.  Shame on us, if  we ignore the basics because it doesn't fall under a category that can be measured by testing.

There are schools answering that call.

What if each child was encouraged to tap into their strengths?  What are the chances that pervasive bullying would survive in that environment?  

What's there to lose, excepted wasted time disciplining?  What's there to gain?  Ask Bailey's parents.

Bullying: Overreacting vs. Under Reacting

I've been trying not to share all the brutal bullying stories or at least, not to make it the focus of this blog because I don't think it goes anywhere.  Solutions, including encouraging leadership skills, is my main interest.  That being said, I had to share this story of the 13-year-old who was getting beaten up every day while another bully would take a video and post it online.  This child -- barely a teenager -- is in the hospital after trying to kill himself.

Yesterday, I read the story of a 22-year-old who jumped off a the George Washington Bridge in New York after writing a suicide note asking that her "frenemies" not be allowed to come to her funeral.  It seems that they were embroiled in an online fight and Ashley Riggitano ended up taking her own life.

What is happening here, people?  Are we becoming so desensitized that we no longer think this is a big deal?  For every extreme story that ends up in the news, there are thousands of kids and adults trying to survive this pain.  Are we at the point that we're shrugging our shoulders and saying this is bigger than us or are we willing to drill down and get involved?  Every single person can do something about this.  You don't have to be the parent of a child that is affected by cruel behavior to be outraged.

One of the problems is that there has been so much "bully" talk that schools and parents are getting mixed messages.   In his recent article, John Rosemond, syndicated columnist and parenting expert brings up a good point and one that I hear from schools, as well.  Some parents are overreacting and because they are in constant fear that their child will be bullied, they claim that every interaction is bullying.  (That's why I don't even like the term "bullying."  It's all just repeated mean or cruel behavior.) This is true but I fear that this minority will give schools a chance to under react.

A group of parents overreacting does not mean that there aren't real problems going on with other kids. Some parents are too vocal about perceived problems while others don't say anything because they don't know or they're afraid of being labeled themselves.  (How many times have you heard a child that is on the receiving end of mean behavior called "too sensitive" or a parent who is advocating for their child "overbearing?")

What's a parent to do?   No doubt there are "helicopter" parents but if you truly have an issue, where do you turn?

Parents going overboard is annoying.  Not paying attention to real situations whether they're on the walk home from school or online is a serious problem.   Every school staff member, including lunch monitors, and every parent should have some training.  Seriously.

A Love Letter to Myself

What does prevention mean in the bullying world?  Is it that we try to stop people from being mean to each other or is it that we help shield children and adults from the pain it causes.

It's a trick question.  I think it's both.

I was in a situation recently that made me think about the importance of blunting that long tail of pain.  How do we help people who've been belittled feel better?  How do we stop that horrible spiral that leaves you emotionally spent and feeling worthless?  (That's what skilled bullies do.  They're really good at it.  They know just the button and they go for it.)

No one is completely immune.

When it happened to me recently, it caused a horrible domino effect of bad.  No matter how I tried to push it out of my brain, it still caused heartache and doubt.  I wondered, 'How can kids put up with this?  How do they survive it?'  (Some kids don't.)

It sucked the joy out of my life -- temporarily.

It had a hold on me until I remembered something.  I'm awesome!

If we can get kids and even some grown up kids to remember those things about themselves that leave no doubt of their worth, if we can get them to write it down before some cruel person robs them of their joy, that's prevention.

This is what I said to the person who made me feel small:

Hold on a minute.  Do you realize that in my entire life, I've never set out to make anyone feel bad about anything?  I've raised four kids who make it a point to be nice to people.  Along the way, I've worked hard, done some good things and have left a good trail.  I deserve to be treated nicely.  

Phew.  I'm glad I remembered that before I got sucked into the mean vortex.

Now the trick is to get kids to write down why they're so great so when they're in a bullying emergency, they can get to that list and read it over and over.  Let's raise strong kids who never forget why they shouldn't be made to feel like the scum on the bottom of a shoe.

It's ok to say you expect to be treated well.

One Can Count

Watch NYOne!

New Elementary School Leadership Program Launches.  

One Can Count!

Last Friday was a good day, thanks to Senator Andrew Lanza and P.S. 5, a beautiful elementary school in Staten Island, New York.

It was a day that we celebrated leadership with Kindergartners and Fifth Graders.  These partners have been involved in the One Can Count campaign since October.  (We planned the launch for October 29th but Sandy had other plans.)  As partners, they're working on lessons of respect and having fun at the same time.

One Can Count is based on Kathryn Otoshi's award-winning children's book, One.  Like many others -- children and adults alike -- I was inspired by this beautiful book that simply and insightfully boils down the issue of bullying to numbers, letters and a meaningful message about stepping up.

I reached out to Ms. Otoshi and together we came up with ways to use One in individual elementary school classrooms or as a school-wide mentoring campaign.  Kids are the experts which is why we made them the teachers.

We hope these help you inspire your little leaders because leadership is the anti-bully.  Go to Tangled Ball.com and download the materials for free.

(A special thanks to Nancy DeMuro for getting the Tangled Ball rolling!)

Kathryn Otoshi and students share the message of One!:

Leadership Can Be Giving Your Last Bucket of Sand or Singing A Song to Ease the Hurt

A few days after Sandy, I found this sign stapled to a poll on the beach in New Dorp, Staten Island.  It reads,

Thank you to the little girl who gave me her last bucket of sand from the beach to fill my sandbags on Sunday afternoon.  From Melissa, Millbank Rd.  

 Do some kids just have more empathy than others?  I think so...but can most kids learn empathy?  I also think so.

The more I'm in schools and just observe children, in general, I think we might be missing the boat in bullying prevention, especially with younger children.

I just finished The Leader In Me by Stephen Covey.  This is a well known school program created by the author of the extremely popular 7 Habits of Highly Successful People.

In a nutshell, The Leader In Me makes teaching leadership in school, including kindergarten and elementary school, a priority.  The result?  Less bullying issues but a lot of other benefits, too.  Schools who focus on leadership often have better test scores, experience an enjoyable school climate, happier teachers and more well-rounded students.

This makes sense to me which is why 2013 is Tangled Ball's Year of Leadership.  

Kids want to be strong.  Often, that's why they "bully."  If we teach kids to be strong by giving them real leadership skills, I guarantee there will be less mean behavior.  Who doesn't want happier, empowered kids, better test scores and less trips to the principals' office?

Giving kids chances to be leaders is the trick.  Giving adults a reason to compliment their children goes a long way to inspire kids to want to do well, including being good to their peers.

Sounds old-fahioned.  It is.  Let's bring it back anyway.

I'd love to hear your ideas on how to change our schools, ONE little leader at a time.

Speaking of leaders, here's a beautiful example of adults and kids coming together and creating a way to step up to help others feel better.  I dare you not to cry as you listen to Ingrid Michaelson (coincidentally from Staten Island) and the kids of Newtown sing "Somewhere Over the Rainbow."