Tag: insults

The N.F.L. Culture and Bullying

Post author By Dr. Jeffrey Rubin
Post date November 5, 2013
3 Comments on The N.F.L. Culture and Bullying

We just finished up National Bullying Prevention Month. Throughout October, after far too many suicides because of bullying, numerous organizations banned together to do what they could to change a culture. What they tried to accomplish is far from easy.

The difficulty is that our culture is filled with examples of people telling us that insults can be the mother of invention. If you are challenged by insults, you can get charged up and prove a thing or two to the insulter, and before you even realized it you have done something very positive.

On “60 Minutes” this Sunday, we learned that Ferruccio Lamborghini was originally a maker of tractors, but was dissatisfied with the clutch of a car he bought. And so when he designed a fix for the car and explained it to the car manufacturer, he felt insulted when the head of the manufacturer dismissed his suggestion by saying he should stick to making tractors. This riled Ferruccio up. But instead of doing what many immature people do when riled up, such as throwing insults back at the insulter or throwing a fist, Ferruccio set to work on making a better car then the insulter. And from many accounts, Mr. Lamborghini did just that.

Absent from the “60 Minutes” story was any discussion about when insults go so far that it is far more likely to have negative consequences than positive ones.

Now we learn from the New York Times that we are about to have a new national discussion about this. Apparently what are being called pranks by some and humiliating behavior by others is ubiquitous in the N.F.L., especially when the older players interact with rookies. According to Jets offensive tackle Austin Howard, “Everybody’s done it. It’s all in good fun. And then the next year, they’re going to do it to the guy who’s there the next year.”

“Most incidents,” says the Times, “come with tacit, unsupervised approval of coaches and executives, who see the pranks as a rite of passage, a worthy bit of team building and character strengthening.” However, it now appears that at least one player has perhaps taken this type of behavior too far.

Richie Incognito, a 300-pound offensive lineman for the Miami Dolphins has been hit with at least a temporary suspension for perhaps being a downright bully. Miami coach, Joe Philbin, explaining the reason for the suspension, stated, “If the review shows that this is not a safe atmosphere, I will take whatever measures necessary to make sure that it is.”

“A safe atmosphere?” That’s Philbin’s standard for stepping over the line when it comes to “pranks.” Veteran Jets guard describes his standard. “Any time a guy feels disrespected and like he can’t go to work and feel comfortable, that’s when you can’t have that in the locker.”

It is too early to know all of the details of what led to Mr. Incognito’s suspension. But many of us who are concerned about bullying hope that this incident will lead to a national conversation about an issue that deserves to be discussed even if National Bullying Prevention Month has come and gone.

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Some people will enjoy reading this blog by beginning with the first post and then moving forward to the next more recent one; then to the next one; and so on. This permits readers to catch up on some ideas that were presented earlier and to move through all of the ideas in a systematic fashion to develop their emotional intelligence. To begin at the very first post you can click HERE.

Tags bullying, disrespectful, Ferruccio Lamborghini, insults, N.F.L., National Bullying Prevention, National Bullying Prevention Month, pranks, Richie Incognito

anger bullying conflict management conflict resolution insults jealousy Mickey Mantle Name calling respect social intelligence wisdom

How I Met Cool Steve

Regular readers of this blog know that to illustrate an idea, I usually utilize a comic strip or a brief parable. To fully integrate all of the ideas that appear in the blog, I’ve created a coming of age trilogy of novels that is set in Brooklyn that my students over the years have coined The Cool Steve Stories, because one of the main characters is “Cool Steve.”

Novels are perfect for illustrating subtle ideas but the vast majority of blog readers have no desire to read a post that long. And so, to deal with this challenge, from time to time I post a short story based on a chapter from one of my novels.

Today’s short story is an abbreviated version of a chapter from the second novel in the trilogy, Fights in the Streets, Tears in the Sand.

How I Met Cool Steve

When I graduated from Boody Junior High back in the sizzling summer of 1965, I had one major problem—every time I tried to get the kids to respect me I ended up making more and more enemies. If you would have asked me back then why respect was important to me, well, I guess I would have muttered a few of my choicest Brooklyn curses and then, well, I guess I would have said, “All I know is that when people treat me with respect it feels good, and when people treat me disrespectfully it feels like I ate something rotten. So there! Ya wanna make somethin’ out of it?!”

* * *

That summer, I moved to a new neighborhood and I was going to start a new school—Lincoln High. I figured no one knows me there, so this is my big chance to turn myself around.

My new neighborhood was pretty cool. It was just a few blocks from the beach and Coney Island. In ten minutes I could walk to the Cyclone, far and away the greatest roller coaster ever.

And so, I began summer vacation feeling hopeful, but as the new school year began to close in on me, I started getting pretty nervous. And when the day before school arrived I’m sitting in my room strumming my guitar while thinking about getting real sick for a few years. I wonder how long I could play up that angle to avoid school altogether. My stomach’s been out of whack for the past few days anyway, so it wouldn’t be much of a stretch to take it up another level.

Each lick of my guitar is a pounding of my old enemies, and then, all of a sudden, notions of respect get thrown in as well, creating a wild, pounding drum beat in sync with my wild, pounding heart. My strumming gets louder.

Hey, maybe I can get some respect for my musical talent.

“Jeff, quiet down in there!” Mom screams. “For crying out loud, you’re giving me a headache!”

“You’re giving me a headache!” I scream back while throwing my guitar down on my bed. I storm out of my apartment and pound the elevator call button. When it arrives, I punch the lobby button and then start kicking the walls.

* * *

Once in the street, I walk aimlessly as steam hisses out of my ears. Along Ocean Parkway I pass Lincoln High and shudder. Under the Belt Parkway overpass I notice pigeons up in the beams hiding in crevices. As I continued on with my walk, slowly I begin to settle down.

* * *

Well, you can kiss that summer vacation goodbye, I say to myself while setting my alarm clock so I won’t be late for my first day at Lincoln. Within minutes of shutting my light, worries begin to invade my mind, buzzing about like flies. Man, school’s gonna suck!

Sleepless minutes go by like hours, and hours stretch out into eternities. I check my alarm clock at midnight, again at one and two.

And then, suddenly, an idea explodes upon me, followed by madly rushing thoughts. That’s it! That’s it! At Lincoln I’ll first play a real quiet type and not reveal anything about myself. And while I do that, I’ll secretly carry out a careful investigation to determine who the kids at Lincoln already respect. By keeping my eyes open and my mouth shut, I bet I can learn something useful before the kids get to know me.

But moments after this plan has rolled in with its initial high hopes, a dark cloud of doubt begins to cast its dismal shadow. Yeah, well if I carry out that stupid plan everyone’s gonna think I’m just copying the guy everyone respects. I’ll be nothing but a rotten copycat.

More tossing and turning. Three o’clock comes and goes.

And then, suddenly I sit up in bed fully awake, and my mind cries out, Wait! There was this director I worked with in a play once and I remember him saying how a great actor takes what he learns from other actors and then brings something of himself to a role, something that makes it fresh and unique. Maybe I can create something new based on someone else. Maybe.

* * *

I arrive on my first day at Lincoln at seven-twenty a.m., with a pencil, a loose-leaf notebook, and a sensationally queasy stomach. Out front students are gathered together in clusters. So far I don’t see anyone I know. Good.

Most students are dressed in outfits that appear more freshly bought than what is seen by mid-school year. The stores offering back to school sales must have had a banner year.

The first bell rings and resonates deep in my unsettled bowels. In unison, students head for their homeroom. I look down at my class schedule that I received in the mail a few weeks ago. It indicates in distinct black typewriter letters that I have to go first to HOMEROOM 324. Okay, I guess that means I better find a stairway up to the third floor. Man, I thought my junior high had big crowded hallways. They were minor league compared to this!

Here’s an up-stairway. As I traipse along, I try to listen to the conversations going on around me to see if I can find some clue about who the kids respect. There are a couple of cute girls in front of me.

“Did you see the Beatles last night on the Ed Sullivan show?” asks one.

“Definitely!”

“Who do you like better, John Lennon or Mick Jagger?”

“Oh, John’s my dreamboat!”

“Don’t you think Mick’s cuter?”

It looks like the ladies go for rockers, I think to myself. Maybe I ought to start practicing guitar more.

* * *

A couple of periods later, I’m heading to biology and some guy behind me says to someone next to him, “Hey, Cool Steve’s in my health class!”

“Cool Steve! Really?!

“Yeah! He sat right next to me.”

“Damn! Hey, tell him I say hi.”

There’s an excitement that accompanies this dialogue that somehow has me going, hmmm.

* * *

Lunchtime. I’m not really hungry, but my schedule says that’s where me and hoards of others are supposed to go so we find the down stairwell and dutifully march along.

Harsh smells of recently mopped floors, day old tuna, sour milk, low grade cheeseburgers, and the like kick my appetite for a loop.

Where should I sit? Remember to keep a quiet profile. There are some cool looking kids at this table. I start to sit down.

“Sorry, we’re saving these seats for some friends,” says one of the guys.

I nod and move on. Man, I hate school.

A few tables away, I spot an open seat next to a kid reading a story in Sports Illustrated with a great shot of Mickey Mantle. The Mick’s neck and forearms are bulging as he’s clobbering a monster home run.

“Anybody got this seat?” I ask while preparing myself for another rejection.

Looking up from his magazine, the guy looks me over for a couple of seconds, and then replies, “Sit down. I’m Cliff Schweitzer.”

“Hi Cliff, thanks. I’m Jeff Star.”

“Hi, Jeff. Say, who do you have for history?”

After checking my schedule card, I answer, “Mr. Lofton.”

“Is he any good?”

“I don’t know. I have him for the first time in a couple of periods from now.”

“I got stuck with Mr. Putzmeister,” Cliff says mournfully.

“Putzmeister!” I reply with a smile. “That his real name?”

“Yeah, and never was there a more fitting name for a teacher. I got to get out of there. He is so boring!”

“Well, it’s history, Cliff. How interesting can it be?”

“History is my favorite class, Jeff. My dad’s a history professor at New York University so that’s what we both love. And now to get stuck with Mr. Putzmeister!” This kid, Cliff, is digging his fingernails into his forehead like he’s getting ready to commit suicide.

“Try talking ta someone in the office. All you’re interested in is history?”

“Well, to me, a branch of history is ‘The world of sports,’ and I love sports. In fact, I’m writing a column for the school newspaper. It’s called the ‘Sports Scene.’ The first issue comes out on Friday. Check it out. Let me know what you think.”

While we’re talking, we hear a kid from a nearby table, yelling, “Ya wouldn’t dare do this ta Cool Steve! Why ya doing it ta me?”

I turn to Cliff. “That’s the second time I heard this name, Cool Steve. You wouldn’t happen ta know him?”

“Yeah, from Cunningham,” he answers, referring to one of the junior high schools that feed into Lincoln. “I guess most of the kids who know him, know him from there.”

“There seems to be some kind of respect thing connected to him.”

“Respect? Steve? Well, yeah.”

“You respect him?”

“Oh, yeah!”

“How come?”

“Well, I guess for me it’s got something to do with the fact that he’s the best athlete I’ve ever personally known. In baseball he’s got explosive power and a rocket arm, and in football he’s got lightning speed and incredible hands. He’s… he’s history in the making. He’s just incredible, I mean incredible! But, um… I got a feeling people would respect Steve even if he wasn’t so great in sports.” Then Cliff’s voice kind of trails off and he looks like he’s searching for a more complete answer, but before he gets to it, a guy sitting beside him asks to borrow his Sports Illustrated.

“Let me just finish this story,” Cliff responds, and he quickly buries his nose in his magazine.

* * *

After school lets out, I walk to Rocco’s Pizzeria over on Brighton Beach Avenue. Rocco is fixing up a new pie. I take in deeply the familiar aroma of baking dough, oregano, cheese, and Rocco’s underarms.

With two slices in hand, I discover none of the tables are empty. At one of them is this guy Brainy George sitting by himself with his blond hair looking like it hasn’t been combed in months. I had met him earlier in the day in my gym class and noticed he sat at the same lunch table as Cliff Schweitzer, the sports writer. “How come they call him Brainy George?” I had asked one of the guys in gym.

“Da guy’s a freakin’ genius,” came the reply.

With nowhere else to sit, I ask if he’d mind if I sat across from him.

He looks up with these large thick glasses and nods his okay. “You were in gym today,” he says as I sit down.

“Yeah.”

“I hate gym.”

“You do?”

“Can’t stand it—all the idiots trying to prove they’re Mr. Atlas.”

“Hmmmm.” Personally, to me gym is a whole lot better than the rest of the garbage we gotta take at school. Rather than saying this I maintain my quiet portrayal. The pizza is still a bit hot so I blow on it and take my first bite. Mmmmm! “What junior high did you go to?” I ask.

“Cunningham.”

“That’s the same junior high as this kid Cool Steve. I guess ya think he’s an idiot since he’s into sports.”

“Steve? Naaa. Steve’s different than the guys I’m talking about.”

“Izzat so?”

“Yeah. I like Steve because, well first of all, he’s not one of those idiots who pick on me because I can’t run as fast as the other guys. And I like the way Steve’s gutsy. He’s not afraid to stand up for what he believes in. And it’s the way he carries himself… the way he moves. I don’t know… I… I just have a lot of respect for Steve.”

There’s that word again—‘respect.’ Well, being gutsy shouldn’t be too hard, I think to myself. Hell, I was gutsy enough to get into lots of fights in my old school. But I don’t quite know what to make of this stuff about the way Steve moves.

* * *

My second day at Lincoln—the wide-eyed exuberance of students on day one has turned into a ‘Do I really have to be here?’ look.

After finishing my lunch, I go sit on the steps of Lincoln’s main entrance. It’s warm and the sun is shining. Several students including Cliff Schweitzer, the sports writer, and Brainy George, the genius, come by and sit down next to me. With them are these two attractive girls.

I find myself magnetically pulled toward the girls. How can I get introduced? Be careful. You don’t want to blow the quiet image.

I nudge George and conspicuously look at each of the girls.

First, he points to the one closest to him, “She’s Sandy.” Sandy’s cute, with apricot-tan shoulders, a peachy complexion, and long, wavy, sandy-blond hair. She glances at me and smiles.

Then George, he points to the girl sitting next to Sandy. “That’s Mysterious Jane.”

“Mysterious Jane?” I ask.

“Well, they call Mysterious Jane, Mysterious Jane, because she’s strange,” George explains.

She might be strange, I think to myself, but she’s gorgeous. She has long, straight, glossy black hair that slightly covers her prominent cheekbones, and falls freely upon her voluptuous shoulders and breasts. Her green, almond shaped eyes have a thin line of black mascara and perhaps within these glimmering eyes there is a hint of some sort of mysteriousness.

Jane looks at me, gives me a slight nod, and resumes a conversation that she is having with George.

All of a sudden something catches Sandy’s attention and she cries, “Who’s that gorgeous guy?”

Mysterious Jane turns with her large green eyes in the direction that Sandy is looking—down the steps and off to the right. She lets out a long sigh. “Oh, that’s Cool Steve.”

“Ain’t he built!” Sandy squeals. “You know him?”

“Yeah, from Cunningham,” Jane replies. “All the girls were nuts about him because, well, a lot of the girls say it’s because he’s so cute. And he is cute, especially his eyes. I l-o-o-v-e his eyes.” This is followed by a moan and she then drifts off into another dimension.

Sandy pokes Mysterious Jane, returning her back to Earth. Jane looks over to Sandy, lowers her voice to an eerie whisper and says, “If you want to know the truth, the real reason all the girls are crazy about Steve is because he moves with the grace and power of a large panther, but he has far more power than any panther you’ve ever seen.”

I think to myself, that Mysterious Jane, she’s strange!

Watching Steve down the steps, I can’t notice him moving in any special way. I do notice that he’s tall with dark eyes and hair, like me. But compared to me, Steve is broader and has more of a Paul Newman nose.

Well, I refuse to get my nose fixed, but if I put on a few pounds and start lifting weights, I bet it might help. I’m way too skinny.

“Aaaaa, he’s nothing special,” I declare, feeling a little jealous of the way the girls are looking at him.

“All of the students sitting on the steps turn to me. “Nothing special,” says Mysterious Jane with a smile, and with that, everyone around me laughs.

* * *

A couple of hours later I’m walking out the south side exit of Lincoln heading home for the day. Man, I’m pissed! I can’t believe how much homework that stupid biology teacher gave me! Suddenly I hear, “Hey, Jeff Star!”

I turn to my left and spot Cliff calling after me. “Jeff, that guy Steve you were asking about,” Cliff calls out, “well, here he is.”

There, standing by Cliff is Cool Steve with a smile on his face. As I walk over, I’m feeling a completely unfamiliar nervousness. What’s he smiling about? I think to myself. Cool Steve! Cool Idiot if you ask me. And then, when I open my mouth, I find myself saying in a loud tough voice, “So you’re Steve. I’ve been hearing about you. The word is you’re a Jerk!”

As I glare at Steve, with his Mack Truck shoulders, my heart pounds furiously. From the corner of my eye I notice Steve’s friend, Cliff, watching on, his mouth closed so tight he seems to have no lips. His words from yesterday come to mind—“Steve’s the best athlete I’ve ever personally known.”

Big deal! I’m ready to go at him.

I’m waiting for an angry come on, or a quick jab from his right. My muscles are as tight as a hangman’s noose.

I notice several students who were walking home from school have put on their brakes, and their eyes are flashing back and forth between me and Steve.

Steve’s eyes lower, his forehead creases. Then his eyes look into mine and I see, instead of fury, sadness. “I guess,” he begins to say haltingly, “well… I was hoping… you know… starting a new school here… well, I was hoping the guys would like me.”

Those dark, glimmering eyes of his….

“Jeff,” says Cliff, “why did you say that?”

My eyes dart to him and back to Steve. Cold perspiration beads up on my forehead. The students looking on are almost drooling. What should I do?

Uncomfortably, I find myself shifting my stance as I look into Steve’s eyes…the sadness there…eyebrows down. They look like they are on the verge of becoming watery as he looks directly into my eyes, then down, and then back up into mine. My fury begins to turn into a feeling of downright stupidity. “Listen Steve, I… I don’t know why I said that… everyone I talked wit’ said you were okay.” I take a quick glance at Cliff and the other students watching on…and then hurry away.

* * *

A few minutes later, I’m pushing the elevator button in my apartment lobby. Jeez, I just made a great impression, I think to myself, a wonderful great impression. Steve’s eyes… man, who is this guy?

In junior high, whenever I started to put someone down, I got returned insults and fistfights. Such reactions would turn me into a raving lunatic. Now, with the way Steve acted, I don’t know how to respond to his quiet sadness.

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Tags anger, bully, conflict, conflict management, conflict resolution, Cool Steve, criticism, disrespectful, free social intelligence and emotional intelligence curriculum, insults, John Lennon, Mick Jagger, Mickey Mantle, psychological maturity, respect, The Beatles, violence, wisdom

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CONFESSION OF A FORMER BULLY

Post author By Dr. Jeffrey Rubin
Post date October 27, 2013
12 Comments on CONFESSION OF A FORMER BULLY

A while ago, my wife and I went to Ithaca to see the emotionally charged play, “From White Plains.” The title is meant to suggest plain white kids from a suburb. As the lights first brighten the stage, thirty-year old Dennis hears that he has won the Oscar for his film based on the bullying he and his friend faced in childhood. When Dennis reveals in front of a worldwide audience during his acceptance speech the name of the worst of the bullies whose actions led to his friend’s suicide, the drama begins.

Ethan, the former bully, sees the telecast, as does almost everyone in his life, and his smartphone lights up. Although Ethan quickly and publicly issues a heartfelt apology for his actions as a child, the fiercely outspoken Dennis is not in the least ready for forgiveness.

“Why should a two-minute apology be enough to forgive someone that caused the death of my friend and years of my own tormenting anguish?” he cries.

But Dennis’s friend, Gregory, challenges him to think about his campaign for vengeance. Increasingly sympathetic to Ethan’s pain from the unrelenting public humiliation that Dennis is leading against Ethan, at one point Gregory emotionally declares to Dennis, “It is you who have now turned into a bully!”

The plot is further complicated by the dilemma faced by Ethan’s closest buddy, John. With so much anger being directed toward Ethan, John fears that if he continues to be Ethan’s friend, those who now hate Ethan will also turn against him. Viewers of these scenes, as they watch John, an adult, struggle with this dilemma, get a vivid sense of how much more difficult it must be for kids facing the same type of dilemma whenever they see a friend begin to be targeted by others. Should they stick with their friend through thick and thin, or join with the larger, more powerful group?

I won’t reveal the rest of the play other than to say it’s very well done.

As I left the theater, I found myself thinking about my own past. At first, I vividly recalled the times that I was bullied and how I fantasized that I was Superman and used my powers to violently put all of the bullies into the hospital with broken arms and legs. And then, with angst in the pit of my stomach, I suddenly recalled an incident that occurred when I was in junior high in which I participated in bullying a classmate.

A student in my class, let’s call him Ralph, had a head that was a bit bigger than my other classmates. Another student began to pass around a sheet of paper with a drawing of a caricature of Ralph with an enormous head standing at a microphone stand giving a speech. The sheet of paper asked for signatures to nominate Ralph to be “Head of the Class.” Although I knew Ralph was watching me, I found myself laughing when the paper arrived in my hands. Not only did I laugh, I ended up signing the petition and passed it on to the student next to me, who proceeded to crack up at the site of the caricature.

After class, while walking beside Ralph on our way to our next class, I saw from his eyes and forehead that he was feeling pretty miserable. “Ralph,” I said, “we all get crap from the other kids from time to time. It’s just the stuff that goes on at school.”

“Yeah, well it doesn’t feel too good,” he replied in a choked-up voice.

“If it makes you feel any better,” I said, “well, I like you.”

With that, I felt that I had done my good deed for the day and the incident was over. The next morning, however, when Ralph showed up in the schoolyard just before the line-up bell, the kids in my class began to once again put him down. I noticed there was a girl that I knew Ralph liked standing near by. Although this time I didn’t join in on the teasing, I wanted to speak up and ask the kids to cut it out, but I didn’t have the courage. I found myself afraid that if I said anything to defend Ralph, the bullying would be turned on me. And so, feeling like a coward, I kept my mouth shut.

Fifty years have gone by, and I still feel that I hadn’t done quite enough at times for all the Ralphs out there.

As an adult, I now believe that the best hope to deal effectively with the bullying problem is to have programs at school that change the culture so that the actions of bullies signify ineptitude rather than manliness; and that sticking up for a kid who is being bullied is a sign of a real hero (see my post “Bully and Beyond”).

But for those of us who went to schools that had no such programs, how are we to deal with the ruminating memories that continue to plague us years after we graduated? Can we ever forgive ourselves for the actions we committed in our youth? Can we ever forgive the kids who humiliated us? Why do some people, having been bullied as kids, turn into bullies themselves the first chance that they get? And finally, why do some people who had bullying experiences as kids instead of converting them into hate somehow manage to convert them into acts of kindness?

Over the next few weeks, I hope readers will help me to make sense of all of this.

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Tags anger, bullied, bullies, bullying, conflict management, disrespectful, free social intelligence and emotional intelligence curriculum, From White Plains, insults, suicide, violence, wisdom

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TOUCHING WHILE TRYING TO RESOLVE CONFLICTS: IS THERE A PLACE FOR IT?

Post author By Dr. Jeffrey Rubin
Post date October 20, 2013
12 Comments on TOUCHING WHILE TRYING TO RESOLVE CONFLICTS: IS THERE A PLACE FOR IT?

The chief executive officer (CEO) in the Dilbert comic strip is the bald-headed guy. He has been having quite a few conflicts with his workers. After trying some new approaches to resolve these conflicts, he decides to see if touching might help:

Apparently, one of the CEO’s workers likes the way it feels when he is patted on his head. I don’t think I would like my boss to pat me on my head. Nevertheless, I do wonder if touching someone in certain ways during a conflict may be helpful at times.

When I was growing up, my mother and some of my male acquaintances would use physical contact during a conflict with me in the form of hitting. They did this to try to force me to do whatever they wanted me to do. But in this post, I’m not going to discuss that type of physical contact.

I also received some forms of physical contact in a few non-conflict situations. Affectionate close relatives would hug me when saying hello. In my early days my friends and male cousins would roughhouse in a fun manner. These occurred without any real conflict. Today, I have something very different in mind.

One of the ways I recall someone touching me during a conflict occurred when I was sixteen years old. I was on the Lincoln High baseball team and I happened to show up a little late for practice.

Soon after I arrived, my coach took me off to the side so we could talk in semi-privacy. The other players could still see us, but they were far enough away so that what my coach had to say was just for my ears.

He first looked down at the ground for a long 30 seconds or so, and then he looked squarely into my eyes while putting his hand softly on the back of my shoulder. In a soft voice, he said, “Jeff, I see you as one of the leaders on this team. I’m hoping this is the last time you come late for practice. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, Coach,” I replied. “I’m real sorry about being late.”

He then patted me on my back and said, “OK, Jeff, now go take some fielding practice, and I want to see you hustling out there.”

“You bet, Coach!”

Now, at the time, it never even crossed my mind that my coach had done anything that anyone could possibly think of as wrong. When I was growing up, in sports touching occurred all the time. A coach might put his arm around you while he gave you some instructions.

If you made a nice play, the coach and your team mates might pat you on the arm or back, or even on your rear end.

And both male and female athletes and coaches would give each other enthusiastic hugs.

My baseball coach had done something a little different when he touched me. Usually touching in sports occurred during the rough and tumble of a game or as a sign that you did something good. My baseball coach had touched me, not for any of those two reasons, but because he was trying to work out a conflict he was having with me. And it worked. I never came late again, and not only did I not think he did anything wrong, I found that I had an increased amount of respect for him because of the way he handled the situation.

Soon after, I found myself reflecting upon what he did. He spoke to me in relative privacy. When he began, he looked down in a way that I could tell that what I did led to him feeling unhappy. And then, when he looked into my eyes and said that he felt that I was viewed as one of the team leaders, there was something about what he said and how he said it that led me to feel that he genuinely liked me. At the same time, he told me what he wanted me to do in the future in very clear terms–to be on time for practice.

After that incident, I found myself often using a similar approach, and I found it very helpful. As a result, I didn’t think there could be any problem with it. But as the years went on, from time to time I have heard individuals complain about someone touching them in similar situations and not liking it. And so, I began to ask some questions to see if I could come to understand the reasons for our experiences being so very different.

One teenager whom we will call Judy told me that a guy at school made a suggestion to her that made her very angry.

“Then what happened,” I asked.

“How did you feel about the way the guy handled the situation?” I asked.

“I didn’t like the way he touched me,” Judy replied. “He squeezed my shoulder and it felt threatening.”

“Hmmm,” I replied. “Something about the way he squeezed your shoulder felt uncomfortable. I see. What if he just touched you gently in the back of your shoulder while saying what he said? Would you have felt more comfortable with that?”

Judy thought about this for a few seconds and then looked up at me and smiled. “That would have been okay,” she replied. “There was something about the way he actually touched me that felt creepy, and I didn’t like it at all.”

Although Judy said that if the boy would have touched her gently on the back, she would have felt okay about that, I have heard some other folks say that they don’t like to be touched at all.

So what do we do about this? Do we stop touching everyone in these types of situations because some people feel uncomfortable with being touched? Do we begin to think about what kinds of touching might be okay, and what types of touching is not okay?

I really can’t answer this type of question for everyone. It would be very helpful if readers over the next few weeks share with us their thoughts about this, so we have more information to judge. In the meantime, I will say this. If you do try the touching approach with someone, I think you would be wise to watch carefully how the other person is reacting. If the person begins to appear tense, with a crinkling of the forehead, a stiffening of the body or by pulling away from the touch, I encourage you to back off and offer an apology. Perhaps saying something like this might be helpful, “I sense that you don’t like me to touch you. I’ll keep that in mind in the future and respect your feelings. I’m sorry I made you feel uncomfortable.” Then, a gentle smile might ease some of the tension.

Well, I hope this post gives you some ideas to think about, and, as always, I hope to be reading your comments real soon.

Have a great week,

Jeff

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Tags coach, conflict management, conflict resolution, free social intelligence and emotional intelligence curriculum, insults, psychological maturity, respect, touching, wisdom

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Teenage Suicide and Cyberbullying: A Case Study

Post author By Dr. Jeffrey Rubin
Post date September 15, 2013
7 Comments on Teenage Suicide and Cyberbullying: A Case Study

One morning I was getting ready to write my weekly blog post when I decided to first glance over at the New York Times‘ front page. A wave of sadness washed over me as I spotted the following headline:

Girl’s Suicide Points to Rise in Apps Used by Cyberbullies

According to the Times, 12-year-old Rebecca Sedwick leaped to her death after more than a year of being cyberbullied by a coterie of 15 middle-school children who urged her to kill herself.

Rebecca’s mother, Tricia Norman, said the texts her daughter was receiving were full of hate: “Why are you still alive?” “You’re ugly.”

Ms. Norman complained to school officials for several months about the bullying, and when little changed, she pulled Rebecca out of school. But because Rebecca used the phone apps ask.fm, and Kik and Voxer — the bullying continued.

A number of suicides by young people have been linked to ask.fm, and online petitions have been started to make the site more responsive to bullying. The company ultimately responded this year by introducing an easy-to-see button to report bullying and saying it would hire more moderators.

Questions have been raised about whether Rebecca’s old school, Crystal Lake Middle School, did enough last year to help stop the bullying; some of it, including pushing and hitting, took place on school grounds. The same students also appear to be involved in sending out the hate-filled online messages away from school.

Nancy Woolcock, the assistant superintendent in charge of antibullying programs for Polk County Schools, said the school received one bullying complaint from Rebecca and her mother in December about traditional bullying, not cyberbullying. After law enforcement investigated, Rebecca’s class schedule was changed. Ms. Woolcock said the school also has an extensive antibullying campaign and takes reports seriously.

But Ms. Norman said the school should have done more. Officials told her that Rebecca would receive an escort as she switched classes, but that did not happen, she said.

Given the outcome, I too wish that more had been done. It is my sincere hope that all of my readers will take a minute to pause to experience this sad loss of Rebecca.

A few months ago I published a review of the movie, “Bully.” Today, some of what I wrote back then bears repeating.

The movie’s emotional impact has been an important part of the emergence of a coalition working toward altering intolerable conditions too often regarded as “just kids being kids.”

The movie has spawned The Bully Project, an online site where people can learn more about dealing with bullying. There, kids who are bullied can learn that they are not alone. And educators can learn about how to set up a viewing of the movie for their entire school and to follow up the viewing with classroom discussions.

In one video that we can access at the site, we see an entire school going to the movie and then getting the reactions from students. One kid reports that there was not a dry eye in the auditorium. Others admitted that they had bullied, but now realized it was wrong.

As my regular readers know, also available online is this blog, From Insults to Respect. The blog can be used as a free curriculum that teaches the social skills to deal with these challenging experiences. For schools that already have an extensive antibullying program, the blog can be used to further reinforce its lessons. For schools that don’t have such a program, or has one that uses a mere one or two lessons per year, the blog can serve as an ongoing forum to promote peaceful conflict resolution techniques.

A particularly powerful way to teach skills that deal with bullying is through narratives that are designed to change the valuation of bullying to make it signify ineptitude rather than manliness. The movie, “Bully,” is one such narrative. The Cool Steve Stories, a trilogy of novels, offers another.

There we become friends with a hero that rejects bullying and yet still manages to achieve respect.

The gut-wrenching story about 12-year-old Rebecca’s suicide cries out to us that for too long we have not done enough to address the awful injustice we find in and around our schools. May her story spur us on to do better.

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Some people will enjoy reading this blog by beginning with the first post and then moving forward to the next more recent one; then to the next one; and so on. This permits readers to catch up on some ideas that were presented earlier and to move through all of the ideas in a systematic fashion to develop their emotional and social intelligence. To begin at the very first post you can click HERE.

Tags anger, bullied, bullies, bullying, conflict, conflict management, criticism, free social intelligence and emotional intelligence curriculum, insults, negative criticism, suicide, taunting

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ANGER SUPPRESSION VERSUS CHALLENGE

Post author By Dr. Jeffrey Rubin
Post date September 1, 2013
7 Comments on ANGER SUPPRESSION VERSUS CHALLENGE

Despite the ample evidence that anger is fraught with danger, human debasement, and ineffective functioning, many people seem reluctant to put their heart and soul into learning more effective alternatives. Why is this? One of the biggest reasons is that our culture presents in both direct and subtle ways the theory that suppressing anger can be harmful. Here we will explore this theory. As we do so, we will learn that we can, if we so choose, sail from the region of Anger to Challenge—and thereby improve our chances for survival and a safer and more pleasant ride on the great Sea of Conflict.

SUPPRESSING ANGER

According to Sigmund Freud, if anger reactions are inhibited, they are replaced by substitutes, some of which may lead to harm. In The standard edition of the complete works of Sigmund Freud, (Strachey, 1974), the clearest statement about this appears below:

When Bismarck had to suppress his angry feelings in the King’s presence, he relieved himself afterwards by smashing a valuable vase on the floor. This deliberate replacement of one motor act by another corresponds exactly to the replacement of natural pain-reflexes by other muscular contractions….(p. 202)

We transpose the excitement of anger from the adequate reaction to another one, and we feel relieved provided it is used up by any strong motor innervations.

If, however, the affect can find no discharge of excitement of any kind along these lines, then the situation is the same with anger as with fright and anxiety. The intracerebral excitation is powerfully increased, but is employed neither in associative nor motor activity…. The excitement arising from the affective idea is “converted” into a somatic phenomenon. ( p. 206)

Freud believed that some of these somatic phenomenons were undesirable. After Freud, others promoted this idea. For example, Dr. Albert Ellis, one of the most popular psychologists of the twentieth century, stated that anger suppression “can easily result in psychosomatic reactions, including high blood pressure, heart problems, ulcers, and various other physical conditions.”[1]

In an effort to test this hypothesis, scientific individuals began to carry out some systematic studies. Some seemed to find support for this notion that suppression can be harmful. For example, Hokanson,[2] Baker & Schaie,[3] and Gambaro & Rabin[4] (1969) found that angered adults often achieved a faster decrease in blood pressure to baseline levels if they counteraggressed toward their antagonist than if they were given no opportunities to respond. In other studies carried out by Holmes[5] and Kahn[6] however, counteraggression was found to sustain elevated arousal, whereas nonaggressive activities reduced it.

Dr. Albert Bandura,[7] attempting to make sense of these apparently contradictory findings, carefully examined this body of research and finally concluded that the physiological tension of angry individuals is determined by what they do, the perceived consequences of what they do, and also what they think. People who believe that freely expressing their anger will discourage future negative responding from their antagonist experience relief after anger outbursts. Those who believe that freely expressing their anger will spur even more severe threatening responses from their antagonists maintain their elevated blood pressure subsequent to angry outbursts. Those who believe kindly responses to provocation will discourage future negative responding from the antagonist experience relief after providing a kind response. Those who believe kindly responses to a provocation will lead their antagonist to take advantage of them will maintain their elevated blood pressure after providing a kind response.

James J. Gross has reviewed more recent research on suppression in his fine article titled, “Emotion Regulation: Taking Stock and Moving Forward” (Emotion, Volume 13, June 2013, pp 359-365).

“Affectively, suppression leads to decreased positive but not negative emotion experience, increased sympathetic nervous system responses, and greater activation in emotion-generative brain regions such as the amygdala. By contrast, reappraisal leads to decreased levels of negative emotion experience and increased positive emotion experience, has no impact on or even decreases sympathetic nervous system responses, and leads to lesser activation in emotion-generative brain regions such as the amygdala and ventral striatum (Gross & Thompson, 2007). Cognitively, suppression leads to worse memory. By contrast, reappraisal either has no impact on subsequent memory, or actually improves it, and can enhance exam performance (Jamieson, Mendes, Blackstock, & Schmader, 2010; Richards & Gross, 2000). Socially, suppression leads to less liking from partners, and to an increase in partners’ blood pressure levels. Reappraisal, by contrast, has no detectable adverse consequences for social affiliation in the laboratory (Butler et al.,2003).”

Anger Management Training without Suppression

The association of anger suppression with anger management training is understandable, for when one has spent many years acting one way, learning alternative behaviors can be frustrating. This uncomfortable sensation may be seen as the suppression of one’s “natural” mode of behavior. It’s a similar experience to how actors might feel when first learning a new role or golfers a new swing. At first the skill to be learned feels awkward, and the early phase of learning can leave them to observe their heart racing and their blood pressure skyrocketing.

However, by designing a program in small incremental steps and heeding the following suggestions, the feeling of suppressing one’s natural behavior can be largely reduced or even completely eliminated.

First of all, expect occasional missteps. By studying the posts on this blog, it is likely that several situations will occur that you now find yourself handling much better than before. If the response by others you are engaged with ends up being favorable, this will encourage you to utilize the same approach again and again until it begins to feel natural, that is, second nature to you. Other skills will come off a bit awkward or you will get a less than favorable response, and you may experience frustration. When you try the skill again, you may now feel unsure and your effort may lead you to interpret this as suppressing a more “natural” way to respond. You may, therefore, give up and conclude that you are helpless to make a meaningful change in this type of skill.

The solution here is to reread the section that discusses the skill, and then practice over and over in your mind a narrative that has you envisioning utilizing the skill. When you can smoothly imagine in detail carrying out the skill, try it out again in real life. You may have to do this a few times until you get it right.

As you increase your skill to deal with anger arousing situations, your confidence in handling them will increase. Because anger arises when we experience a threat, with your increase in confidence you will then find you are less likely to experience situations that use to feel threatening as threatening. Consequently, you will be less likely to suppress anger because you won’t experience anger as often.

For more difficult to change behavior, form a small group of two to four people who agree to work together on the skill. Then assign a leader on a rotating basis. Conflicts in which the group members typically experience anger are identified. Then a video recording is created with the group members serving as the actors. One scenario is acted out demonstrating what actually occurred. Then a non-angry approach to dealing with the conflict that has the support of the group as being more effective than the angry approach is created. Video recording devices are readily available these days because of apps on many phones.

Keep in mind that the acting doesn’t have to be an Academy Award winning portrayal. Just a fun process is encouraged. By participating in this acting process and then viewing the video recordings displaying alternative behaviors, some will find they will adopt the skills in an effortless manner.

In the next part of this group process, competent behaviors are further encouraged by creating another set of video recordings using slightly different scenarios. Concrete examples are thus repeatedly affectively, cognitively, and behaviorally rehearsed while clear audiovisual feedback is provided. Observers can ask to pause at a little section that worked particularly well and review it a few more times until it becomes more and more familiar.

Throughout this process, some of the group participants’ suggestions may begin to feel uncomfortable to one or more of the other participants. This can interfere with the training process if poorly handled. I have found it useful from time to time to preface my recommendations with the same gentle admonishment that the famous physicist Niels Bohr used to give his students: “Every sentence I utter should be regarded by you not as an assertion but as a question.” This tends to disarm those who find that they are resisting suggestions, sets the stage for a helpful collaboration, and fosters interest from the satisfaction derived from fulfilling one’s own internal standards.

As you go through this process several times, you will find more and more that your behavior will begin to change in real life situations. At such times, you will often find people reacting very positively to your new style, and this will further encourage you to continue to utilize it. You won’t feel like you are suppressing anger, but rather, comfortably learning a new set of skills that works better than anger.

At other times, even a skilled real life response to a situation that had previously led to anger arousal will be met with someone acting in an undesirable manner. The group you have formed will provide you the opportunity to have some support to address this type of experience. Together, you can continue the problem solving required for addressing a wider and wider range of situations until you feel sufficiently confident to go it alone. It is important to keep in mind that even the most skilled techniques will not produce a perfect result on every occasion. The best we can hope for is to increase the probability that we will obtain a favorable outcome.

If you find it difficult to identify a small group of individuals to do the video recording skill development just described, consider hiring a professional counselor who will go through the process with you. Most professional counselors and psychologists that I’ve met are particularly skilled at modeling empathic understanding, a crucial skill that is necessary for working through anger arousing situations.

[1] A. Ellis, 1977, How to Live with—and without—Anger, New York: Reader’s Guide Press, page 200.

[2] J. E. Hokanson, 1970, “Psychophysiological Evaluation of the Catharsis Hypothesis,” In E. I. Megargee & J. E. Hohanson (Eds.), The Dynamics of Aggression (pp. 74-86), New York: Harper & Row.

[3] J. W. Baker & K. W. Schaie, 1969, “Effects of Aggressing ‘Alone’ or ‘with another’ on Physiological and Psychological Arousal, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 12, 80-96.

[4] S. Gambaro & A. I. Rabin, 1969, “Diastolic Blood Pressure Responses Following Direct and Displaced Aggression after Anger Arousal in High- and Low-Guilt Subjects,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 12, 87-94.

[5] D. S. Holmes, 1966, “Effects of Overt Aggression on Level of Physiological Arousal,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 4, 189-194.

[6] M. Kahn, 1966, “The Physiology of Catharsis,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 3, 278-286.

[7] A. Bandura, 1973, Aggression: A Social Learning Analysis, New Jersey: Prentice Hall.

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Tags anger, angry feelings, challenge, conflict management, free social intelligence and emotional intelligence curriculum, frustration, insults, psychological maturity, respect, sigmund freud, wisdom, works of sigmund freud

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THE MOST MATURE LEVEL OF RESPONDING TO CRITICISM: ADVANCE LESSON

Post author By Dr. Jeffrey Rubin
Post date August 11, 2013
2 Comments on THE MOST MATURE LEVEL OF RESPONDING TO CRITICISM: ADVANCE LESSON

Are there different levels of maturity for responding to criticism? If so, what is the most mature level?

Over recent weeks we have been pursuing an answer to these questions (see for example, Responding to Criticism: Four Levels of Maturity and Responding to Criticism: The Most Mature Level). During this pursuit, I put forth a tentative proposal for a most mature level because I think that’s a good way to get into these types of questions. Not only have I described what I think is the most mature level, I have presented arguments against this most mature level and arguments for it.

When I have taught these types of lessons in a classroom setting, despite all that I have already said on this topic, many of my students continue to raise some additional questions. And so, in this post I will try to clarify some points of confusion that have been brought to my attention by my students over the years.

Clarifying the Difference Between a Pawn and an Origin.

Responding to criticism at the most mature level requires that we seek to lead the criticizer to feel more like an origin than a pawn.

Many of my students have asked me to talk more about this point.

When people feel like pawns, they feel pushed around, and they feel that they are like puppets with someone else pulling the strings. Somewhere in our hearts and minds we realize that bossy people create a revolt against perceived illegitimate power. Calvin’s father, in the following comic, begins to realize this.

Feeling like a pawn may be contrasted with feeling like I have an influence over what I do—that I have played at least a part in originating my behavior.

When you respond to criticism at the most mature level, you seek to come across as “not being bossy.” By trying to come up with some way to steer in the direction of the criticism, you come across as showing that you can be influenced by the person who is criticizing you.

Providing More Examples of Steering

After explaining a little more about the difference between feeling like a pawn and feeling like an origin, many of my students ask me to provide some more examples of people using steering.

In the DeCharms study I discussed earlier (Pawns in The Classroom), teachers who had learned to steer put fifteen minutes aside once a week to ask students to criticize how things are going during the week. The teachers in the study didn’t actually use the word “criticize.” The students were asked to provide “suggestions.” Suggestions, as we have discussed are, in a sense, criticism because people only make suggestions when they first make some sort of evaluation of what they perceive. Based on the evaluation, they then declare what they think might be an improvement.

The teachers were taught to listen to the student suggestions in a manner very similar to the description of level four on the five levels rating system. However, when teachers who use steering feel a suggestion does not make sense they do not merely attempt to disagree without being disagreeable. Instead, they try to use some aspect of the suggestion so the student feels the suggestion has been taken seriously.

For example, let’s say a student suggests that if the class works hard all day, the last hour should be free time. Suppose the teacher, let’s call her Mrs. Jones, feels that a daily hour of free time would waste too much learning time. Mrs. Jones can still steer in the direction of the suggestion. That is, she can explain her concern about wasting too much time; then she can propose that if by the end of the week the students had done a spectacular job all week long, the last hour on Fridays they will be given the freedom to choose either to get a head start on homework, write in their journal, or read a library book; then, after proposing this, Mrs. Jones asks the class if they want to give this a try. Notice that she is using the student’s suggestion of free time to influence where she steers the activities for the week.

Steering frequently ends up with the criticized person offering some type of choice to the criticizer. But there is a difference between providing a choice using a steering model and offering a choice in general. Consider a teacher who offers a choice to a student by saying, “Either you do the assignment or fail the course. Those are your choices.” This is not an example of steering. Nor is this—a teacher says, “I’m giving you a choice between playing ‘Math Blaster’ or ‘Race to the Moon.’ Hurry up and pick one, I don’t have all day!”

A teacher who is using steering would be more likely to say something like, “Here are two games that teach some math skills. Which one do you think would be best for you?” Notice the difference in attitude between the approaches. In the first two examples, the choice may not be perceived as a genuine choice but more of a demand to pick either one or the other. In the Peanuts comic below, we get a sense of how strong a reaction can occur when a child comes to believe the choice he or she is given is not really genuine.

Steering by teachers demonstrates a degree of respect in that the teacher is genuinely interested in the student’s opinion and is willing to have that opinion count in deciding what will be done.

Here’s an example involving a father and his son.

In the For better or for Worse comic, Michael criticizes his father’s decision that it’s time to go to bed. The father, no doubt, disagrees with his son’s criticism. Yet, rather than just saying his son is wrong, he seeks instead to come up with a way that utilizes some aspect of his son’s criticism to come up with a new alternative.

I think that the father, by asking his son to ask EVERY kid in town about bedtimes was unreasonable, but I trust that you get the point I’m trying to make in this example.

In the Luann comic below, Knute’s effort to work out what to do on his upcoming date with Crystal is evident.

Knute’s effort to find something to do that they will both like probably will be far more helpful in establishing a relationship with Crystal than if he insists on taking her to a monster truck rally.

Now, some people confuse steering with compromise. Steering can involve a compromise, but oftentimes it leads to something better than a compromise. The classic example of a compromise occurs when someone wants to buy something, let’s say a used car. The car dealership wants ten thousand dollars for the car, but the buyer wants to pay only five thousand dollars for it. In the end, they settle on $7,500. Both parties don’t end up getting quite what they had hoped, but they settle so they can close the deal. Both parties may walk away a little disappointed.

Oftentimes, when steering occurs, neither party is disappointed.

Steering envisions that the person criticized makes an effort to see if there is some way out of the conflict, a way where two opposing views can be reframed into an original and larger context that provides new values to both parties. This may be difficult and at times not always possible or desirable, but as we move along, I hope to show that it is possible far more often than commonly believed.

Rudyard Kipling’s Poem, If

Back in 1897, Rudyard Kipling wrote one of his most famous poems—If. Relevant to our discussion is the part that says:

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise…

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

When someone is blaming, doubting, hating, or lying about you, they very likely are criticizing you and in a rather unflattering manner. How would it be best to respond to this?

Among the things Mr. Kipling encourages you to do is to keep your head even when others are losing theirs—admittedly, not always an easy thing to do. He urges you to trust yourself when all doubt you and make allowance for their doubting too. I’m not sure I completely agree with this, for spending some time in doubt seems to prod me, at times, to consider some important alternatives—but I think I have some sense of what he was trying to get at here.

Although I’m tempted to analyze Kipling’s poetry with a fine tooth comb, the thing about poetry is that the poet seeks to capture more than what can be analyzed. With just the right mixture of words and phrasing, Kipling strove to capture a certain subtle emotion and attitude.

I present the poem for your consideration in hopes that you will see that there is something in it that captures the emotion and attitude of the two highest levels of the five levels rating system. If you read the poem a couple of times and then the description of the two highest levels, you may find, when taken together, that they share a truth beyond words.

Well, that’s today’s lesson. I hope you enjoyed it.

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Tags conflict, conflict management, criticism, free social intelligence and emotional intelligence curriculum, insults, maturity levels, negative criticism, psychological maturity, wisdom

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CRITICIZING YOURSELF MATURELY: A LESSON FROM BLONDIE

Post author By Dr. Jeffrey Rubin
Post date July 14, 2013
No Comments on CRITICIZING YOURSELF MATURELY: A LESSON FROM BLONDIE

Over the course of the last few weeks I presented some lessons that aim to get you to think about immature and mature ways to provide negative criticism to yourself (see CRITICIZING YOURSELF: FIVE LEVELS OF MATURITY and CRITICIZING YOURSELF MATURELY: A COMIC STRIP LOVER’S GUIDE). As I’ve pointed out on many occasions, becoming a master at utilizing the higher levels of maturity takes more than just thinking about them on a single day. It requires some practice utilizing the concepts over several occasions. And so, from time to time, I insert a little practice session to remind you of the previously presented ideas and to give you a little practice utilizing them. Today, we will take a look at a Blondie comic example. There, you will find that after Dagwood gives Blondie a statue she sees as ugly, she criticizes herself. Please take a look at her response to her self-criticism, and see if you think she handled it maturely.

As you think about how maturely Blondie criticizes herself in this comic, perhaps it would be of help to look at the five levels of providing criticism that we discussed earlier:

This level requires displaying one or more of the following:

Cries without stating what the crying is about
Physically attacks themselves
Damages property

2. This level requires displaying one or both of the following:

They do not explain what the offending behavior is, but instead express displeasure with glares, insults, shouting, silence, or threats that do not involve bodily harm. (For example, calling themselves a jerk”)
Threatens bodily harm regardless of what else is said.

3. The criticizer clearly states the criticism with enough detail so the criticized person, if he or she wills, can improve the behavior, idea, or appearance, but couples it with glares, insults, shouts, or threats that are not about bodily harm.

4. The criticizer states the criticism without bodily attacks, damaging property, glares, insults, threats, or shouts, and with enough details so that the criticized person, if he or she wills, can improve the behavior, idea, or appearance. If the person becomes defensive or angry, the criticizer empathizes without returning, glares, insults, threats, or shouts.

5. When the criticizer provides criticism, he or she does so in a manner very similar to a level four response, but beforehand, the criticizer considers the situation that he or she is in. As a result of such considerations, the criticizer may decide to alter the criticism.

Now that you refreshed your memory of the five levels, does any one of them seem to match how Blondie criticized herself? Think about this, if you will, and then you can have some fun comparing your thoughts with mine.

My answer: Obviously, what we see is not meant to display Blondie’s whole response, but there is enough here to hazard a guess for our educational goal of familiarizing readers with the maturity rating system.

Blondie frames her feeling as “terrible.” It would be a sign of higher maturity if she conceptualized her experience instead as “sad” and “a valuable emotion that will lead to her thinking more deeply about something very important to her—her relationship with her husband.”

We know from what we see here and from observing her behavior over the years that Blondie is a very caring person. So, perhaps she is the type to be compassionate toward her own limitations. She doesn’t hit herself, so she may not be at level 1. In the last box, she may be crying and this would indicate her response deserves a level 1 rating unless she also displays some set of responses that deserves a higher rating.

When Blondie calls herself insensitive, it comes pretty close to matching level 2. Admittedly, this is a tricky call. One reason for the difficulty is that she might not be really insulting herself at this point. Instead, she might be displaying the process of thinking through the best course of action for herself. That is, she might be laying out for her consideration the value of being considerate.

If she had obviously put herself down by calling herself a rat for example, this response would be easier to rate as a level 2. But the descriptor, “insensitive,” is very relevant to what concerns her about her actions. I like her concern for her husband. I view empathy as a sign of higher levels of maturity.

In the last frame, she is taking some time to deal with her challenging experience. Maybe she is actually using the “sensory focus” technique we recently discussed (see DEALING WITH EMOTIONAL PAIN). “Sensory focus” involves turning your attention to the physical qualities of the pain and observing the sensations you are experiencing. This can convert challenging feelings into a search that leads to ever higher levels of truth.

I think this is where we leave Blondie in the comic we are analyzing. Without being able to discuss this episode with her or to observe further how the events continue to unfold, I’m going to just take a very tentative guess that she is indeed trying to figure out how to respond in a sensitive way toward Dagwood, and that she will not really insult herself. In time, she probably would have displayed a response very close to a level 4 or 5.

Thanks for visiting today. I hope to see you soon.

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Some people will enjoy reading this blog by beginning with the first post and then moving forward to the next more recent one; then to the next one; and so on. This permits readers to catch up on some ideas that were presented earlier and to move through all of the ideas in a systematic fashion to develop their emotional and social intelligence. To begin at the very first post you can click HERE.

Tags Blondie, conflict, conflict management, emotional intelligence, free social intelligence and emotional intelligence curriculum, insults, maturity, maturity levels, negative criticism, self-criticism, types of criticism, wisdom

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CRITICIZING YOURSELF: FIVE LEVELS OF MATURITY

Post author By Dr. Jeffrey Rubin
Post date June 23, 2013
4 Comments on CRITICIZING YOURSELF: FIVE LEVELS OF MATURITY

Earlier, I wrote a post titled “Providing Negative Criticism: Five Levels of Maturity.” When I gave examples of people using the five levels, they typically involved someone providing criticism to someone else. And yet, if you think about it, you probably criticize yourself at least as much as you criticize others.

So, it is time that we begin to take a good hard look to see if the five levels of maturity apply equally well when we think about providing negative criticism to ourselves? To do so, please take another look at the five levels that have now been rewritten so they can be used to rate the way you criticize yourself.. As you do, imagine a recent time that you criticized yourself and see which of the levels best matches your style of criticizing yourself.

PROVIDING NEGATIVE CRITICISM TO YOURSELF: FIVE LEVELS OF MATURITY

Below you will find preliminary descriptions of how people at five developmental levels of maturity provide negative criticism to themselves. Level one is the most immature and uses observations of babies as its starting point. Each successive level is more mature.

1.This level requires displaying one or more of the following:

Cries without stating what the crying is about.
Physically harms you,
Damages property.

2. This level requires displaying one or both of the following:

You do not explain what the offending behavior is, but instead express displeasure with glares, insults, shouting, silence, or threats that do not involve bodily harm.
Threatens bodily harm regardless of what else is said.

3. You clearly state the criticism with enough detail so you can improve the behavior, idea, or appearance, but couple it with glares, insults, shouts, or threats that are not about bodily harm.

4. You state the criticism without bodily attacks, damaging property, glares, insults, threats, or shouts, and with enough details so that you can improve the behavior, idea, or appearance.

5. When you provide criticism, you do so in a manner very similar to a level four response, but beforehand, you consider the situation that you are in. As a result of such considerations, you may decide to alter the criticism.

APPLYING THE FIVE LEVELS TO SELF-CRITICISM

One of the last times I criticized myself, I was playing golf, and when I swung at the ball, I missed it.

I found myself crying out, “Man, that was stupid!” As I saw myself doing this, I quickly realized that such a response was not very helpful. I moved away from any more insults and just took a moment to experience the frustration within me. After about five seconds of this, I then realized that I was with other golfers, and they had just seen me calling myself stupid. I looked each of them in their eyes and smiled. Then, I reviewed in my mind what a perfect swing in that situation is suppose to look like. Finally, I stepped into position and took another swing.

How Did I Do?

Well, at least I didn’t break my club slamming it to the ground, as I had done a few times when I first began to learn the game. A couple of times when I did slam the clubs down, I broke the club and had to go buy a new one–thus, it was a costly mistake. If I had acted that way–that is, by breaking my club–I would have acted at level 2. It has been years since the last time I slammed a club down, a clear sign that I matured in this domain.

The way I acted the last time was a little more mature than a level two.

You might have noticed as I was describing my recent incident of self-criticism that my criticism and my response to the criticism seems to have merged together, and it is not easy to tell at what point “providing criticism” and “responding to criticism” is actually taking place. Therefore, it is a good idea, as we think about these issues to spend some time reviewing the lesson I presented earlier about responding to criticism (see HERE).

As I recall what happened the last time I was out on the golf course, I’m going to say that I initially responded at level 3, but then quickly recovered and then responded at level 5.

Another Example

Our next example of self-criticism is from the comic strip of Calvin and Hobbes by the brilliant Bill Watterson. Calvin’s stuffed tiger, Hobbes, is criticizing Calvin’s remark about his summer vacation coming to an end. We understand, of course, that what Hobbes says to Calvin is, in actuality, what Calvin is saying to himself. After Hobbes criticizes Calvin’s remark (“Oh come on, you spent half the summer complaining how bored you were.”) Calvin responds. Please study his response, and then see if you can rate what level of maturity it is at.

My answer: Hobbes has criticized Calvin for exaggerating about how awful life will be now that summer vacation is over since he often complained of being bored. “I did?” he responds. It seems to me that Calvin is really asking this of himself. He then curls his pointer finger and puts it on his lip. This is a classic pose indicating deep thought. While he is doing this, he says to himself, “How strange. I must have been delirious from having so much fun.” In the next scene, we see Calvin imagining the type of fun he had had over the summer. It depicts Calvin and Hobbes watching TV with the sound blasting, eating Sugar Bombs, with Calvin’s eyes in a delirious, hypnotized stare.

I’m leaning toward giving Calvin a level 4 rating because he is showing me that he is giving some real thought to the criticism, and I like his apparent sense of humor as he imagines in an almost burlesque type of way his wasting all of his time over the summer.

Now, I understand that some might look at this image of Calvin wasting his summer in front of a TV and think he is mocking his choice of summer activities, thus insulting himself. When people use humor while responding to criticism, it can be taken as an insult, or as a good-natured way to smooth over some rough parts of the processing that goes along with criticism. Only Calvin, in this scenario, would be able to say if he felt it as an insult, or as something comical.

Let’s Try Another One

Here’s a young teenager who provides self-criticism at a pretty obvious level 2.

Here, the young lady kinda tells herself what her criticism is about–She recalls missing an important basketball shot and she declares that she let her team down. But she doesn’t say how she can begin to improve the situation. Instead, she begins to insult herself.

What if she had handled the situation a little differently:

Notice I blackened out what level I think this self-criticism is at. That’s because I would like you to decide if this is a more mature level or not.

There’s Some Controversy About this Example

Some of my students argue that the example in which the girl insults herself should be given a higher rating then the second example. Here’s their reason. If you insult yourself, they claim, it will more likely prod you into doing something constructive than if you ignore it. Therefore it should be viewed as at least as high a level as the example in which the girl decides to take some time to calm down before deciding what next steps she might take.

Here are two quick explanations for why insulting yourself deserves a lower rating than the taking some time to calm down approach. First, just because someone takes some time out to calm down doesn’t mean they will forget what happened. It is possible that their efforts to take some time to calm down will lead to calming down sooner than throwing insults at themselves, and within that calmness a more reasoned approach may come about.

Second, theoretically those people who get into the habit of insulting themselves when they criticize themselves are at an increased risk of insulting someone else who criticizes them. This is oftentimes not a good thing because when people are insulted it increases the likelihood they will do something that is harmful to the insulter. It is, therefore, a good idea to practice not insulting yourself when you criticize yourself because that practice will make it easier to avoid criticizing others when they criticize you.

Well, there’s your lesson for today. It was designed to begin the process of thinking about the most mature way to criticize yourself. I will have a lot more to say about this in future posts.

For those of you who seek to become masters at dealing with name calling, insults and teasing, here’s an important exercise to do over the next week. Put aside three five-minute periods to do the following:

Think about the last time you criticized yourself. Recall what led to the criticism and how you felt. Spend a full minute just observing the feelings that come up as you recall the incident. Then write down what you said to yourself as you provided the criticism. Finally, write down what you think would have been a maturer way to handle that situation.

Thanks for visiting this week, and I hope you come back soon.

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Some people will enjoy reading this blog by beginning with the first post and then moving forward to the next more recent one; then to the next one; and so on. This permits readers to catch up on some ideas that were presented earlier and to move through all of the ideas in a systematic fashion to develop their emotional and social intelligence. To begin at the very first post you can click HERE.

Tags anger, challenge, conflict, conflict management, criticism, displeasure, emotional intelligence, insults, maturity, negative criticism, psychological maturity, threats, types of criticism, wisdom

anger Bullied conflict management conflict resolution insults interpersonal conflicts narratives social intelligence teasing The Cool Steve Stories wisdom

THE CREATION OF THE COOL STEVE STORIES

Post author By Dr. Jeffrey Rubin
Post date June 16, 2013
No Comments on THE CREATION OF THE COOL STEVE STORIES

It was way back in 1972 on a pleasant autumn day. As I stepped out of the sparkling sunshine into the shadowy confines of the Coney Island Child Psychiatric Clinic, I was greeted by three people who could have been movie actors. One was a beautiful social worker in her late twenties, with flowing brunette hair; another, a tall, handsome psychologist in his early thirties; and the third, a psychiatrist who looked like he was trying out for a part as Sigmund Freud, with his long, graying beard and pipe. Initially they were warm and friendly but, within a few minutes, switched to more earnest expressions. The psychiatrist took charge at this point, informing me that I would be working with eight very troubled male teenagers—two individually, and six in a group. My first job teaching conflict resolution under the auspices of a real life professional organization had begun.

It was a period of time before the current practice of converting the psychological concerns of all children brought to a psychiatric clinic into a language of illness believed to be due to chemical imbalances. The prescribing of pills as the main—oftentimes only—action offered was something I had never dreamed of. Instead, a staff of professionals and several advanced psychology students from Brooklyn College sought to provide empathic emotional support, understand the conflicts the children were experiencing, and guide them toward more mature coping. I was one of the Brooklyn College students.

Achieving the first two goals proved to be a breeze. The kids’ hunger for attention made it easy to develop genuinely enjoyable relationships. And the way the boys spoke and interacted readily revealed volumes on the topic of conflicts with which they struggled on a daily basis. Guiding the boys toward more mature coping, however, tripped me up.

I remember one of my first attempts. A burly thirteen-year old boy with wild, unkempt hair began to express his anger about a kid at school who had called him a jerk.

“Called you a jerk!?” I replied. “Yikes! What did you do about it?”

“I shoved him.”

“How’d that work out?”

“I got sent to the principal.”

“Do you like to get sent to the principal?”

“NO!”

“Hmm, if you don’t like it, maybe we can figure out how to respond to a name caller in a better way.”

“If someone puts me down, I ain’t gonna let him get away with it.”

“I can understand that. Let’s discuss a few ways to deal with name calling that doesn’t let the other guy get away with anything and yet won’t get you sent to the principal’s office.”

“Na. If that guy calls me a name again, I’m really gonna let him have it! He better not start with me again!”

“I can see just thinking about this is really making you angry.”

“Yeah, it is!”

“Well, I have good news for you. I think I can help you to come up with some ways that you can handle name calling that you would respect but won’t get you in trouble. Wouldn’t that be a good thing?”

“Listen, I don’t wanna talk about this anymore!”

At this point, I realized that, for now, to pursue this any longer would be counterproductive.

Shortly after this, I noticed that the two black kids in the group I was working with were frequently being put down by the four white kids.

Some words got thrown back and forth that could have made a Brooklyn boy blush. Well, okay, maybe not a Brooklyn boy, but most people. Anyway, my efforts to address this were, unfortunately, met with the boys shouting over me as their anger flamed into rage.

“You’re doing just fine,” my supervisor assured me. “Working with kids requires great patience.”

I would have preferred specific suggestions on how to better teach. Still, his comments at least temporarily took some pressure off of me.

But as time went on, my patience waned, and I began to have difficulty falling asleep. In the wee hours of the morning my mind kept going over and over incidents in which my efforts to teach something to the kids ended without success. And then, during one such night, amidst an experience of what felt like endless tossing and turning and excruciating frustration, suddenly I recalled an incident that happened to me in fifth grade. Back then I had recently seen the movie, The Pride of the Yankees, with Gary Cooper starring as the New York Yankees’ great baseball player, Lou Gehrig. Nicknamed “The Iron Horse,” Gehrig had his Hall-of-Fame career cut short at 36 years of age when he was stricken with a fatal disease. As the film comes to an end, it reenacts Gehrig’s farewell address in front of a packed, tearful crowd at Yankee Stadium. I’ll never forget his parting words. “People all say that I’ve had a bad break. But today…today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth.”

Shortly after seeing the film, I decided to read a Lou Gehrig biography and learned that his parents were from Germany. Because I had grown up on war movies that depicted Germans as the vicious enemy, I had, at that time, come to hate Germans. But, when I began to read Lou Gehrig’s biography, I found my hatred undergoing a dramatic change. The story tells us that Lou’s parents were from Germany, spoke with a German accent, and this led the kids in his neighborhood to incessantly torment him.

Somehow, my heart went out to Lou, and from that day on, I came to believe that it wasn’t right to judge a person by their nationality.

Lying in bed recalling having read that biography so many years ago, my mind, at one point, returned to thinking about teaching kids coping skills. It seemed to me that there was something about that Lou Gehrig story that enabled me to reconsider attitudes that I had firmly held for so long. Perhaps if I could tell the kids at the clinic stories about a hero who portrayed higher levels of maturity, they might identify with the hero. I figured that kids like to try out the behaviors of their heroes. I know I did. Criticizing the actions of characters in the story would produce less defensiveness than when I had directly criticized the actions of the kids at the clinic. If I told the stories when the clinic kids weren’t already in a defensive state, maybe they would be open to a real discussion. Once they had thought the issues through, perhaps then they would be better able to integrate what they had learned into their own lives.

Soon afterwards, each time I saw the kids at the clinic dealing with a different conflict in a way that struck me as immature, a story dealing with the conflict in a more mature way just came to me in some strange, effortless manner. The hero of the stories, Cool Steve, has many of the attributes that the clinic kids admired.

I made it a point to tell each story at some point in our session when things were relatively calm. And it turned out that the kids loved them. When I told the stories to the group of kids I worked with—kids well known for their rambunctiousness—they settled right down and you could hear a pin drop as the tale unfolded. They discussed them, grappled with the issues, and oftentimes came to agree that Cool Steve had handled the conflict in a way they respected.

An interesting discovery that I made when I was teaching conflict management to graduate students at the University of Minnesota was that the adult students there enjoyed the stories every bit as much as teenagers. And so, with that encouragement, the stories grew and grew so that they now comprise a series of three novels collectively called The Cool Steve Stories that you can learn about HERE.

Readers of this blog know that as I provide lessons on conflict management, I often illustrate the ideas with newspaper comic strips. Although these comics are very helpful for introducing basic ideas, to really learn the subtleties of applying the ideas of conflict management in actual situations it is hard to beat the longer narratives that novels provide.

The first novel in the trilogy is A Hero Grows in Brooklyn. Most of the action occurs when the main characters are junior high school students. If it was a movie, it would likely be rated “PG.” Fights in the Streets, Tears in the Sand, the second novel in the trilogy, deals with some more mature themes. The main characters are now beginning an urban high school and there is a modest amount of cursing, and some talk about sexual feelings and fantasies. It would probably be rated “PG13” if it was a movie. Love, Sex and Respect, the final novel in the trilogy, takes the main characters through to their high school graduation. If the book was a movie, it might be rated “R.”

You can learn more about the novels at this blog’s NOVELS page toward the top of this page. There you will find that the first novel in the series can be downloaded for free on any iPad, Nook, Kindle or computer, or you can order a paperback version HERE.

I encourage my students to check these books out because they provide memorable adventures that are not only fun and exciting, but teach some profound lessons as well.

Have a great week!

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Some people will enjoy reading this blog by beginning with the first post and then moving forward to the next more recent one; then to the next one; and so on. This permits readers to catch up on some ideas that were presented earlier and to move through all of the ideas in a systematic fashion to develop their emotional and social intelligence. To begin at the very first post you can click HERE.

Tags anger, bullied, bullying, conflict, conflict management, emotional intelligence, enjoyable relationships, free social intelligence and emotional intelligence curriculum, insults, threats, violence, wisdom