Being Bullied

An incredibly common question for victims of bullying to ask themselves is “Why is it happening to me?” Often this leads to a second, and an entirely unhelpful, question: “What’s wrong with me?” Unsurprisingly, the answers you come up with can lead to low self-esteem, a lack of confidence and reclusiveness. None of this will make the bullying stop. In fact, it’s far more likely to make you an even tastier target for the bullies. The question... Read More

Physical Bullying

There seems to be a widely held perception that physical bullying is more severe than other forms of bullying. In my experience, I find this to be far from the truth. I have asked a great many of my clients the same question: “If you had the choice of ongoing psychological bullying, name calling, sneering etc., or just taking a physical beating which would you prefer?” Almost everyone says they would prefer the physical beating. The reason for... Read More

Bullying is Subjective

What are your definitions of bullying? Are those definitions useful to you? One of the major problem schools have in dealing with bullying is in how they define it. It’s not just a paper exercise in thinking up labels, it makes a massive difference as to whether the organisation takes action as result of an incident or not. If you have a child who is being bullied at school, the school will only help them if the teachers believe that whatever has... Read More

Bullying Advice for Parents

It can be incredibly frustrating being a parent of a child who is being bullied. Most parents would do anything to protect their children from being deliberately harmed by others but often they can feel powerless to help. It can be especially frustrating when you know your child is being bullied but they won’t tell you about it. Or if they do, they will give a vague description of what is going on, likely missing out the very details you want... Read More

Stop Bullying

In order to stop people bullying, it is important to understand how people are motivated to change their behaviours. If you are being bullied then, at the moment, the bullies have some motivation to bully you. They gain something emotionally as a result of hurting you. Emotional needs are incredibly powerful. All of us meet our emotional needs in one way or another. Some people use very positive means to meet their need and some people can... Read More

Amsterdam Marathon Please Sponsor Me

This Sunday I will be running the Amsterdam Marathon for Childline. I’m not a runner. Never have been. In fact, I don’t do a whole lot of exercise at all. However I do believe I can achieve this through strength of mind. Every one of my one-to-one clients experiences huge changes in their own beliefs. They are able to achieve so much more than they ever thought possible just by changing the way they think. I like to practice what I preach,... Read More

Case Study Part 2

I found Charlie and his Dad, Ian, very easy to work with. They were very keen to learn new skills and were very open minded with the concepts I was putting across. This made the training session relatively short. We did about 5 hours actual training time. (A maximum time would typically be around 7 hours). First of all, we did a couple of exercises on how to feel good under any circumstances. We used body language, imagination, rapport, facial expressions,... Read More

How to Deal With Bullying

There are many ways of dealing with bullying. Some are more effective than others but the most important thing to appreciate is that every bullying situation is different. What will work well in one situation may well make things worse in another. Because each bullying situation is unique, you need to be flexible. Bullies are usually very flexible themselves. They have to figure out which techniques will hurt you the most and which ones will get the... Read More

Abused by their own children

Many parents are living in fear of their children, but are too ashamed to ask for help. They are being beaten and abused and are doing nothing to get help often because they feel ashamed. Statistically, girls are the most likely to be abusers and Mum’s are much more likely to be the targets although it’s very hard to see the real picture because so few people come forwards. The key here is power. The child takes the power away from the... Read More

How to help your child

It can be incredibly frustrating being a parent of a child who is being bullied. Most parents would do anything to protect their children from being deliberately harmed by others but often they can feel powerless to help. It can be especially frustrating when you know your child is being bullied but they won’t tell you about it. Or if they do, they will give a vague description of what is going on, likely missing out the very details you want... Read More