chapter one

Escape the suffering parents club

Welcome! If you bought this book, chances are, your kid has bullied you. I’m not talking about occasional backtalk that comes along with every phase of child development. I’m talking about children actually abusing their parents.

How on earth does this happen?

A generation or two ago, it would have been unthinkable for children to bully their parents. Chances are, you would never have attempted to push around your mother or father. In fact, many parents are quick to tell me that they feared challenging their parent’s authority.

Yet today, everyone knows a parent who is bullied. Pay a visit to your local playground or stroll through a shopping mall, and you’re bound to see the bullied parent dynamic in action—a child yelling, cursing, or even hitting a parent. For bullied parents, the terrible twos never end; they simply morph into the terrible tween, the terrible teen, the terrible college student, and beyond.

For relief, we may turn to blame. We can point a finger at genetics or family history; perhaps we fault society, our partner (or expartners), or even ourselves. But such tactics rarely produce value. They provide no guidelines for repairing our relationship and only reinforce our sense of being victimized by our kids.

Bullying at home is a symptom of imbalance within the entire family. Perhaps there has been some disruptive event, such as a divorce, illness, or financial hardship. Maybe your child is going through a difficult developmental phase. There may have been an upsetting transition, such as relocating or starting at a new school. Trials like these can raise overwhelming insecurities in kids and fuel bullying behaviors.

On Being a Parent

Once, parenting was an afterthought, something to be checked off your things-grownups-do list on your way to retirement. To make matters worse, we had lots of lousy proverbs to screw up our view of childrearing:

Is it any surprise that these phrases were coined in medieval times? No doubt, we pay a heavy price for such unenlightened views of parenting.

So before we delve into the complex world of the bullied parent, I’d like to applaud you for taking the work of parenting so seriously. If you’re reading this now, you are a member of a new generation of parents who recognize the importance of self-awareness and mindfulness when it comes to raising an emotionally healthy child.

Becoming a parent is a life-altering event, one that initiates a profound transformation on every level of your consciousness. It’s impossible to become a parent without your identity going through a startling overhaul.

While the joys of parenting are frequently highlighted, its anxieties are often overlooked. Becoming a parent has an enormous effect on our relationships, personalities, and behaviors. It also introduces new pressures that we never saw coming, such as monetary challenges, time management issues, or health problems. Parents find themselves sleeping less, worrying more, and struggling with feelings that they don’t understand.

From the start, parenting stirs up our own childhood experiences, which can shake us to the core. We may find ourselves saying things our parents said, escalating conflicts with our children, or recreating problematic aspects of our relationships with our own parents.

Let’s go back to the bullying child in the playground or the mall. From a distance, it looks like an angry child pushing around a parent. Perhaps the parent appears too tired to say no. Maybe the kid appears spoiled or entitled.

But underneath, there’s much more going on.

This book will take you on a journey of self-discovery. Along the way, you’ll come face to face with the fears and insecurities that affect your parenting choices. You’ll begin to recognize old, ineffective parenting methods and forge new ones that are right for your family and child. You’ll learn why you became a bullied parent, and how to stop it once and for all.

My Own Journey

Before we get down to the nitty-gritty about bullied parents, I think it’s best that I make a confession:

I was a bullied parent.

Yes, it’s true. Like you, I stumbled into parenting with the best intentions—open-hearted and naïve. I was going to be the best parent I could be. I was going to out-parent my own parents. I was going to show the whole world what amazing children I could produce. (That’s right, me!) After all, I am a psychotherapist who works with kids and families. Who’s better prepared to be a parent than I?

Boy, did I have a lot to learn.

By the time my first daughter was six years old and my second was crawling around our home, I was stumbling about in a sleep-deprived haze, exhausted, brooding, and longing for my old life.

My oldest daughter’s behavior dismayed and saddened me. She was rude, demanding, and mean; she spoke to me in ways that I would never have dared to speak to my parents. And yet whenever I tried to remedy the situation, I only made it worse.

I wasn’t raising a well-adjusted child, but a first-class bully.

Soon, I found myself dodging conflicts with her. I couldn’t take another meltdown or temper tantrum, particularly in public, where an audience seemed to boost her bullying powers. So, for a moment of peace I would give in to her demands. But those moments of peace were becoming shorter and shorter.

Why did she talk to me in such disrespectful ways?

Questions haunted and poked at me as I tossed and turned in bed at night:

The one thing that I did know: whatever I was doing, it wasn’t working.

A Turning Point

Every New Year’s Day, I attend a celebration at the Buddhist center in my neighborhood. One of my favorite gatherings, it’s filled with music, dancing, art, and poetry. Children giggle and run through the halls, old friends discover one another, hugs and kisses abound. What better way to start the New Year?

When it’s time to leave, however, my daughter decides she wants to stay. She dashes away into the crowd, her arms flailing and hands waving as she darts between legs and under tables. “I don’t want to go home, Papa!” she shrieks. “Leave me alone!”

I’m trying to stay calm, but inside I’m boiling. I have the creeping awareness that I’m being scrutinized. I begin to feel dizzy. My head throbs. Get me the hell out of here, I think. I receive a few sympatric looks from other parents—the ones who know my struggle. Members of the SPC (Suffering Parent Club) have an immediate identification—and an instant empathy—with one another. (Whenever I pass a father with a screaming kid in a stroller, I know exactly what he’s going through. Immediately, our eyes meet and we share a silent exchange. “I feel your pain, brother.” “Thank you, brother.” And we go our separate ways.)

Back to my screaming, flailing daughter: It’s the judgmental stares of nonparents that cut me to the quick. What the heck do they know about the challenges of being a parent? They live in a world of quiet dinners and sleep-filled nights, while I live in a prison crammed full of stuffed animals, princess dresses, and glitter.

As I chased my daughter around the Buddhist center, I felt my temperature rising. Here I am, a therapist who works with children, who leads parenting workshops, publishes parenting articles—and I don’t have a clue what to do with my own kid!

As the eyes of others bore into me, a phrase of my father’s springs from my lips, charged with menace and threat.

“Enough is enough!”

I scoop her up and head for the exit; she wiggles like a greased monkey in my arms. Once I find my car, I strap her into her car seat and slam the car door.

I think about how this must look like a kidnapping.

While driving home, all I can think about is revenge. Payback and punishments are the order of the day, and it’s an order I can’t wait to fill. I’ll show her who’s the boss.

Just then my daughter grounds my flight of fantasy.

“Papa, why are you so mad?”

I’m stunned by the question. “Why am I so mad?” I sputter and puff. Her sincerity immobilizes me. Before I can respond, she states what is obvious to her, but not to me: “This is a happy day, Papa. You’re making it a sad one.”

I fumble for a defense. Deep down, I have the uncomfortable feeling that she’s right. I’m acting out in ways that violate all my advice to parents. I’m vindictive, mean, and—worst of all—humorless. I feel like a complete failure. In the heat of the moment, all of my strategies, my training, schooling, and degrees: useless. What good is scholarly dissertation or self-help advice when my own parenting springs from such a low state of life?

When we arrive at home, I collapse in a chair and my eyes fall upon the parenting books that stock my bookshelves. I consider opening a window and tossing them out, one at a time. I imagine all the authors strolling down the street below my window. The books I hurl hit them in their heads with a delicious thump, and they collapse on the sidewalk.

Why had my training failed me?

Starting Over

After weeks of self-reflection and deep contemplation, I came to a painful realization: I had to jump off the blame train. Any satisfaction from blame was short-lived and left me feeling hopeless and bitter. Worse, the empty calories of blame made me a martyr, forever broadcasting my victimhood to the world. It was time to take responsibility for my daughter’s behavior. After all, I am her parent. I raised her, didn’t I? She came into the world with certain personality traits and temperaments, but ultimately, I must take responsibility for how she behaves.

In business, when a company falters, management comes under scrutiny. It’s no different with parenting.

My daughter had every right to bully. She’s a kid, and that’s what kids do. The problem was my reaction to her bullying.

Rather than helping her manage her feelings and impulses, I was busy blaming her and trying to control her. Worse, I was responding to her bullying with my own bullying. When she got mad, I got madder. Instead of trying to understand her, I oppressed her, which only brought out greater defiance and bullying.

As a parent, I wasn’t leading. I was reacting.

To paraphrase Gandhi, I had to be the change I wanted to see in my child. If I wanted her to be more patient, I had to be more patient. If I wanted her to be less bullying, I had to be less bullying. If I wanted her to be more mindful, I had to lead the way.

It was time for me to ditch my textbook knowledge of child psychology, my analytic training and psychobabble. My only escape from the Suffering Parent Club was to dig deep into my own past and uncover why I allowed my daughter to bully me.

Self-help advice without self-knowledge is rarely effective. It was time to stop blaming my child and take a good look in the mirror.

The New Deal

After a grueling period of self-analysis and introspection, I had a revelation. Actually, I had three:

1. My kid’s behavior was a reflection of my own. If I wanted her to change her ways, I had to change mine.

2. My personal history—everything that made me me—lived and breathed in my parenting. I had to recognize and address the fears or insecurities that constantly influenced my parenting choices and allowed my daughter’s bullying to flourish.

3. Learning to better manage my own feelings and impulses was central to turning around my relationship with my child and putting an end to bullying.

Purifying and understanding my internal world was the most important action I could take to improve my relationship with my daughter.

Parenting: The Ultimate Private Practice

Lawyers practice law, doctors practice medicine, and mothers and fathers practice parenting. Practice is the key word. It indicates an ongoing process of learning. Being a parent is not an identity; it’s a part of who you are. To be a better parent, you have to consider all aspects of yourself—everything that makes you you.

Parenting offers us the chance to grow, to close gaps in our own maturity and become more complete. We all have immaturities, and they come to the surface when we become parents. Parenting is a relationship like no other. But there’s at least one way in which our relationship with our kids is no different from any other relationship in our lives: It takes practice to make it better.

The Pancake Cure

After I hit rock bottom with my daughter, I decided to seek professional advice. It was a tough pill to swallow, but I was at my wit’s end. Picking up the phone and making an appointment was a great education in itself. It helped me recognize how difficult it can be for a parent to ask for help. It stirred up so many uncomfortable feelings in me.

Research and many phone calls led me to a well-known, respected parenting specialist. After waiting weeks for an appointment and recovering from sticker shock (don’t ask how much it cost), I made my way to his wood-paneled office, prepared to devour sage advice from across his great mahogany desk.

He listened to my sad story, closing his eyes and nodding knowingly. When I finished, he didn’t say a word. For a moment I thought that he’d fallen asleep.

But then he opened his eyes, folded his hands on his lap, and sighed knowingly. “Take your daughter to breakfast three times a week.”

I waited for more.

“That’s it?” I asked.

“Let her talk, listen very closely to what she has to say. No advice, no opinions or guidance, just listen. Do that for a week or two, and things will turn around.”

He rose from his chair. “And remember,” he said, “children have temper tantrums; parents do not.”

What the hell did that mean?

Before I could shout, “Refund!” I was out of the office and back in my car, grumbling all the way home.

I would follow his advice—but my expectations were very low.

That weekend when I told my daughter we were going to breakfast together, she smiled broadly. I figured anything involving pancakes would get a green light, but this was different. She was really excited. She grabbed her fancy hat and her favorite stuffed animal, and she raced for the door.

“Bye, Momma! Papa and I are going to breakfast!” she shouted cheerfully.

Once in our local diner, she chatted on and on about her favorite cartoons and movies, her last play date, and her special new friend at school. In the midst of it all, I began to realize how much she enjoyed having my full attention. She positively glowed. I tried not to talk, except to ask questions. She loved that even more.

We were sitting in a booth next to the window, enjoying our pancakes, when a woman outside on the street looked in on us. At first glance, I thought she was trying to see what we were eating, but then realized she was fixing her makeup in the reflection of the glass. As she applied eyeliner, she flared her nostrils most unattractively. My daughter giggled. “Look Papa. She’s making a silly face.”

We enjoyed a hearty laugh. A small moment perhaps, but for me, it was monumental. We were enjoying each other’s company for the first time in a very long while.

That moment, and the breakfasts that followed, marked a turning point in our relationship, a start of an entirely new way of being together. I felt close to her, enjoyed her more. I began to ask myself what fears and insecurities caused her bullying behavior.

Then I recalled a conversation we had a few days after her sister arrived home. My daughter, clearly irritated, took me aside and whispered heatedly: “When’s the baby going back to the hospital?”

I thought that she was joking. “The baby is staying with us,” I assured her. “We’re keeping her.”

Her eyes widened and she put her hands on her hips. “You mean . . . like . . . forever?”

It had been right in front of me the whole time: The birth of her baby sister had rocked her world and pushed her out of the spotlight. She felt replaced by the new baby, and she didn’t like it one bit.

Bullying was her way of expressing her upset. She felt discarded, tossed aside, and abandoned while we pampered and cooed over the new baby.

She wasn’t feeling loved, she was feeling ignored. When children experience this kind of emotional neglect from their parents, it triggers profound fears of abandonment that can become a driving force of bullying behaviors.

No fear is more devastating to children than the loss of their parents’ love; nothing undermines their sense of security quicker or destabilizes their emotional core faster.

Armed with my new understanding of her anxieties and my determination not to react to her bullying, I set out to make things right.

The next time she bullied, I hit the pause button. Rather than react, I asked myself:

Rather than admonish her, I poured all my energy into trying to understand her and become empathically attuned to her feelings.

Make no mistake. This did not come naturally. It took enormous energy not to become reactive and escalate her bullying; it was the first in many battles for self-mastery.

I took a moment to collect my thoughts and asked calmly: “What’s really bothering you? I can see it in your face. What is it?”

She looked away, tears of frustration forming in her eyes.

“Please tell me,” I said. “I want to know. If you don’t tell me, I won’t know what’s the matter. I want to help.”

Finally, after a few aborted attempts, she blurted out, “You love . . . (sob) . . . the baby . . . (sob) more than me!” And she burst into tears.

“Is that what you think?” I asked her.

She nodded and buried her face in my shoulder, crying and gasping for air in the way that always breaks a parent’s heart.

When my response to her bullying changed, she changed. Our mornings together paved the way, helped her feel loved and valued again. Once she felt understood, instead of expressing her upset through bullying, she was able to tell me directly in words what was bothering her.

Responding to her bullying with love and compassion changed everything. The more understood and accepted she felt, the more stable she became. Soon, there was no need to bully anymore.

How to Use This Book

All the tools in this book, all the parenting advice and guidance that you will find in the following chapters, are culled from my own experience as a parent, in addition to twenty years as a psychotherapist working with parents and children. I’ve done my best to identify the universal challenges that bullied parents face.

Many mothers and fathers look back on their early parenting with regret.

“I wish I knew then what I know now.”

Rather than wishing to go back, let’s go forward together.

The shortcut to a better understanding of your son or daughter begins with a better understanding of you. Your own childhood experiences, your thoughts and feelings, your impulses and actions, are all pieces of the bullied parent puzzle.

Throughout this journey, we’re going to poke around your past for clues.

How did you feel about your parents when you were your child’s age?

What did your parents do well and what didn’t they do well?

What specific memories come to mind when your kid is bullying you?

History shapes parenting. The solutions you seek to end bullying do not come from trying to control your kid. They come from self-mastery and mindfulness.

In this book, I don’t suggest anything to you that I haven’t employed myself, I make no recommendation that I haven’t applied to my own parenting.

Freeing yourself from the prison of bullied parenthood is hard work; it won’t happen overnight. But with each breakthrough moment, you’ll gain greater freedom and a deeper understanding of yourself and your son or daughter. You may be surprised to discover how similar you are.

Getting Started

To win the battle of the bully, you’ll need to develop a new level of consciousness. Conscious and unconscious emotional baggage from your past—esteem problems, resentments, shames, fears and anxieties, self-neglecting habits, narcissistic tendencies, and resistances to closeness—are plunked down in the space between you and your child. To put energy into changing your kid without considering your own history is like trying to change a shadow on a wall without altering the object casting it.

Before we get started, let’s take a sneak peak of what’s to come in the following chapters.

Chapter Two: What Happened to My Sweet, Adorable Child?

In Chapter 2, we’ll examine the interplay between two powerful forces: your child’s emotional development and how it interacts with your history.

We’ll begin with a primer on child development, followed by a quick review of the unique challenges that each developmental stage presents. Each stage includes a test period in which children challenge their parents’ authority. How parents manage these test periods often determines whether their children will become bullies.

We’ll consider four developmental stages:

1. Early childhood and preschool

2. Small children and toddlers

3. School age and preteen

4. Teen and young adult

We’ll wrap up with a list of immediate steps, as well as the long-term interventions you can take to address bullying behaviors at home.

Chapter Three: How We Become Our Kids’ Victims—and Strategies to Prevent Parent Burnout

Here, we’ll begin to understand how your personal insecurities may be undermining your parenting and eroding your leadership. We look at the histories of parents who are most likely to be bullied:

Parents who were bullied by their own parents

Parents who had absent or neglectful parents

Parents who had narcissistic parents

We’ll explore how self-neglect may be undoing your effectiveness as a parent and fueling your kid’s bullying. We’ll finish with the Parent’s Burnout Prevention Checklist so that you can regain the energy and confidence you’ll need to stand up to your child’s bullying and provide the leadership all kids crave from their parents.

Chapter Four: Understanding Your Kid’s Bullying Behavior Style

In Chapter 4, we’ll learn what makes bullies tick. We’ll look at the three most common bullying styles:

1. The defiant bully

2. The anxious bully

3. The manipulative bully

As we walk through the unique behavior of each bullying style, we’ll take a closer look at the unconscious forces that generate those bullying behaviors. By grasping those forces, we can begin to differentiate what our children want from what they need.

Next, we’ll step into households with bullies and see how their behavior impacts the entire family. We’ll see how the parents’ personalities and histories intertwine with their child’s bullying style and temperament. Each scenario will conclude with recommendations and a peek inside my office to discover the strategies that parents use to end bullying and restore balance to their families.

Chapter Five: Your Parenting Style—and How Good Parents Fall into Bad Habits

Next, we’ll turn our attention to bullied parents and gain a deeper understanding of why they allow their kids to bully them. We’ll look at the three parenting styles that are most likely to provoke bullying in children:

1. The guilty parent

2. The anxious parent

3. The fix-everything parent

Through examples and real-life scenarios, we’ll come to see the complexities of bullying and how good parents fall into bad habits. We’ll uncover the universal struggles of bullied parents and discover how lasting solutions come from greater mindfulness.

Chapter Six: Tools to Give You Both Just the Right Amount of Power

In Chapter 6, I’ll help you design a personalized parenting toolbox based on your own unique identity and history. I’ll share with you three guidelines for strengthening your confidence and remaining steadfast in ending bullying behaviors:

1. Stick to your vision.

2. Take responsibility for your behavior.

3. Manage your feelings.

Each tool will spring from a greater self-understanding. Each will enable you to make better choices in heated moments. Together, we’ll design specific responses to your child’s particular style of bullying.

Chapter Seven: How to Assemble Your Anti-Bullying Support Team

Putting an end to bullying in your household will require that you gather the right support. In Chapter 7, you’ll learn how to assemble an anti-bullying team. We’ll explore four key steps to strengthen your parenting:

1. Uniting with your partner or spouse

2. Enlisting your friends

3. Involving school officials

4. Talking to mental health professionals

Too often, bullied parents isolate themselves or feel ashamed of their situation. Involving others is a key step in strengthening your resolve and ending bullying once and for all.

Chapter Eight: Navigating the Seven Parenting Crises That Can Trigger Bullying

Sometimes bullying behaviors emerge slowly, over a long period of time; sometimes they seem to appear overnight. Many are triggered by disruptive events that destabilize children.

We’ll look at Seven Parenting Crises most common in families and how they have the potential to produce bullying:

1. Illness and injury

2. Trauma

3. Divorce

4. Adoption

5. Financial hardship

6. Learning issues

7. Death

This chapter will prime you to lead your family through these challenging situations while helping your kid develop greater emotional resilience and stop relying on bullying for stress relief.

The Parent Power Notebook

You may be wondering: How are we going to initiate your parenting revolution?

Many parents find that keeping a parenting journal is instrumental in helping them break free of old patterns and open up new pathways in parenting. A journal forces you to make time for self-reflection and deeper consideration of your choices as a parent. Most important, a journal can be instrumental in helping you break reactive habits that escalate conflicts and fuel bullying behaviors.

In this journal, you’ll be encouraged to jot down thoughts, feelings, and memories; you’ll begin to mine your past for the origins to problems in your relationship with your child. You’ll also be asked to set goals and record your breakthroughs.

Writing goals will help you keep focused, especially when you start to feel adrift. Goals are like compasses—handy when you feel lost. Goals will also keep you anchored during stormy times and remind you to stay on course.

What you decide to call your journal is up to you. Many parents refer to it as “My Parent Power Notebook.” One divorced dad called it “My Mad-as-Hell Rants.” A single mom named it, “Art’s Way” after her favorite uncle. She would often say, “I’m going to spend time with Uncle Art,” before setting off to write in her journal.

No doubt for some of you, the idea of a journal will be met with resistance.

“I don’t have time to keep a journal.”

It’s true that parents are busy. But the time you put into your journal will pay off in countless ways. It will bring more mindfulness to your parenting, lead to greater insight into your son’s or daughter’s issues, and empower you to reduce bullying by diminishing conflicts.

“I’m not a journal person.”

Okay, maybe the idea of a journal is hokey to you. I get it. So, just mull over the questions and jot down responses on a notepad or in the margins of this book. The important thing is that you begin to consider your parenting in a new light.

“This doesn’t feel natural. Why do I have to work this hard?”

What I ask of you in the coming chapters will not feel natural. To master any new skill requires practice. Becoming an effective parent is no different.

The journal is an essential tool for personal development, self-renewal, and empowerment. And most important, it will serve as your personal guide out of the world of the bullied parent!

Journaling Tips

Set aside time in your day when you have a quiet moment to yourself. For many parents, early-morning journaling is best, before the sun rises and your kids shatter the fragile peace in your home. Do what you can to carve out some quality journaling time when you are alone or when your kid is at school or at a friend’s house.

Parents tend to get caught in reactive loops—wiping up spills, settling arguments, packing lunch boxes, or sending off college tuition payments—tending to task after task, crisis after crisis. Too often, rather than being proactive and making mindful decisions and choices, bullied parents become reactive, mindlessly servicing their kids and working themselves into a state of never-ending exhaustion. And here’s the worst part: The more like that you are, the more your kid will bully you.

Getting Started with Your Parenting Journal

Once you’ve set aside some time for yourself, ditch all technology. That’s right, turn off your cell phone, Internet, MP3 player. Minimize distractions. Strengthening your parenting begins with strengthening mindfulness. A commitment to journaling is a commitment to building a solid emotional core so you can face down your insecurities and stand up to your child’s bullying.

Once you start writing, don’t stop. Don’t think too much, don’t backtrack or edit. Keep pushing forward.

Ready? Here we go.