A School Psychologist Objects to a Popular “Crumpled Paper” Bullying Lesson

Izzy Kalman is a long-time school psychologist with iconoclastic ideas about how to help kids deal with bullying. Often, he says, kids can actually deflect the meanness by using what I would call psychological jujitsu. For instance, Kalman suggests that when someone says, “Hey Fatso!”, the insulted child can respond, “I wish I was skinny like you. What is your secret?”

The idea is that in some cases, treating a bully like a friend is so disarming, that the bully is left without ammo. Here’s an article by a mom who, at her wits end, urged her bullied child to use this technique and wishes she’d heard of it sooner.

Today over at Let Grow we feature Kalman’s comments about a viral TikTok video that shows kids learning that each insult is like crumpling a piece of paper: The paper can never be flattened out all the way again. “It would be much more helpful to teach kids that insults are nothing to get upset about than to teach them that they cause permanent scars,” Kalman wrote on his Facebook page, which led to my post. Read it by clicking here.

Then, if you want to chat about it, you can go to our Raising Independent Kids Facebook page, where there’s a thoughtful discussion going on.

And here is Kalman’s home page for his program, bullies2buddies.

And hope you are having a great long weekend! – L.

Photo by Forest Simon on Unsplash