375. Q&A: How can I teach my sensitive child to cope with teasing?

Dr. Sarah (00:02):

Ever wonder what psychologists moms talk about when we get together, whether we’re consulting one another about a challenging case or one of our own kids, or just leaning on each other when parenting feels hard, because trust me, even when we do this for a living, it’s still hard. Joining me each week in these special Thursday shows are two of my closest friends, both moms, both psychologists, they’re the people I call when I need a sounding board. These are our unfiltered answers to your parenting questions. We’re letting you in on the conversations the three of us usually have behind closed doors. This is Securely Attached: Beyond the Sessions.

(00:41):

Hello, welcome back to the Securely Attached podcast. This is the Beyond the Sessions segment where we’re going to be listening to and answering a listener question. And I have Dr. Emily Upshur and Dr. Rebecca Hershberg here. Hello ladies.

Dr. Rebecca (00:56):

Hey.

Dr. Emily (00:57):

Hi.

Dr. Sarah (00:59):

Okay. This is a great … You guys are both boy moms and I am too. So this is a good question for us. But this mother wrote in, “My eight year old son gets absolutely crushed by even light teasing or joking from other kids. Things that seem harmless to everyone else. He takes it so seriously and feels deeply embarrassed or hurt. How do I help him understand what’s playful versus mean and cope with those moments without shutting down?

Dr. Emily (01:26):

Oof.

Dr. Rebecca (01:26):

I was about to go, ugh, like my heart hurts when I hear that.

Dr. Sarah (01:34):

I know. I have a kiddo like this. So I’ve got my eight year old wears his feelings on his sleeve and as a result, he’s very satisfying to tease. And I think it makes it very hard because he gets stuck in these loops sometimes. And we’ve talked actually a lot about this. Every kid’s different, but I can share a little bit about what’s been helpful for him and what we’re working on to help build some of his sort of resilience to and perspective taking when these things are happening and his ability to kind of shift out of these dynamics.

Dr. Emily (02:16):

It’s so hard. It is. I want to hear, tell me, because I have one too. He’s different. Really different. It’s kind of funny because Ollie’s so, so different than mine. And it’s just so funny to think of he’s more sensitive and mine is obviously very sensitive, but wears it a lot more differently on the outside.

Dr. Sarah (02:39):

He rides closer to the edge of the … He’s holding more on the surface. Or what’s the word I’m saying?

Dr. Emily (02:45):

It’s like they’re both sensitive, but the way it’s expressed maybe different, but they’re both very satisfying to get their goad.

Dr. Sarah (02:51):

Yes.

Dr. Emily (02:52):

That’s the commonality to me.

Dr. Rebecca (02:54):

I’m saying both of mine I would say … It sounds like from what I know of, I have one of each of the two that you guys …

Dr. Emily (03:01):

Right.

Dr. Rebecca (03:03):

So it’s a good question for us.

Dr. Sarah (03:06):

Yeah. I mean, first of all, I’ll just say to this mom, I’m glad you’re asking this question and the way that you’re asking it because you’re saying not, how do I help him fix this? How do I help him not do this? You’re actually saying like, how do I help him understand what another person’s intention is and cope? Right? She says, how do I help him understand what’s playful versus mean and cope with those moments without shutting down? So you’re actually not saying, how do I make him less sensitive to this? How do I tell him what to do or say or how to behave? You could certainly coach a kid in that, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But I think you’re asking the exact riht question, which is really about how do I help him make sense of what’s happening? It’s mentalization or reflective functioning that she’s talking about building up here, which is like you … So just by nature of asking it this way tells me you’re approaching this from a very good direction.

Dr. Rebecca (04:12):

Yeah. I mean, I agree, but I might even make … To me it’s yes and because I certainly don’t want to put this mom down as having been and am this mom as we all are, but I think the coping is the more important piece, right? The helping him see it this way or that way. I don’t know that we … Different people have different thresholds. We may always see … So it’s much more, as you said, about perhaps understanding intention. However, what I will also say is that eight year old kids and nine and 10 and 11, 12, and all the way through adulthood often have complicated intentions. And so I think the idea that it might be black and white as to like these kids are being mean versus are not being mean or are trying to be mean versus are not trying to be mean.

(05:00):

I think that’s for simplification anyway. And so I think to my mind, it’s more of a long game of how do we help our kids cope and how do we help them start to ask the right questions around how do I feel when I’m with different people who act in different ways and how does that help me make my decisions about who I want to be and who I want to spend time with with no judgment to those others, right? It may be that there’s other … It’s not like I don’t want to spend time with people who are mean. It’s like, actually other people have a higher threshold and love relating in that way. I don’t. So it’s more about, I think, self knowledge and coping that you’re trying to develop to my life.

Dr. Emily (05:45):

I totally … I could not agree more. And I also think I talk a lot about my kids in treatment with my own kid is like, well, what can you control? And I think it’s really important to help kids in terms of coping, figuring out the variables that they are in charge of, right? It’s kind of like a good boundary. A good boundary isn’t saying, “Hey, other kids, stop being mean to me. ” It’s saying, “You know what? I’m going to walk away if these kids are going to be mean to me. ” And that’s a really hard skill, really hard for eight year old. It’s really hard for up, it’s hard for adults.

Dr. Rebecca (06:19):

I mean, one people’s playing is another … I have family members where it’s like, “Oh, I’m just joshing you. ” Yeah. “Oh, you’re always so dramatic. Oh, I’m just joking around with you. Take it. ” Totally. It’s like, I could decide in a very black or white way, no, you’re not just joking, you’re being mean, or I could decide it’s just not for me to set a personal boundary or I’m going to walk away. And to me, the part to Emily’s point that you can control is, what do I want to do? Do I want to say something? Do I want to walk away? Do I want to go into Thanksgiving, for example, knowing that this family member acts in this way and tolerate it because that’s just the way they are. We have choices and I think as parents, we often get stuck in wanting our kids to find the good kids, the nice kids.

(07:09):

And we use these labels, everybody now, and we could do a whole episode on this because it’s starting to make me a little crazy when I do my parent workshops and teacher workshops, this emphasis on being kind, on being kind. You have to be kind, you have to be … Humans aren’t one dimensional and sometimes one person’s way of being kind is another person’s insult. And again, it’s about helping our kids to this mom’s question, be resilient, cope with who they want to be and the people they want to spend time with in the world.

Dr. Emily (07:40):

Yeah. And I think the other thing is like, what factors make you more resilient? I can tell you for my kiddo, if he’s getting teased after school when he hasn’t eaten and it’s the end of a day, it’s been a long school, it’s a recipe for disaster. Whereas if he’s being teased right after lunch, it’s a different story. So I think it’s like, again, to Rebecca, I think your point is so well taken, what kind of kid am I? And helping your kids sort of like reflecting that to them. “Oh, I’m the kind of kid who needs to do these things to make myself more regulated. I need to be eating. I need to be communicating. I need to be feeling good in my body and then I’m able to sort of say like, ” How do these people make me feel? Okay, this isn’t feeling good right now.

(08:30):

“I also want to be really careful to not really demonize kids, right? Like to say this group of kids, they might be my friends and they might be kind of … I don’t love the way they’re doing, they’re treating me right now in this moment and allowing them to say,” So I’m going to step aside from this moment, but maybe I’ll engage with them in a different moment and it’ll be okay to, Rebecca, your point of like everybody’s tolerance and everybody’s interpretation of humor or teasing, those types of things are very different. So I think helping your kid really understand themselves in these processes is, I use the term, I’m the type of kid who all the time instead of like judging myself, I’m just the type of kid who doesn’t really like joking around like that.

Dr. Rebecca (09:17):

Or, the kid who right now. I’m the type of kid right now or I’m like as you said…

Dr. Sarah (09:22):

Yeah. Or I’m not in the mood right now. I’m not in the mood for that. It’s funny because like when I was thinking about, this was going on a lot more with my son last year and my approach was very different than my husband’s approach, which just speaks to this, like that theory of mind, right? I want to help my son understand that some kids might be having a bad day and that’s why it’s happening. Or some kids might be really threatened by the way you do this thing and it has nothing to do with you or some kids just might be actually trying to be playful and be wanting to connect and this is the way they do it.

(10:08):

And so even just in trying to help him understand the mind of another, I’m also mindful of the fact that like the way I would, like I was telling him certain things and my husband who has a different mind than I do is like, you got to just goof them back, make them laugh, like, make it lighter, put them on the spot, hand it back to them. And he’s also like, he’s grown up with like these guy friends, this group of boys that he’s like brother buddies with and they just, they rag on each other. And I think he brings a high tolerance to that that was really actually helpful for my son to like just have that model to him like, “Oh, I don’t have to have everything be so serious.” Whereas like I’m coming from like that deep emotional regulation place and I’m like, “Your feelings really matter.” If it doesn’t feel good, can you say, “Please, I don’t like that.” We had such a totally different approach and frankly, my husband’s approach worked better than mine.

Dr. Rebecca (11:24):

And I wonder, some of that is, for better or worse, and I’m going to go ahead and say probably both, there’s a gender thing happening here too and the child in question was a boy and her husband is male and I would say there’s a parallel in my home too. My husband has been sort of like one of my kids has to learn how to say F off and just keep walking. And it’s a similar thing of like how to not take it personally and not let it affect you, but the delivery is really different. And I do think that when we, when, and again, I think our kid has benefited from both as it sounds like Ollie has also, but I think one of the things my husband has said to me is, “You were never a middle school boy.”

Dr. Emily (12:18):

I know. I hear that all the time.

Dr. Rebecca (12:20):

You don’t know middle school boys. And part of me, especially as like doing what I do for a living, I’m like, “But I do. ” But I don’t, I know them through my lens and of course gender is different now than it used to be and there’s all kinds of things we could talk about that. But I do think with this particular topic of whether it’s teasing, especially kind of what we started with, which is that there are particular kids who pull to be teased because of their reactions, there’s a gender thing there that I think we just have to, I guess I don’t have a larger point, we just have to name.

Dr. Emily (13:02):

Well, and I will say like, and this is, I mean, maybe this is too big picture, but I do think it’s really important, at least within our family talking about sort of family values though. I mean, like we, on the other side of that, being teased is like, how do you be an upstander? How can you sort of like be the kid who doesn’t pile on when another kid is being teased and how can you be a good friend and what does a good friend mean to you and how does that feel? And I do think there’s like a little bit of a kind of difficult culture out there. I know like Sarah and I, in our meeting this week, we were talking about this term rage baiting and if we knew about it and all these people in this meeting that we were at knew about it, it’s sort of like a cultural milieu. It’s out there. And I think it could be like an interesting way to think about what happens to kids when they’re ganged up on in this kind of way, because it’s like kids who are vulnerable to being teased or vulnerable to getting like a reaction out of them have been rage baited, right? It’s a thing that all the kids are- That’s what they’re calling it right now, rage baiting?That’s what the youngins are saying.

Dr. Sarah (14:15):

Which is like what? When you like, “Oh, I’m going to get you goat.” I’m teasing you with a very explicit intention of getting you to lose it?

Dr. Emily (14:26):

Exactly, right. It’s targeted teasing because you know they’re going to lose it. It’s like let’s go rage bait.

Dr. Sarah (14:32):

Is it like bullying? Or is it like friendly goofing?

Dr. Emily (14:37):

Well, I think that’s the question, right? I think it can, like as we’ve been talking about it, I think it can tip over really like what is funny. I think it’s a little bit mal intent because you’re trying to bait somebody to get dysregulated, period. That is the intention of the thing and it’s a little bit different than roasting in that it’s like you’re really trying to get someone to lose it, right?

Dr. Sarah (15:03):

You’re unrelenting, you’re not going to stop until they like flip their lid.

Dr. Rebecca (15:06):

I don’t feel like there’s a way we can frame that as like playful or like that doesn’t sound ambiguous and intent to me.

Dr. Emily (15:13):

Well, I will say though, the kids are like, “Oh no, but we were just rage…” They are minimized. That’s why I was saying I think there’s…

Dr. Rebecca (15:20):

Is it ever a challenge? Like we’re going to rage bait you, let’s see if you can keep it together.

Dr. Emily (15:24):

I don’t know if it’s like set up that way, but I…

Dr. Sarah (15:27):

I think we need to invite an 8 year old or a 13 year old on the podcast, teach us about rage baiting and now I’m very curious.

Dr. Emily (15:36):

Well, I guess in the vein of this conversation, how do you help the kid who’s being rage baited, right? Sort of either walk away, maintain their cool, that is actually … Or decide that this isn’t a fun activity, right?That’s part of what … Again, back to my other point, help other kids say like, “Hey, I think this went a little, this is not going well.”

Dr. Sarah (16:01):

Right, which is why I think it’s helpful too. This is where that theory of mind comes in because it’s or reading the room. It’s like if you, the recipient of a bid to be rage baited, can read that as like, “Okay, these guys, they’re trying to play with me. ” It is playful. It’s not feeling good, it’s gone too far and I’m actually genuinely at risk of losing it, so I need to communicate to my friends who I genuinely trust and care about to some degree like, okay, mercy, I really truly am done or if this is a bullying thing to be able to know this isn’t going to end well, I got to get some help. I got to walk away, take a break, get somebody to sort of work with me on this. But I do think it’s like if it’s playful, sometimes being goofy back can diffuse it and sometimes if it’s not playful and it’s really, really the goal is to mess with somebody in a really unkind way, it’s like, what’s your exit strategy?

Dr. Emily (17:04):

It’s just so hard because I actually think theory of mind in this situation isn’t that helpful because the theory of mind is, yeah, they’re trying to tease me, right? They might not be taking it that, they might not think it’s hurtful, but I do, right? I think it still goes back to that intent versus how it’s landing.

Dr. Rebecca (17:24):

This doesn’t sound like a fuzzy intent to me. That’s kind of like what I was saying. I mean, it sounds, in keeping with our conversation, it sounds like teasing it, but it doesn’t sound like, “Hmm, I wonder what’s happening.” It sounds like at least the kids these days, haha, they know what this … Oh, this is rage baiting and this is a form of … I mean, I don’t know if bullying is too strong, but like it’s not…

Dr. Emily (17:46):

Well, but I think that’s the point. I think Rebecca, the thing that gets tricky is they’re like, “Yeah, but we’re your friends. We’re just rage baiting you. It’s not a big deal.” The minimization

Dr. Sarah (17:53):

It’s a little gaslighty.

Dr. Emily (17:55):

Well, and also the minimization of unkind, I know, but the minimization of that kind of behavior being not that big of a deal is, I do think incumbent upon us as parents to be like, “Well, it doesn’t make you feel good, so it’s not great.” Right.

Dr. Sarah (18:10):

So it’s like if your kid is getting rage baited and the kids are saying to them, “Dude, it’s not a big deal.What’s the big deal?” It’s also on us to say to our kid to validate their experience and be like, “It’s okay if it is a big deal to you and you don’t have to … Just because someone else tells you it’s not a big deal does not mean they’re correct.”

Dr. Rebecca (18:34):

Right, that goes back to what we were saying in the beginning about this particular question. It’s like it doesn’t actually … In this case, their intent it sounds like is somewhat malicious. There are other kids who might do the same thing and have no idea it’s called rage baiting and not have it malicious intent, but that’s why what we said earlier I think still holds, which is like, can you tune into how you feel and the part of it you can control?

Dr. Sarah (18:59):

Yeah.

Dr. Rebecca (19:00):

Totally.

Dr. Sarah (19:01):

And sometimes that’s walk away, sometimes it’s get help. Sometimes it’s some other option, but I do think we want to empower our kids to know what their threshold is and when they need to not just be tougher.

Dr. Emily (19:19):

Right. And it’s kind of … I want to push against that cultural norm too and say like, “Oh, it’s just normal boys will be boys.” I really want to say, I think it’s incumbent upon all parents to sort of talk about what being a good friend is, what being a good friend feels like and being an upstander is extraordinarily hard. I’m not trying to minimize it and it’s really, really hard for kids. I mean, it’s very hard for adults as well, but sort of like role playing that out, I do that with my kids in treatment and I do that with my own children, like what would it feel like to walk away? What would it feel like to sort of raise your hand and say, “I just don’t think that’s very nice.” I think we have a responsibility to sort of like put that back out into the world as well, not just accepting that this rage baiting happens and it’s just something we should all get used to. I think that’s kind of a responsibility we have as grownups to try to ameliorate that a little bit.

Dr. Sarah (20:17):

But it’s tricky because I think it goes back to what we were saying before of like, how do we do that while also teaching that grayness, that sort of like staying in that gray space with our kids so that we can say, “Hmm, I wonder why that kid might have done that versus, oh, that kid was being mean.” Or it’s a tricky line, it’s tricky dance to do with a kid because I think there’s utility in identifying certain behaviors as unkind, not friendly, but I also think helping … And it’s hard, but if you can, anchor those behaviors inside of a context that is not fixed. So I wonder if that guy was really having a hard time that day or the idea that people do mean things and they are not mean people or that kids could do hurtful stuff and they aren’t bad kids or good kids.

Dr. Rebecca (21:14):

I think that’s part of the reason the whole kind thing is be kind, be kind, be kind. It’s like, we are all kind sometimes and then when we are tired or when we are this or when we are that … It’s the same thing with parents used to say to their kids or, “Well, if he’s being mean, you don’t want to be friends with him anyway.” It’s like, “Well, no, actually I do, because he’s also really funny and athletic and all the other kids want to be … ” It’s like acknowledging that we’re human and we don’t always rise to our best selves, but I also think to your point, Emily, about the rage baiting and there is a way in which it’s also about teaching impact versus intention and that if you are being quote unquote playful by your definition and a kid is clearly upset about it, well then your intention becomes less important and so this is a maturity thing because it’s like, “No, but I wasn’t being mean. I wasn’t being mean.” If we could all recognize that we all can be mean sometimes, I think people would feel less shame around that. It’s like, “Oh, I wasn’t being mean and I really hurt your feelings. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to. ” And then…

Dr. Sarah (22:25):

At what age do you feel like developmentally these types of nuances can start to get comprehended better? I think a lot of eight year olds can handle this. I’m curious when we think it starts.

Dr. Rebecca (22:39):

I think, oh my God, I was about to say six, seven, and then I stopped myself. Six, seven. But I think, I mean, I always talk to parents about starting really early on with modeling it, not necessarily expecting a kid to get it, but if you start really early on, especially with like sibling stuff, it’s like, right, you grabbed that toy, not because you wanted to hurt your brother, but because you wanted that toy. However, look in the process, he fell down and slammed his nose, so we’ll say we’re sorry because he’s clearly upset. And again, it’s because I think kids learn early on because our whole culture kind of teaches early on. It’s like if you say it was an accident, you’re off the hook, as opposed to sort of recognizing it was an accident and sure, that’s, I suppose, useful information and so is the fact that accident or not, your brother is lying here hysterically crying and you…

Dr. Sarah (23:35):

That’s why I always would say this and not, I mean always, I definitely still sometimes made my kids say sorry, but generally my approach was let’s check on them instead of let’s say sorry because with the intention of being like, what is the actual thing we’re trying to fix? Apology is kind of a abstract concept, but checking to see how someone is doing and if they’re okay is tangible. And for little kids, I think it’s a little easier to grasp the point of than saying a word that they don’t really know what that means.

Dr. Rebecca (24:10):

Right, but I think you can still teach accountability early on. However, I also think we could do a whole episode about apologizing and not apologizing and I don’t know…

Dr. Sarah (24:19):

Oh yeah, I think we already have, but we should do more.

Dr. Emily (24:22):

Well, but I really like the idea of sort of … I really like the idea of what you said, Rebecca, of like, how does it land on the other person and that, and how do we teach kids to modify, right? How do we teach our own kid to modify their behavior based on this dialectic, based on this relationship, right? If I joke around and it’s not funny, if I’m teasing Rebecca and it’s not funny and I sense it’s not funny, I’m going to back off, right? Like that’s sort of the yin and the yang of…

Dr. Sarah (24:50):

Social skills. Reading the room.

Dr. Emily (24:52):

Exactly. And I think highlighting teaching that can happen starting extremely young, but I do think, and maybe this is right out of the playbook, predictably, but middle school is where it gets played out on the real stage, right? It really is. It is a place where parents have less involvement and kids … So those seeds you plant with this listener’s eight year old are really important for when they’re out in the wild, for better or for worse.

Dr. Sarah (25:23):

You were talking about your 13 year old, right?

Dr. Emily (25:25):

My 12 year old, yeah. But also, yeah, when my 15 year old was this age, he had to work this out in the wild and he actually pivoted and made choices based on how people made him feel and they were sometimes hard choice. I think I’m really proud of the choices he made, but it was hard earned in the wild.

Dr. Sarah (25:46):

But this is the point, right? It’s like we’re the training wheel playground. We get a little bit of time to help them work it through with our scaffolding before we really aren’t going to … Even if we’re trying to insert ourselves, we just don’t matter as much in terms of like … So having, in a weird way, like obviously nobody wants their kid to be teased or be crushed by being teased, but the fact that your eight year old is bringing this to you and you are in a place right now where your influence is very welcomed by him. Even if he’s going to like rolls as you when you’re talking to him about it, he’s hearing you. Now is a great time to help him work this through and practice these things and find moments in unrelated ways to build these skills because yeah, in three, four years, you’re going to lose that leverage in some way, like not all of it, but it will be harder to get in.

Dr. Rebecca (26:50):

Yeah. Yeah.

Dr. Sarah (26:53):

But yeah, it’s never too late though. Honestly, I do think you can do this with older kids too, for sure.

Dr. Rebecca (26:58):

It’s lifelong.

Dr. Emily (26:59):

It is. I was going to say, I really think adults struggle with these things. Of course. Really, I do. And so I think it’s recommitting to sort of doing that all the time.

Dr. Rebecca (27:10):

And letting our kids know the same way we should let our kids know, it’s hard. It’s a journey. There’s no such thing as mastering this. Right.

Dr. Sarah (27:17):

Right. No, and I think validating and conveying some confidence that they can handle the challenge without you know, rescuing them from it is really helpful and practicing skills outside of the moment.

Dr. Emily (27:35):

Yep, yep. Yeah.

Dr. Sarah (27:38):

Well, I really do wish you all the best and your son and I hope other families got some use out of your really thoughtful questions. So thank you for writing in. If anyone else has questions that might be something you’d like us to answer, please send in your questions. We love it. You can do that at our website, go to drsarahbren/question or on Instagram @drsarahbren, you can DM me a question and we will answer them for you and we appreciate it so much. And we will talk to you all very soon. Bye Em. Bye Rebecca.

Dr. Emily (28:11):

Bye.

Dr. Sarah (28:11):

Thank you so much for listening. As you can hear, parenting is not one size fits all. It’s nuanced and it’s complicated. So I really hope that this series where we’re answering your questions really helps you to cut through some of the noise and find out what works best for you and your unique child. If you have a burning parenting question, something you’re struggling to navigate or a topic you really want us to shed light on or share research about, we want to know, go to drsarahbren.com/question to send in anything that you want, Rebecca, Emily, and me to answer in Securely Attached: Beyond the Sessions. That’s drsarahbren.com/question. And check back for a brand new securely attached next Tuesday. And until then, don’t be a stranger.