Dealing with Bullying: What Doesn’t Work and What Will
Bullying ranks high on the list of parenting concerns and for good reason. According to the National Institute of Mental Health in the United States, in any 6-week period, one third of children report being bullied and it is on the rise.
To complicate matters, bullying interventions and programs have failed to produce lasting results and measureable success including zero tolerance policies, empathy training, awareness raising campaigns, to imposing consequences. We are struggling to make headway on bullying but perhaps the answer is right in front of us and is just simply being missed?
One of the most consistent findings when it comes to bullying is the importance of human relationships in dealing with the bully, the bystanders, and their victims. Instead of expecting kids to figure out problems related to bullying, the emphasis is placed on adults in being able to lead kids in finding their way through.
From these findings it would appear the answer to bullying cannot be found in programs or policies but in the adults who step in and assume responsibility to help. Perhaps what every bully, bystander, or the victim needs is an adult they trust and feel cared for by.
How Adult Relationships Help Victims
When kids are hurt they need adults who will care for them. This is true for them physically as it is emotionally. A bully exploits the weakness in others and goes after the most vulnerable victims as their target. The kids who will be the most vulnerable are those who do not have adults to shield their hearts.
The antidote to the wounding words of a bully can be found in the caring connection with adults who convey these sentiments are simply not true. When a child believes they matter to an adult, then the words of others will matter less. As I often say to my daughter, “Don’t take those words into your heart, they are someone else’s hurt and you don’t have to carry that with you.”
What every victim needs is a place of rest, a relationship they feel at home in, and a person they can share their story with. One of the most important things we can do to help victims is to make room for them to express their hurt and fear. As we come alongside all that is unfair and unkind, it will be their tears that provide them with some relief too.
If a child is in harm’s way when it comes to ongoing and persistent bullying, then it will fall to their adults to do whatever is required. It may mean consulting with the school, legal authorities, or moving a child if attempts to make their world safe again cannot be assured. What every victim of bullying needs is an adult to lean on.
How Adult Relationships Help the Bystanders
The biggest fear bystanders have as they watch bullies in action is that they could be next. Even when someone else is being bullied, it creates a sense of unsafety for everyone. Some bystanders cope by making themself invisible, while others stick their necks out into the fray, either joining the bully or defending the victim.
What bystanders need are adults who communicate they are in charge and responsible for what happens in the classroom or at home. When there are problems, these adults need to provide direction, assume control of the things they can control, and provide supervision so kids can feel safe. Bullies are less likely to exploit kids when adults are watching making it an effective relational intervention. The best protection from a bully are adults who convey they are in charge and watching what happens.
How Adult Relationships Help the Bully
Bullies are devoid of genuine remorse, feelings of shame and embarrassment, as well as the capacity for self-reflection on any topic that would make them feel too vulnerable. What a bully lacks is a soft heart due to emotional wounding. The source of wounding is not always obvious but can be related to peer orientation, dominance problems, as well as facing too much separation from their caretakers.
One of the most effective ways to increase the vulnerability of a bully and bring down emotional defenses is through the caring relationship with adults. It will fall to these adults to find a way to cultivate relationships with a bully and invite them to rest in their care. When a bully feels cared for again they can be made fully human and humane. A bully’s heart can only be brought back to life with the caring heart of another human being. Insight from adults is needed to help others understnad that hurt kids are the ones most likely to hurt others.
So many of our approaches to bullying assume the behaviours are learned and can be unlearned through teaching or consequences. If this were true we would be making headway on the bullying problem and we wouldn’t be seeing an escalation of wounding behaviour among our kids. The answers to bullying can be found in understanding human relationships and cultivating strong connections with our kids. The secret to resiliency and recovery is simple, whoever a child gives their heart to has the power to protect it with their own.
Dr. Deborah MacNamara is the author of Rest, Play, Grow: Making Sense of Preschoolers (or anyone who acts like one), is on Faculty at the Neufeld Institute, and the Director of Kid’s Best Bet Counselling and Family Resource Center. For more information www.macnamara.ca or www.neufeldinstitute.org.
The Vulnerability Problem of the Bully
Bullies thrive on exploiting the vulnerability in others. Instead of protecting those who are in a weaker position they take advantage of them. They revel in having the upper hand. They don’t play by the rules or believe the rules apply to them. Bullies don’t think twice and lack the capacity for reflection. They are fearless, tearless, immature, and have to get their own way. They do not adapt when they face futility – they cannot hear ‘no’ and accept it. Bullies are dark inside, there is a void where vulnerable feelings are no longer felt.
This costs of bullying to our children, teens, schools, and larger society are staggering. Stuck kids can grow up to be stuck adults. The interventions that have been launched to curb bullying have come up short. Nothing seems to work long term, yet the costs continue to mount.
The bully continues to baffle us. With incredulity one looks one at their acts of cruelty, the ineffectiveness of punishment and consequences, as well as their lack of empathy. They remain a mystery and what drives them remains impervious to change. The challenge is we cannot solve a problem we don’t understand.
The Hardened Heart of the Bully
One of the reasons we cannot make headway on bullying is we fail to make sense of the bully’s vulnerability problem. A bully’s emotional system has become inhibited and they no longer experience a range of vulnerable emotions from sadness to joy (1). They lack empathy, caring, and consideration. Some studies have found bullies even lose the capacity to blush with embarrassment. They don’t show remorse, gratitude, or forgiveness.
The human emotional system is meant to be responsive to one’s environment but if feeling sets someone up to get hurt too much, the brain will naturally start to inhibit the experience of these emotions. Emotions go missing when they would get in the way of surviving a wounding environment. In other words, bullies lack caring because to care sets them up to get hurt too much.
Bullies have hardened hearts. Their brain has moved to defend them from seeing their own vulnerability. This renders them devoid of caring and responsibility. They are numbed out, tuned out, and in some cases, detach altogether from human relationships. Bullies are deeply wounded individuals which is ironic considering the wounding they create in others.
All the time we treat bullying as something that has been learned, we miss the emotional piece that underlies it. Bullies are in a flight from vulnerability and cannot tolerate anything that would signify weakness in them. They project onto others what they are most defended against in themself. Bullies are psychologically very fragile. The problem is their lack of vulernability does not draw out the caring in others. Their inhumane acts often draw the bully out in us.
The reason for the emotional defenses in a bully can be many, from feeling too much separation from the adults that they are attached too or feeling too much shame or a sense of unsafety. Separation can be experienced either emotionally or physically, but can include when a parent does not have the heart of their child or that child has to work for parental love and approval. When a child feels there is something wrong with who they are, often as a result of repeated messages by attachment figures or peers, it can create havoc with a child’s emotional system. There are many reasons for hardened hearts but what is clear is that their ‘caring’ has gone missing.
Problems with Bully Programs
There are a number of problems with bully programs today. The challenges largely stem from not understanding the root of the vulnerability problem of the bully. While good intentions may drive the following interventions, they can exacerbate the bully dynamics and increase the chance of wounding towards others.
- A focus on what happens between kids – A popular intervention when bullying has taken place is to have children share their experiences with each other, highlighting how they have been hurt. Well intended as this approach is, it is aimed at using emotional honestly as a tool for change. The problem is that bullies do not have soft hearts and are likely to use what other children say against that child to hurt them. If the modus operandi of the bully is to exploit vulnerability, this type of approach places another child front and center for being attacked as a result of revealing how they were hurt.
- Zero tolerance policies – The problem with this approach is that we have to wait until there is a victim before we deal with a bullying problem. The signs of a hardened heart and lack of emotional expression are evident and can be used as a cue to which children need help before someone is bullied. Zero tolerance policies also move the bully along and while certain kids may no longer be in danger of getting hurt, the bully has not changed and will continue to wound others. You can move a bully but this does not mean you have ‘changed their bully ways.’
- Consequences and punishment – While consequences and punishment need to be part of many settings such as schools and workplaces, they are largely ineffective in changing the bully. Consequences teach when someone can face futility and emotional vulnerability is restored. One needs to feel sad about what does not work in order to learn what does work. Bullies don’t feel sadness given their muted emotional system – consequences and punishment are rendered impotent against this problem as a result.
- Sensitivity or empathy training – The idea that we can teach a bully to have a soft heart fails to understand how the emotional system works. Emotions are meant to be felt vulnerably and move someone to care, to caution, to be considerate, and to have courage. You cannot make someone learn emotions, you can only help them feel them. When you try to teach a bully to be more sensitive to other people’s feelings and to respond with empathy, you can actually make them more effective at exploiting people emotionally.
How to Soften a Hard Heart?
If being too hurt is the problem for the bully, then caring for them is surely the answer. The challenge is that bullies are so wounding towards others that they draw little compassion out of others to care for them. The good news is that every bully can be made human again but the answer lies in bringing the emotional system back online and resuscitating it.
The focus will need to be on building a caring relationship with the bully. This is easier when the bully is a child or a teenager and requires at least one caring adult who is willing to try and forge a strong connection with them. The adult will need to invite the child to depend on them, to take the lead in caring for them, and convey that they can handle the child. When issues arise it will require being firm on behaviour but being easy on the relationship. Bullies are brought into relationship with others through a strong caring stance.
Emotional defences in the bully can be softened when right relationships are achieved and will require leading them to more vulnerable feelings, shielding their emotional system from further wounding, and reducing harm wherever possible. The softening of hard hearts takes patience, time, and good care taking.
When a child lacks emotional vulnerability then the adults in their life can move proactively to prevent further wounding to others. This means good supervision and the implementation of structure and ritual to guide their behaviour and keep them out of harms way.
We would prefer to think that the bully is someone that exists outside and is separate from us. The problem is that the bully can emerge from each and every human being. When the heart goes cold and when our caring feelings go missing, it is then we become inhuman and can act inhumane. It is the lack of vulnerability that is at the root of the bullies problem, and is indeed a problem for us all. The challenge is how to keep our hearts soft in a world that seems too much to bear at times.
(1) For more information on Making Sense of Bullying, please see the course with this name available through the Neufeld Institute – www.neufeldinstitute.org.
Dr. Deborah MacNamara is on faculty at the Neufeld Institute, the author of Rest, Play, Grow: Making Sense of Preschoolers (or anyone who acts like one), and Director of the Kid’s Best Bet, a counselling and family resource center. For more information see www.macnamara.ca or www.neufeldinstitute.org.
The One Thing Every Kid Needs in their School Backpack
A friend told me her son couldn’t understand why a young child he knew had such a hard time being away from his mother while at school. The kindergartener would cling to her mother’s hand and in tears, voice protestations to being left behind. My friend explained to her son that the 5-year old felt scared to be separated and left with people she didn’t know well. Her son, still confused, looked up at her and said, “but why doesn’t she just talk to her Mom in her head?” Astonished, my friend looked at her son and said, “is that what you do?” He replied, “Yeah, I talk to you in my head all day, it helps me not feel so lonely and I don’t miss you as much.”
What every kid needs to take to school is an adult they hold onto psychologically. It is the sense they carry with them that there is someone to return home to, share their secrets with, and feel a sense of significance, belonging, and caring towards. It underlies their capacity to be resilient, resourceful, and survive adversity. It allows them to face the challenges that school will present, from learning new subjects to persevering on tasks that are difficult. It will be critical to helping them deal with tricky peer groups, friends that turn into enemies, and bullies that are on every playground.
The beautiful design inherent to attachment is that we don’t have to be physically close to someone to feel connected; rather, we need to make sure we are firmly planted in their heart. A strong relationship with at least one caring adult is the answer to resiliency in our kids – not skills they have to learn, having to act tough, or to ‘suck it up.’ We don’t need to work at preventing our kid’s from facing adversity but make sure they don’t face it alone. Relationship is the natural home for the human heart.
The Shielding Effect of Adult Relationships
When a child has a strong relationship with an adult, their heart is shielded. The emotional system is protected from the wounding words and ways of others because a child cares more what their closest adult attachment thinks about them. What kids say doesn’t hurt as much, it doesn’t feel as toxic, personal, nor as deep. The best inoculation against ‘mean’ kids is an adult who is holding onto a child. It is an adult who should offer a child an invitation for relationship that is gracious, generous, forgiving and unwavering.
While adult relationships shield kid’s emotional systems from the worst parts of their day, there will still be tears that may need to be shed. There will be emotions that are stirred up and need to be expressed as well as problems to be solved. It is through relationship they are invited to rest from all that does not work so that they can embrace what might.
As a parent it feels like my homework each night involves gathering my kids and trying to take their pulse emotionally. I aim to help them make sense of their disappointments, hurts, as well as excitement and joy. Sometimes the stories and day’s events spill out of them spontaneously, or sometimes they need space, quiet, food, or to play before I can engage them. At dinner my kids sometimes compete for airtime or can be mute, alerting me to the fact that a bedtime chat is likely the best place to connect. I care little how or when my children and I engage on the day’s event and only that we do. I keep my eyes on our relationship and an ear to their emotional world, vigilant to when I am needed most. I take faith that what my kids need most in facing the world outside are the relationships that anchor them to home.
How to Cultivate Strong Relationships with Kids
The recipe to cultivating a strong relationship with a child cannot be reduced to a set of instructions, directions, or mantras to hold onto. Relationships at their root, are an invitation that is offered to someone. It is an invitation to depend, to trust in, be guided by, and feel at home with someone. We cannot dictate how relationships are forged and protected but we can be certain that it is the answer to the problem of facing separation and adversity.
Tragically, there are too many kids who are not tethered to an adult home and will look for substitutes to hold onto. They often lean on their friends for connection which usually leads to issues in terms of their emotional vulnerability. An immature child is a poor substitute for the caring relationship an adult can offer.
The good news is it is also possible for a 
teacher or another adult to anchor a child’s heart as well. The sense that someone cares for them and offers them an invitation for relationship goes a long way when they face rejection, separation, or are shamed by their peers. From the educational assistants who encourage kids to keep trying to the counsellors that are a soft place to land when days are hard – these adults can make a difference to kids when home is challenged to offer what they need most.
The following strategies are key to building strong relationship with kids and protecting them from competing attachments such as peers or technological devices.
- Collect their attention and engage their attachment instincts
We all seek connection – it is the primary driver in our attention system. The goal is to get their first with kids, meaning we need to collect their eyes, smile or a nod in agreement. We need to engage them each morning by checking in, talking about the plans for the day, to sharing a funny story – anything that puts you into relationship with them. Feeding them is a wonderful opportunity to collect their eyes and to invite them to depend on you.
- Cultivate loyalty and a sense of belonging
When a child perceives an adult as being disloyal to them by not taking their side, understanding their perspective, or using what they care about against them through consequences or the use of time outs – the relationship can take a hit. When there is a sense that an adult is not for them, a separation is created in the relationship. The challenge is there are times we cannot abide by a child’s actions or their words, when their behaviour is clearly inappropriate and we will need to act. Finding our way through these situations while maintaining a sense of belonging and loyalty can be achieved by coming alongside the feelings and thoughts that have stirred a child up. While we make note of what isn’t okay, we can cue the child that we do understand and are there to help with what isn’t working for them. It doesn’t mean we have to change what isn’t working, but we can give them some room to express it.
- Family rituals, structure, and routine
As kids face the separations that are part of life, they need to regularly return to things that ground them. Rituals and structure are these anchors, providing a regular hum and predictability to contact with their key relationships. From the morning routine that starts with a hello and ends with a goodbye to the dinner time that starts with a hello and ends with a goodnight – these are the rhythm’s that connect kids to time, place, and people. If separation is the problem, then holding onto to the connection that comes from rituals, structures, and routines is the answer.
The reality is we can’t perfect a child’s world or ensure they never face adversity. Venturing away from home is an important part of life. School often represents the first bold steps in this direction but we need not be alarmed by what awaits them. We just need to work at making sure they have our relationship to hold onto that will shield their heart from wounding. Relationship is the home of the heart and when we understand this, we won’t ever fear that our kids will ever be too far away from us.
Dr. Deborah MacNamara is the Founder of Kid’s Best Bet, Counselling and Family Resource Centre, on faculty at the Neufeld Institute, and author of Rest, Play, Grow: Making Sense of Preschoolers (or anyone who acts like one). For more information please see www.macnamara.ca or www.neufeldinstitute.org.
Who Will Take Care of the Bully?
Lucy was the name of my bully in grade 6. At the age of 11 her mother had died suddenly from a cancer leaving behind 4 children and a husband. Lucy didn’t get mean right away; she seemed lost and sad at first. I remember my teacher telling us we should show her compassion and we did, for awhile. It’s hard to say when her transformation occurred but her sadness gave way to a cold and hardened deamenour around the time her father remarried. We all understood on some level that you couldn’t go through something like that and stay the same person, but I wasn’t prepared for the bully she became.
Lucy seemed to take great pleasure in trying to make me feel invisible and in sending a message that I was unimportant. She worked hard at school, not on academics but on alienating me. While I remember being sad about it, I just moved on, avoided her, and played with other people. I remember feeling sorry for my friends who followed her, like sheep to the slaughter.
It was only when Lucy started the rumours that I got really upset. My friend Natalie would rush to tell me, with flushed face and rapid speech, the latest ‘secret’. I quickly realized it was just Lucy using Natalie to get to me. At some point I had enough of her hurtful words and in exasperation I reached for the only desperate solution I could think of. I told Natalie that if Lucy continued to spread rumours, I was going “to wait for her after school and we would fight it out.” As I saw Natalie’s naïve but kind brown eyes widen I decided to emphasize my message. “I don’t care if I get in trouble, I am going to beat her up so she learns her lesson.” What I didn’t tell Natalie was that I was terrified of getting in trouble, of getting hurt, and of hurting Lucy, but I just couldn’t see any other way through. One day later Natalie found me, tense with the weighty burden of being a peacemaker, and said, “Lucy doesn’t want to fight you. Will you still beat her up if she stops?” Shocked, I managed to assert, “okay,” and a sense of relief overwhelmed me.
When I was 11, there were no anti-bully campaigns, counsellors to talk to or a zero tolerance policy at my school. I am not sure how these would have influenced my decision-making or helped. What my 11-year old self believed was that if I had gone to an adult for help they would have made me a bigger victim. My mother would have been up at the school demanding action and calling Lucy’s father. While today I understand these actions as a parent, I intuitively knew at 11 years of age that the last thing you did in front of a bully was show vulnerability. If Lucy saw that my adults needed to rescue me, I would have been subjected to further torment and ridicule.
While I was ‘fortunately successful’ in stopping Lucy from bullying me, I know it didn’t change the bully inside of her. She started bullying another child in the class who was quirky and came from a poor family. What Lucy really needed wasn’t consequences, punishment, empathy lessons, zero-tolerance or me threatening to beat her up. What she needed was to be understood and taken care of. Lucy had faced more separation than she could bear and she was lost. She had a mother that had disappeared unexpectedly, a father who had a new wife, and she was facing her adolescent development without a female guide. These were the separations I knew of, but there could have been more. Was her father available to her or was he lost in his own grief or new wife? Did she move to a new house as a result of her father’s remarriage and away from the home her mother had cared for her in? What became of her brothers and how did they deal with the loss of their mother? Was Lucy bullied at home too? Did she have grandparents or other adults that could hold onto her as she faced all that she had lost? While I don’t know the answers to these questions I do know that the bully she became was created from the seeds of facing too much separation.
What Lucy couldn’t say was that her wounds were too much to bear and her brain had moved to defend her against these vulnerable feelings. There wasn’t anything wrong with her brain but with her world – it had come undone. The firm footing she had grown up on had been torn away overnight. It wasn’t that she wasn’t capable of caring but that if she did, she would have had to face a cascade of emotions flooding and overwhelming her. How could she possibly find all the tears and words for a mother that had been lost, let alone all the changes that had unfolded? On the outside Lucy had a tough, untouchable, cold demeanour as she moved to exploit the vulnerability in others. She used shame, putdowns, and intimidation and took great delight in wounding me. This was not who Lucy was, but who she had become in light of facing too much separation. She had grown dark inside and moved to exploit other’s vulnerability, a projection of all that she could not bear inside herself. Her heart had grown cold and her feelings were numbed out, she was surviving but no longer fully human.
If you were to ask me what I would have wanted for Lucy and I, it would have been for the adults to take the lead while preserving our dignity. I wish they could have seen what was occurring and moved in to take care of us both. Our problem wasn’t for us to figure out and ‘bully’ or ‘victim’ labels would have done little to help. Being called a bully would have only increased Lucy’s wounding and separation while being labeled a victim would have done little for my self worth. What prevented her words from sticking to me was that I never saw them as personal but more of a reflection as to how she was hurting and that I was her favourite target.
There were many ways adults could have moved to take care of us without our knowledge. From lunch yard supervision to adult lunch dates for Lucy, there was no shortage of ways to intervene naturally. Lucy needed to feel again and when she did, the bully inside of her would have been made human once more. The question was how to protect and shield the kids around Lucy’s wounding ways until this happened. If the adults had eyes to understand her they would have seen her dominance and lack of empathy. Why did there have to be a victim before they could see the bully inside of her? She was free falling but no one knew how to catch her.
When I reflect back on Lucy I no longer want to beat her up, I want to put my arms around her and tell her I am sorry. I am sorry I scared her because I was too frustrated and hurt. I would tell her I hold nothing against her and understand why she was moved to wound others. I would tell her that I am sorry life handed her too much to bear. I would tell her that I hoped someone had taken care of her so she could find her tears and be made fully human again.
Copyright Dr. Deborah MacNamara
Deborah MacNamara is a clinical counsellor and educator, on faculty at the Neufeld Institute and author of Rest, Play, Grow – Making Sense of Preschoolers (or anyone who acts like one). She has more than 25 years experience working with children, youth, and adults and speaks regularly about child and adolescent development to parents, childcare providers, educators, and mental health professionals. Please see www.macnamara.ca for more information.
Who’s In Charge? Reclaiming the Lead with an Alpha Child
There is a growing problem among children that is not commonly understood despite being insidious and far-reaching. It serves to make parenting and sometimes teaching a challenge, if not a nightmare. The problem is one of dominance – when the relational dance between an adult and child becomes inverted.(1) The child is attached to the adult but not in the right order or hierarchy. Instead of seeing their adult as the one to lead them, the child is emotionally and instinctively moved to displace their parent’s alpha role. This is not something the child has learned, rather; it is rooted in human instinct and emotion.
The challenge lies in seeing the alpha problem for what it is – a child driven by instincts to avoid the vulnerability of depending on their closest attachments for care taking.(2) They have taken their attachment needs in their own hands.
Alpha children are often described by their adults as bossy, commanding, demanding, and insatiable. Alpha children see themselves as the ones who should call the shots and tell adults how to take care of them. Children who have risen to the alpha position with adults are consistently full of resistance and opposition for those who try and lead them. They are often very frustrated, lashing out often, and can be filled with anxiety. They steadfastly see themselves as the boss of the house and don’t understand when others try and tell them what to do as if they were in charge. The issue for children in the dominant or alpha position is not one of strength as it is often misperceived; rather, one of desperation. For some reason the child has lost faith in their providers to take care of them so their only instinctive recourse is to do it themselves.
There are obvious and not so obvious reasons why children lose faith in their caretakers. It is easy to appreciate how children whose parents are neglectful or consumed with their own pursuits and addictions can convey the message that children would be better off taking care of themselves. If these were the only conditions under which we were seeing an increase in Alpha children then the problem would seem clear cut and obvious enough. Dominance issues are also found in loving and caring homes with parents who are dedicated to helping their children grow up to be socially and emotionally responsible individuals. What is giving rise to the increasing numbers of children in the dominant position and how can we start to make sense out of this?
What is at the Root of Alpha Problems in Children?
In order to make headway we need to go back to the beginning and ask, what does a child need most in life? The answer is attachment, the invitation to exist in another’s presence, to be seen and loved for who one is, and to feel a sense of belonging, loyalty, and similarity to those they are connected to. The critical piece that often gets missed in understanding attachment is that its role is to render a child dependent on those around them. This means being dependent on someone for their care taking and well-being – an incredibly vulnerable position to be in.
As an adult it is easy to lose sight of the vulnerability involved in depending on another but I am reminded of it every time I get into a taxi or an airplane. I find myself questioning whether I can trust this person to safely deliver me to my destination and take good care of me. It gives a whole new appreciation to the phrase “back seat driver.”
When we are dependent on another we scan and look for signs that our trust and care is well placed. Is there something solid in this person that we can lean against and find fertile ground in? We might think we are conveying this message as parents but the question is whether it is believed by our children? Sometimes children are born too sensitive for this world and see and feel too much, making it hard to have them feel someone is indeed big enough and can take care of them.
There are many other reasons why children seek the dominant position in their relationships with adults including adverse experiences with too much separation-based discipline, egalitarian parenting or when parents struggle to find an alpha stance in the home that is both firm and caring. Sometimes it is a tragic accident or a big loss for the child that turns the tables in the home, where the child becomes unsure whether anyone can truly keep them safe. There are many reasons why alpha problems appear and it is found in all types of homes regardless of ethnicity, parental education level, socioeconomic status, and approach to parenting.
When a child feels in charge of orchestrating their care taking the biggest mistake we could make is to confuse this display of strength with maturity or independence. It simply is not so, it is an act of desperation and the need to bring this child to rest in the care of others is great. The critical issue is that when children are in the lead they cannot take care of their attachment needs and also attend to the business of growing up – there is a sacrifice play to be had. Attachment trumps maturation any day and the need to survive and take care of oneself rises to the fore at the expense of rest, play, and further growth.
Restoring the Parenting Lead with An Alpha Child
The good news is there is much that can be done to restore our rightful place with an alpha child. Parenting was never meant to be a nightmare and there is much hope to turn it around when it has become so. Underneath an alpha child’s dominant behaviour is a hidden desperation to depend on someone who will assume responsibility for them. The task is to convincingly demonstrate through an adult’s caring dominance that they are their best bet and indeed the answer they seek. The challenge is to regain the lead in the caretaking dance so the child can be freed from their alpha stance.
The challenge lies in seeing the alpha child for what they are – a child driven by instincts to avoid the vulnerability of depending on their closest attachments for care taking. This is not a learned problem but an instinctual and emotional one. Many people confuse their behavior with independence and leadership rather than understanding the desperation that drives it. Alpha children are trying to take care of themselves and feel safe in the world – a task too big for any child to take on.
The behaviour problems that arise are symptomatic of the underlying issue of being moved to take charge. They can’t be told what to do because they are moved to tell others how to take care of them. They resist control because they must be the one to call the shots. They are frustrated because their relational needs aren’t being met, and they often won’t eat from their caretaker’s hands because that would court dependency on them. If we do not see the root of the problems with the alpha child as an attachment one we will attack the symptoms, often exacerbating the alpha complex.
The only lasting solution that can render an alpha child unstuck is to regain the lead in the parent/child relationship. To do so requires a parent to focus on inviting the child to depend upon them and establishing a caring dominance – in spite of the behaviour problems. An alpha child is a stuck child. Everything works in reverse with their closest attachments bearing the brunt of the worst behavior. Natural parenting instincts no longer guide and work with an alpha child; one is usually baffled to make sense.
Six Steps to Inviting an Alpha Child to Depend
Given the intense resistance and opposition of the alpha child along with frustration and aggression, it is common to hear that the child needs a ‘harder hand’ to teach them a lesson. Alpha problems do not arise from failed lessons but from a lack of reliance on a caretaker. If the response to an alpha child is to exploit their dependency, remove things, punish, lord one’s authority over a child, this will do little to court reliance on a parent. At the same time, you cannot give in to demands or fail to lead through the storms that occur. The place that one must lead an alpha child from is caring dominance – the parent is in charge and the child will not experience their care as adverse and unsafe. It is only through warmth, generosity, and being able to set limits while dealing with upset that will convincingly demonstrate that a parent is their best bet.
- Find your alpha stance – One of the biggest strategies for taming an alpha child is to lead from one’s own alpha stance. You need to convey to the child at every turn that you can take care of them. Finding the place inside of you that wants to take care of them, sees yourself as being strong enough, and able to take care of them is a must. You may not always feel this way but putting your best foot forward in this respect is critical. If a child with an alpha complex sees they baffle and defy their caretakers, the trust in their care will not be gained. While there will be times a child gets very frustrated because you won’t give in to their demands, the feeling of being too much or overwhelming for their caretakers will only reinforce their alpha stance.
2. Invite dependence – To invite dependence the parent must make it safe to be depended upon. Adversarial relating only exacerbates a child’s alpha stance. When parental authority is used to control the child by taking things away or denying agreed upon privileges in order to gain compliance, this will do little to build trust. Time outs and other forms of separation based discipline can convey to the child the relationship is conditional and based on good behavior only. A parent must steer through stormy behavior by not using their power in an adverse way or in coercing compliance. A parent must lead through the storm and convey they can handle the child and will find a way through. In the middle of conflict, sidestepping the battle and talking about the child’s feelings and behavior after the fact can go a long way to preserving both the dignity of the child and the parent.
3. Take the lead in activities – An effective strategy with an alpha child is to find windows of opportunity where the child must depend on their adult for care. Leaving the house and taking the child on an outing can achieve this. Many alpha children refuse to go out of the house largely due to the request coming from their adult (putting them in charge) and because their house is also their safe kingdom. Despite their protests, getting them out and leading them to a new place can dislodge their alpha stance temporarily. Activities outside of the house can buy the parent a window of opportunity to get into the lead and demonstrate to the child they can be trusted to take care of them. It is also a great time to capitalize on a child’s need to depend on you for care when they are sick or in trouble. Jumping into a strong care taking mode and helping them get better or find a way through their problems conveys a sense you can be counted upon.
4. Meet their needs instead of demands – One of the challenges with an alpha child is they will make many demands of their caretakers. You cannot take care of a child by meeting their demands because they are still in charge of orchestrating their care taking. What is required is to meet their needs instead of their demands. One strategy to achieve this is to actually trump their requests by giving them more than they ask for. For example, if an alpha children demands a parent dress them by putting on their socks and shoes (despite being able to do it themself), instead of meeting their request and complying, you can trump them and make it your idea in the first place. You could tell the child you were just about to do this for them or how much you love getting them dressed and that everyone just needs to feel taken care of sometimes. When the parent trumps the demand and provides for the underlying need (to be cared for), it communicates to the child that the parent understands them, can take care of them, and can be counted upon. While some parents have a hard time moving to trump their demanding child, it is the one of the best ways through with an alpha child. You cannot meet their demands but must meet their needs and lead.
5. Don’t court alpha battles with a child – Things to avoid with an alpha child include negotiating with them as if they were an equal and consulting with them on matters regarding their care. Sometimes parents ask too many questions related to care taking, e.g., are you hungry, tired, feel like going to the park, instead of reading the child’s needs and providing for them. Leading a child means conveying you know what they need and moving to take care of them from this place. Furthermore, conveying one’s fears or that a child hurts you only reinforces their alpha stance as well.
6. Hide your needs – Hiding one’s needs is critical or the child will read the parental fears or concerns and potentially move them to take charge or care of their parent. If a child moves to take care of a parent then communicating to them that this is not necessary and that it is the parent’s job to take care of them will reinforce the caretaker’s position. While life may be difficult and hard for parents, leaning on other adults and shielding a child from one’s adult-size troubles can protect the parent/child relationship from inverting. It can be challenging to hide one’s emotions and reactions in light of a child’s difficult behaviour. It can be helpful to bear in mind that the child is moved to assert dominance and it is nature’s way to preserve the child when they have lost faith in their provider.
It is also important not to give up hope and be consumed with guilt and grief about where things have come to with one’s child. The way through is to live and breathe each step forward with the alpha child as if you were their answer. It may mean that you have to discover the alpha parent in you. It may also mean that you have to lean heavily into your love for the child and form strong intentions to turn things around. It will mean you will need to believe in yourself as the answer to your child and lead them to seeing you as their best bet. It will require searching for answers to making headway inside oneself with insight and understanding guiding you.
If we can see the alpha child for what they are, we can better demonstrate to them we are the answer they seek. When an adult regains the lead through caring dominance, the child will rest in the caretaking offered and be freed of their hunger for connection.
References
- Gordon Neufeld, Alpha Children: Reclaiming Our Rightful Place in Their Lives, course (Neufeld Institute, Vancouver, BC, 2013), http://neufeldinstitute.org/course/alpha-children/.
- The construct of the ‘Alpha child’ and hierarchical attachment is part of Gordon Neufeld’s unique theoretical work and contribution to developmental and relational science. For more information please go to the Neufeld Institute – www.neufeldinstitute.org or see Gordon Neufeld and Gabor Mate’s book – Hold Onto Your Kids: Why Parents need to Matter More than Peers.
Copyright Dr. Deborah MacNamara
Deborah MacNamara is a clinical counsellor and educator, on faculty at the Neufeld Institute and author of Rest, Play, Grow – Making Sense of Preschoolers (or anyone who acts like one). She has more than 25 years experience working with children, youth, and adults and speaks regularly about child and adolescent development to parents, childcare providers, educators, and mental health professionals. Please see www.macnamara.ca for more information.