Safe Space Journal Page
The Safe Space Journal is a place to keep track of difficult friendship moments so you can make sense of what’s happening, notice patterns, and decide what to do next.
In Friendship Smart, Michelle offers action-oriented tips to help you after your conversation. These are a small extract of tips for parents whose kids may be experiencing bullying:
- Try to make decisions in partnership with your adolescent, unless you absolutely must take the reins for their safety.
- Listen carefully to any concerns they have about the actions you’re considering. Your job is to help reduce risk and protect their sense of agency. Try saying, ‘We need to work together and be smart about this. Bullies will always try to make you feel powerless and isolate you from help. Let’s look at all our options.’ If you do need to talk to the school, she has some suggestions on page 179.
- Their safety, and felt safety, are now a high priority. Talk to them about finding an ‘anchor adult’ in every environment they go into, so they have a predetermined trusted person to turn to quickly.
- Consider adding the EmergencyPlus app or another location-sharing/tracking app for additional security.
- Don’t approach the parents of the bully, or try to work it out parent-to-parent. Commenting on other kids’ poor behaviour seldom goes down well for your own kid. Most people do not like imagining their kids behaving poorly, so they either come down on their kids hard, which backfires on your kid, or they get defensive, and blame your kid.
- Offer them professional help, so you are not the only person they have to speak to. It may also benefit you to access your own professional support separate from your adolescent.