Adult Bullying in Youth Sports and Schools: When Coaches and Teachers Cross the Line

Tim Flynn (00:00)

Welcome back to Breaking Bullying. This week, we're talking about when coaches, teachers and other adults bully kids. We'll get into it after I hit this music.

Joining me again is co-founder and executive director of the Bullion Recovery Resource Center, Dru Ahlborg Dru, thank you so much for coming on today.

Dru (00:21)

Thanks for having me Tim. It's so good to see you

Tim Flynn (00:24)

Yes, it seems like it's been a while since we talked, but I'm glad to have you back on.

Dru (00:29)

Well, we talk via email sometimes, but yeah, it's been a while since you and I've had a conversation, so I'm really looking forward to this.

Tim Flynn (00:36)

Yes. So I'm subscribed to your emails from your nonprofit. And I think it was like early summer this past year, you had an interesting topic about when adults bully kids. It was very interesting because I've never experienced that. Thank goodness. And as a person of your nonprofit, you work with families and kids. So you must have had something come through your doors at one time. How common

Is it when you hear adults like coaches, teachers, or any other adults, how common is this to happen to kids where the adults are bullying the kids?

Dru (01:12)

I don't know how common it is, but we've certainly helped more than a few families. We actually helped a group of families in one of the districts in Colorado where there was systemic coach bullying going on in several high schools with several female sports track, basketball, palms, dance. And it was, I just thought it was so bizarre because it was at several of the schools and it was

is it was accepted behavior in this district that they could do these horrible things to these girls, including slut shaming and pulling them by their ponytails and commenting on how they looked and things like that. And it was incredibly detrimental.

Tim Flynn (01:51)

Yeah, I've going, I had another question, but you just made something interesting counting on how they look. I have friends in dance runs dance schools. I hear like ballet or any other type of dance can be really brutal for young girls. Yeah.

Dru (02:08)

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

I just met up with a woman last week who was on the, we have a NBA team here, the Denver Nuggets, and she used to be a Nuggets dancer. And she talked to me a little bit about the environment and it was pretty tough, you know? And it wasn't necessarily the coaches, but it was some of the other women that she danced with that were really, really quite mean and bullied her.

Tim Flynn (02:36)

So I talked to this one person who had their kid in dance, and the mother made it sound like, well, it's for their safety. If they don't weigh this much, they're overweight, or they look like this, they can get hurt, which they're backing up to a point why they do this. Which I see their point, especially in ballet, you gotta do some crazy standing on your toes. But is there a better way to approach kids saying, hey,

you're too fat, you can't be doing this. there? There's obviously, I don't teach dance, but like, there's, I mean, for martial arts, I don't coach kids in ballet. I don't, weight's not an issue when teaching martial arts for safety. I don't have enough background experience to get into the science of, let's say ballet, where you do have to talk about your weight and body image, but you think there'd be a better way to bring that across to a kid. Cause I do see the safety aspect of it.

Dru (03:06)

I would hope so.

Tim Flynn (03:31)

If you don't have strong ankles, you can hurt yourself. ⁓ You don't have a strong core, you can hurt yourself. But how do you relay that? Like, when does discipline and coaching cross the line into bullying?

Dru (03:34)

Yeah, I would agree with that. mean, it's

Well, I think if you attack someone's person, you know, how they look, how they sound, how they behave, you know, I think that can be very detrimental. I think for coaches and things like that, I think there should be criteria listed. you know, we expect our athletes to be within this BMI or, you know, to participate in this and that, or, you know, show up all five practices every week or whatever it is. think that

If the child knows that going in, then if a coach has to deliver that news, like, hey, we have this criteria, they have the backup, right? We have this criteria. We talked about that when you started and you've, you've fallen out of the criteria. Let's, how can we get you back in here? Cause we want to make sure you're safe. And I think that's the key, right? They talk about the safety aspect, not like you're overweight and you look bad type thing, but like we want you, we want you part of the team and we want you healthy.

Tim Flynn (04:22)

Mm-hmm.

Some of the stories that you hear, do you ever think like it's coming off like this is how the coach is trying to discipline their kids?

Dru (04:51)

absolutely. Absolutely. And that's what a coach will say. Well, this is how we discipline. This is how we build resilience or whatever it is. And, you know, they're...

It can be, you know, there again, can be detrimental. There's ways to do all that stuff that is positive and does not put down another person, does not make them feel poorly about themselves, makes them want to work harder.

Tim Flynn (05:18)

As a parent watching my kids getting coached through sports, and you have a coach who can back everything up, well, it builds resilience. My kids are young right now. My two oldest ones are well off. They moved out of my house. But what are these coaches today saying to other kids that is coming across as bullying? I know you can't give out personal stories, but examples of a sport and what

kids are hearing back for feedback from a coach that makes it into bowling versus coaching versus discipline.

Dru (05:51)

We'll go back to some of the girls that were bullied in that, and it was over 30 families, Tim. was, and like I said, it was different teens, but some of the Palm girls, were slut shamed. You look like you would do this type thing, or you look slutty or something. that's not okay, right? You can talk to them kindly about, we expect that.

Tim Flynn (06:13)

The culture sink.

Dru (06:16)

You know, if there's a dress code, bring up the dress code. Hey, when you come to practice, we expect your shorts to be this long or whatever. It's written here. You know, if you can set those expectations beforehand, and then if they're violated, you talk about the violation. You don't shame the person.

Tim Flynn (06:35)

Yeah, are there any other common examples of adult bullying that often gets dismissed or normalized?

Dru (06:42)

absolutely.

mean, there's, you know, and it's not just coaches. It happens in the classroom. We've had families that have had teachers that are demeaning to their child in front of the group of students and at the front of the class. And that causes just a landslide of bad behavior in the whole classroom. I mean, the kids learn like, ⁓ this is acceptable behavior. We get to pick on Billy because Billy looks different or sounds different because the teacher's doing it too.

Tim Flynn (06:52)

Yep.

Dru (07:10)

And it's it's so detrimental. And kids stop trusting adults when that happens.

Tim Flynn (07:18)

Yeah, and you wonder why we have an authority issue today in our country. We don't respect authority. A while back, I should say a while back, been, gosh, almost two years. I've been doing this podcast for three years now. We had a former principal, and she was telling me that kids aren't afraid of the principal anymore. They're not. I mean, back when I was a kid, I was afraid of going to principal's office, but today, they're not afraid of the principal's office. There's no discipline.

Dru (07:20)

Right.

Wow.

Tim Flynn (07:47)

And if you do discipline kids, you get in trouble for it as well. So.

Dru (07:53)

There's discipline, there's consequences, you know?

Tim Flynn (07:53)

For the example, yeah, correct,

correct. the stuff that you said slut shaming, yeah, that's bullying. ⁓ But can some people perceive coaching or discipline as bullying, even though it may not be bullying? you heard like, for example, it's like, hey, we've got to a sport here.

Dru (08:02)

Mm-hmm.

Tim Flynn (08:18)

The only sport I ever done in my whole life was martial arts. I played baseball for like six weeks and I quit. And then I did golf. So I have zero sports experience. And my kids only done dance when they're for a very short period of time. But.

Coaching versus bullying because some sometimes I hear people would think if they hear what they don't want to hear they call it bullying

Dru (08:39)

You're right. So it has to fit in that definition, which you and I both know is three things. It's an imbalance of power. ⁓ The proliferation of the imbalance of power, it's repeated or has the potential to be repeated and there's an intent to harm. So yeah, I think sometimes parents are like, my kid's bench. my God, he's being bullied. Maybe not, right? Maybe he's not.

Tim Flynn (08:41)

So, yeah.

Yep.

Yeah. The attempt.

Yeah.

Dru (09:06)

in game ready shape today to play, you know?

Tim Flynn (09:09)

Yes, so the power imbalance, I you're the coach, you already got that, you're always gonna have that, that's already there. The repeatedness in sports, that's gonna be there if you're not a good player, if not just a good dancer, you have to put the work in as well. The intent to do damage, that part can be tricky because how you view something may not be how the coach views something. So, Gabby, careful when you talk about this.

Dru (09:13)

Right, so that's there, right? Yes.

Tim Flynn (09:33)

Did you do what your coach tells you to do? Maybe you did, maybe you're just not, maybe by you just can't do this stuff and you're not cut out to be a dancer. I've trained kids in martial arts. I've held them back from rank testing to the black belt because we have expectations. We have to meet at certain levels. But there's also comes to a point where if the kid tells me, look, I've tried stretching, I've been doing this every day.

Dru (09:51)

yeah.

Tim Flynn (10:00)

I still can't kick this high or I cannot do the spin. There comes to a point where you gotta say, okay, if he's telling me the truth, maybe his body just can't do it. I can't treat every kid the same. It turns out this kid was a cross country runner. He runs all the time for sports. He does cross country and track. Well, that makes sense now, because his hips are gonna be super tight. You're doing martial arts twice a week. You're doing cross country and track all the rest of the time.

Dru (10:11)

Right.

Tim Flynn (10:29)

That makes total sense now. But I'm still gonna push you enough to try to do it. But some kids, depending on what their training is, you're not gonna be able to do it. At least for my program, we're not a one size fits all. Most sports, you gotta do this or you can't be in the sport. That's why they have tryouts. You gotta meet this expectation or you can't.

Dru (10:35)

Mm-hmm.

And I know it's gotten so

competitive, especially for our little people, right? They're putting pre-K kids into soccer camps. But I do want to go and say most coaches are fabulous. And I'm sure you, you fit in that category and you've laid out, like if someone's looking to get a black belt, they know they have to hit all this different criteria. So you've laid it out as a coach and it sounds like, all right, you're not kicking high enough. What's going on? How can we get you there type thing?

Tim Flynn (10:56)

yeah.

Yep.

Dru (11:20)

That's a great coach. know, my daughter did a lot of sports when she was younger and overall the coaches were fabulous. They were encouraging. She got benched sometimes because she just wasn't the strongest player on the ice or whatever. And it was okay, right? Yeah, she knew there was some girls on that team that deserve to be out there for extra shifts.

Tim Flynn (11:43)

Yeah, so I mean coaching sports that can be a tricky one. You could some people can view as bullying. Coaching discipline and a lot of it. It could be somewhere you know that coach just needs some more education and training and how to train the kids because just because you're good at a sport doesn't make you a good teacher. It drives me nuts about my industry and my industry in martial arts. It drove me nuts. If you had a black belt, you're a qualified to teach. And I got some.

Dru (11:47)

This is

Correct.

Tim Flynn (12:11)

some crap for it for a while ago, I would hire non-martial artists to teach martial arts because I run a program called Skills. And I would hire teachers or people who love working with kids because they already have that skill that you can't teach people is you gotta love working with kids. If you don't love working with kids,

Dru (12:17)

Mm-hmm.

Tim Flynn (12:31)

not to be mean, you're just not going to be the greatest teacher. There's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with that at all. But you don't have the patience, you don't have the understanding. Coaching is probably not going to be good for you. You can be the best athlete in the world, but you can suck as a coach. Not your fault. Not your fault. It's just your skill set. We all have skill sets. So I would get, I would get, you know, from other martial artists, not my community, it's just other martial arts schools as well. You're not true martial arts. Like, well, I'm...

Dru (12:34)

Right.

Absolutely.

That's right.

Tim Flynn (13:00)

Yeah, okay, I'm not because I hire, I hire non martial artists, I train them in martial arts as they get better, but they know how to teach a curriculum. I give them a curriculum, teach this, this and this and this. That's all that's all parents want to do. But, but now let's get into the part where this stuff is real. And it is real for a lot because I've had guests would talk mention it briefly where their teacher was a bully.

So how does that power imbalance between adult and a kid make this type of bullying more damaging to a kid?

Dru (13:33)

I don't know if it's more damaging, but it's just as it can be just as damaging. I mean, we, a lot of parents, me included, you you respect your elders, you do what they're told, they're in charge, you're not that type of thing. Not all kids get that, that direction. know. But, um, so when a person in power and it doesn't just have to be a coach, it could be a teacher, it could be a paraprofessional, it could be a playground monitor. It could be a pastor.

You know, and all those people have, you know, they're, they're in a position of power or, you know, authority over our children. And when they let down, you know, with, if they bully a kid, it's just, it's so detrimental. And a lot of kids will stop trusting adults altogether. Right. And it takes a long time to kind of build that trust again. Cause that is the person that you're supposed to be able to go to when something's going wrong. Right. They should be trusted. They should, you know.

Tim Flynn (14:25)

Mm-hmm.

Dru (14:30)

help you through it. they're the one that is doing the harm, the bullying, it just kind of breaks down the whole system.

Tim Flynn (14:38)

Yeah, and as ⁓ a person of authority of kids, you really only get one chance. You get one shot, you let that kid down once, they're not gonna forget it. They're not gonna forget it.

Dru (14:43)

Yeah.

especially at the very beginning, right? I mean

teachers make, we all make mistakes, right? But ⁓ yeah, yeah, the first impressions are priceless, right? You got to make sure that you, you you treat everybody similarly in the classroom or on the team, at least in the beginning. And you're right though, it's a fragile relationship.

Tim Flynn (15:09)

You get that one.

Yeah, it kind of depends on the situation, but you get that one shot and it could be over kids. So it's it's tough because you know having young kids of my own. If my daughter come up to me or when she does come up to me say hey, this kid called me a name. Can you tell a teacher? Well, kids call kids names all the time, but if I just say yes and I don't do it. I'm going to eventually ruin the trust of my own child.

I have to follow through with it, say, hey, I know this is common in kids behavior. It's common. This kid says, you smell. My daughter wants you to talk to the student. They've said that. Would you please do that for me? to me, think that's, I don't know the context. Getting this from a first grader, you don't really know, understand the full context of what happened. So I can't sit there and be upset.

Dru (15:39)

rate.

Great.

Tim Flynn (16:05)

But just gotta say, okay Georgia, I'll take care of it. And I have to do it, because if I don't do it, then I'm losing that trust in my child. So ⁓ I know there's some teachers out there who don't like those emails every time, but it's like, tough. You're with my kid for nine months, I'm with my kid for rest of my life. I gotta do what's best for my kids. So don't let a teacher persuade you, because I've had a preschool teacher where I was constantly emailing issues.

Dru (16:12)

Great. Great.

Mm-hmm.

Tim Flynn (16:33)

And they eventually wanted us to leave the school. They were sick of it. And it was a private school. It wasn't even a public school. It was a private school. So not all private schools are equal. It all happens everywhere. Yeah. So do you know what the long-term effects are from kids being bullied by adults besides that trust in authority? Like, what else we could see?

Dru (16:37)

Okay.

I would agree with that as well.

Tim Flynn (17:01)

these effects from kids like long-term.

Dru (17:03)

Sure. I mean, it's the same as any kind of bullying. There can be mental health struggles like depression, anxiety, PTSD, you know, in the long, long term. Sometimes if it's not addressed, if that child does not have an opportunity to start recovering from that, for whatever reason, it doesn't get reported. They don't tell their parents. The school does, you know, the wrong thing, whatever it is, it can get worse, right?

As a young adult, they're more likely to turn to drugs or alcohol. They're less likely to get a job. mean, it's just the studies that have been done on this are just, it's a whole cascade. That's why, you know, and I love what you said just a few minutes ago. I follow up and I take care of it. Like, Georgia told me this and I, you you report it back to the teacher. You know, you have an opportunity to get it stopped a lot earlier.

Tim Flynn (17:32)

Yeah.

Dru (17:52)

you know, the quicker you respond. So the quicker that we can respond as parents, quicker the school can respond as doing something, the more likely that child is to be able to recover from that and not have to deal with all those horrible, horrible things that can happen.

Tim Flynn (18:04)

Yeah.

Yeah, the PTSD has got to be huge just because this came from a guest a while ago, but they answered a question and the teacher picked on them for it. Now imagine a couple years from now, this kid wants to answer the question because they're very excited. When kids get excited, they want to say the answer, but they're going to shut down because, I remember last time I said something, this happened. They don't want to go through it again.

Dru (18:12)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Tim Flynn (18:40)

I like, yeah.

Dru (18:40)

But they become adults too and they're sitting in

a, you know, a meeting with all their peers and they might have the solution or the greatest idea, but they won't say it because that's right, that PTSD like, oh, I'm to get shut down. I'm going to get humiliated again. I'm not doing that. Yeah.

Tim Flynn (18:49)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. And as a teacher myself, I work with kids and I like to joke around and have fun with the students, you know, but there's there's a line. And I think, you know, honestly, I think some teachers, can, I'm gonna say teachers are because I teach I'm not a school teacher, I teach kids martial arts. But I can feel that sometimes maybe a kid will take that the wrong way. So you gotta be very careful what you say.

Dru (19:14)

Right.

Tim Flynn (19:24)

Usually my joking around is when a kid gives me an answer, I'm testing their confidence. I go, are you sure about that? Like for instance, what color are the mats? They're blue. I mean, you can look at their blue. I'm like, are you sure they're blue? Why do think they're blue? It teaches kids how to speak up. It's an easy way to teach kids how to speak up for themselves. But maybe, but you never know. Maybe some kid might be offended by that. And I have to know that kid before I can make those jokes appropriately as well.

Dru (19:47)

Yeah. And if you make the

joke and you understand that like you've offended in some way, you take care of it immediately. Hey man, I was just messing around with you. I'm sorry. Of course they're blue.

Tim Flynn (19:58)

That's, you know, that's in today's society, that's a hard part. You can't joke with anybody anymore without offending somebody. You used to be able to just have fun, crack jokes, and you can't do that anymore. You get offended, you know, it can ruin your reputation over a stupid joke. It doesn't have to be about politics, it be about anything, you know. I just feel like we're getting into a society where we just need to kind of relax a little bit. ⁓ Talk to the person.

Dru (20:24)

And I think

it's the pendulum that swung one way very, and I hopefully will come back down. Cause I think we're the other way for quite a while where it was okay to put people down and things like that. So now we're very careful and I think we're going to end up back in the middle at some point.

Tim Flynn (20:26)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yep. Well,

I'm not saying about putting people down. You know, shouldn't be, if your joke's involved putting that kid down, that's not, to me that's not a joke anyways. But if you're going to a comedy show, it's comedy, expect to be offended, that's just gonna happen. There's expectations depending on what you, you mean you're going to a comedy show, that's what comedians do. If you're a teacher though, they're not paying you to be a comedian, they're paying you to teach.

Dru (21:06)

No.

Tim Flynn (21:08)

You know, but there's pressure to draw a line. You gotta draw that line as well. But what I think what we need to start doing as adults is teaching kids like how to speak to another person. If you were offended, how do you approach that person? Because maybe they didn't mean it the way you thought it. And I think those are skills that kids are not getting because us adults,

Dru (21:11)

you.

Yeah.

Tim Flynn (21:35)

we get offended by something we read, we make a big scene about it and we call it out on social media or whatever without actually realizing what was actually being said or what did they mean by it because I feel like today we don't care about the truth anymore. But we need to teach kids like, if a teacher said something to you, just go ask them and hey, I don't like the way you said that. Going back to my early days as a nurse aide, I was in my early 20s.

Dru (21:58)

Yeah.

Tim Flynn (22:04)

So I worked in the hospital, and I was a nurse aide. I was like 22 years old. I was young. I was so young. every time a baby was born, there would be a chime. Ding ding ding, a chime, like, oh, baby's born. And then one day, I regret saying this, of course, now I'm old and I have kids. One day we heard this sound, a chime. I was working with a fellow nurse aide. And then there's other.

Dru (22:18)

Mm-hmm.

Tim Flynn (22:33)

tone came off and I go, ⁓ the baby died. And it was to me, I was just being like, I being jokeful, having fun, but I, I really upset, you know, I upset that lady. Now today that was upset me now. You know, like, that's a horrible joke. It was a horrible joke. But instead of her attacking me, she actually came up to me, had the conversation and I like, ⁓ you're right. That was a stupid joke. I don't know why I said that, you know, but

Dru (22:44)

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Tim Flynn (23:01)

we need kids start doing more of this. And maybe we won't have a lot of these reports of bullying, but I do understand that there are times where adults are really bullying kids, they start shaming.

Dru (23:03)

Yeah, it's advocacy, right? Self-advocating.

And I don't think it's like a huge thing, but it happens, right? I think especially teachers, most teachers and coaches too that go into that profession do it because A, they love kids, if they're teaching kids, and they love what they're teaching either academically or physically. So I think it's not a huge problem and it still happens, right?

Tim Flynn (23:19)

Yeah.

Dru (23:41)

It is a problem. It's just, I don't think it's, you know, I just want to say that think most people that go in those professions, they do it for a reason because they do have a passion and they communicate well with children and things like that. So.

Tim Flynn (23:50)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, so what happens to these teachers or coaches when it's true bullying? they truly they target this person. They call them sluts, whatever.

Dru (24:10)

This

is... This is...

Tim Flynn (24:12)

And what does this like, what's the school responsibility first? And then what's the repercussion for these coaches actually do this? Because I'm not gonna say it doesn't ever happen. mean, obviously it happens. What happens to these people that they stay coaching? Do they get kicked off? Do you know what happens to these people afterwards?

Dru (24:23)

It happens, yeah.

It depends. So I can tell you, know, that the systemic problem we had, you know, and so what we did is went with a group of 30 parents of these young ladies and addressed the school board and they really weren't willing to do much about anything else. And I don't want to get it to all the details, but someone off filed with the office of civil rights and they got some movement there. So,

Tim Flynn (24:49)

Yeah.

Dru (24:54)

But the same thing in the same district happened the year prior where a football coach at one of the high schools was accused of bullying and they fired him. That's, you know, that's probably the best solution, right? ⁓ Enough of the boys that come forward and said, listen, this is going on. It's not okay. And they fired him. I do know sometimes with, with teachers and with coaches, like there's this rallying around the

Tim Flynn (25:07)

Yeah.

Dru (25:21)

the person that's been accused and like the colleagues will remain silent and you know, they might witness it as well. You know, they've been at the school for a while or whatever and a lot of times, sometimes, sometimes there's nothing that happens. There's no write up, there's no discipline and sometimes there is. think it's, you know, it depends on what the, how.

how well the school's going, how well they investigate it, is there more than one student that's coming forward, are there witnesses? It's a whole ball of wax. And it brings us back to it has to be investigated, right? If a child reports bullying or an adult reports bullying for their child, it should be investigated.

Tim Flynn (25:57)

Yeah.

You know, if you're a football coach getting accused for bullying, you must have done something pretty bad because football coaches, to me, that sounds like one of the toughest, you you got to be, man, I say stern with kids, but there's also a level of safety involved. Sometimes kids just need to hear things directly. Not to put this nicely, but...

Dru (26:25)

8.

Tim Flynn (26:32)

you need to hit the weights because if you take too many more hits of that you're going to hurt your back you're going to hurt something else you got to take care of your body or you're not going out there so i don't know what that coach would said beyond that but

Dru (26:45)

But I think

that's great what you just said. These are the expectations. You don't meet the expectations. You're sitting on the bench.

Tim Flynn (26:47)

Yeah.

Yeah, but for a football coach get accused of bullying though it's like there must have been something deeper beyond beyond. Yeah, but it's something must be deeper going on than just your normal that applies to the game. You know, has to at least apply to the game here. Do you have any ideas how? I know it's kind of going off on schools and teachers and just parents can bully kids, but since a lot of stuff from what from out here from.

Dru (26:54)

Yeah, I don't know the details on that one.

Tim Flynn (27:19)

a few people, and I read your article, a lot of bullying that I hear comes from the teachers from schools. Any ideas that you have for schools that they could put into place to bring awareness on how to talk to kids?

Dru (27:37)

Well, I think, you know, I think all teachers need to be trained in what bullying is, what it isn't, how to recognize it, how to intervene, you know, and that's more like, you know, if they see bullying, but I think that helps too, if they understand what it is, how detrimental it is. But, you know, if it goes back to the investigation too, if ⁓ an administrator gets reported to that there's, you know, a teacher has been accused of bullying.

They need to investigate. Maybe they put someone in the classroom. Maybe they talk to some of the other kids in the classroom. They need to look into it. They need to take it seriously.

Tim Flynn (28:05)

Mm-hmm.

The education is right. You said that right, because I just remember a while back reading into a Facebook group, a parent asked how much bullying is too much bullying. And this one parent goes, well, I think a little bit is good for kids to get bullied. They need to learn coping skills and resilience. I'm like, I don't want to respond, because first of all, it's my wife's account. But I was like, you know, I think you're getting confused with conflict versus bullying. That's why I love that.

Dru (28:31)

You

I agree.

Tim Flynn (28:41)

Conflict would teach kids coping skills, teach them resilience. Bullying is not gonna teach your kids that. ⁓ You're getting it confused. Yes, you're getting it confused. And I think people still today, still confused conflict and bullying.

Dru (28:48)

Right. Bullying is an attempt to harm.

Absolutely. That's something I talk about all the time and our friend Barbara, so I love what she says about conflict. It's normal. It's natural and it's necessary, right? We all go through conflict and you know as adults we I think you and I probably do a decent job at navigating it right because we've been doing this on the planet for a while, but our kids they get to learn from that too. So if they have conflict, know kid A likes this kid B likes this and maybe they're really mad.

Tim Flynn (29:08)

Yeah.

Dru (29:28)

that they don't like the same thing, conflict could be very heated. It can look like bullying, but they're not trying to harm each other. They're just trying to be right, you know? And with a trusting adult coming in and working through that with them, that's where the magic happens.

Tim Flynn (29:32)

Yep.

No. and that's...

Yep,

see that's where you put the two kids together in a room and have them dish out those conversations with an adult. Not when I just had this kid attack me, assault me, now we're put him in a room, no that's backwards. So I think what we're missing for education-wise is that conflict versus bullying where I think if teachers would know that, parents would know what the difference is, it would make a huge difference.

Dru (29:56)

No, that's horrible. ⁓

Yeah, I agree. I agree. That's something I do parenting classes and that's like one of the first things that we talk about. We hit it pretty hard for a while because it's and always the parents are like, my gosh, now I understand. know, so if my child comes home and says, yeah, I'm being bullied. Well, let's look at this, you know? And if it, you know, if it fits those three criteria, if it doesn't, then like, all right, that's conflict. Let's talk about how you can walk through that. And you know, do you want to role play or whatever?

Tim Flynn (30:11)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, but I was shocked that a even thought that a little bit of bullying is okay. I'm like, wait till you get true bullying on your kid. You tell me when that's okay. No, you're getting confused with conflict. Conflict, yeah, it's something that we think is simple to understand, but it's not. It's not. It's hard.

Dru (30:42)

Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Right.

Right. No, I mean,

there's still some of that boys will be boys mentality and mean girls is an acceptable thing. And, you know, it isn't, it isn't.

Tim Flynn (31:06)

Yeah, well with coaches, know, coaches, we know coaches will be okay, just looking back, I say football coaches, they're gonna be tough on my kid, gonna make him off, might come off mean, but they're teaching them discipline at the same time. But when is that point where it goes a little bit too far? You there's a point like, like the pom-pom, there's a point where it went too far. You don't call somebody the S word, you know.

Dru (31:24)

Right.

Right.

Right,

right, you don't, you, no.

Tim Flynn (31:33)

You don't do that,

especially to a teenage girl.

Dru (31:37)

And in front of other folks too. I mean, they did in front of their peers. was just, it was humiliating.

Tim Flynn (31:39)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Dru, any final advice for parents, coaches and teachers who work with kids who want to encourage them to be their best, but they yet they still need to, you know, they got to be the parents or the coach. They got to do some discipline for some kids who may need it. Any advice for those people to help better approach those kids who they who they truly want to help, but they don't want to come off as bullying that kid.

Dru (32:11)

They don't want to bully them, period. mean, and it's kind of right. Right.

Tim Flynn (32:14)

Yeah, but they don't want to come off that. don't want to, it doesn't want to be perceived that way. Because the kid

could take it the wrong way as well.

Dru (32:21)

That's right, that's right. So it's kind of a different answer for the coaches and teachers versus the parents. So, you know, with coaches and teachers, I think, you know, going back to what is bullying and things like that. And, you know, to coach with empathy and kindness as much as possible, right? You still have to get results. You still have to push those kids. But just make sure you're kind of balancing, you know, making sure that...

that you're not singling somebody out or you're not attacking the person, right? You look this way or you run weird or, it could be like your performance isn't, you know, you can talk about the performance, the output type thing, and you can do it in a, you know, a nice stable manner or, you know, just give them the facts, right? You're not fast enough to start today or whatever.

With parents, however, if your child comes to you and says, hey, I'm being bullied by my coach or my teacher, you know, it's really important to listen to them, get as much information as possible, stay calm. It's a great opportunity for parents to not freak out. And I can tell you, I've been in that situation with my child being bullied and it's really hard. But staying calm can go, you you get to model that behavior. Ask the child what you want to do.

So you talked about reporting when your daughter is being bullied or having struggles in the classroom, but she always gave you permission, so you need to get your permission from your child. Is it okay if we talk to the principal? And then when you have that meeting, be prepared, be thoughtful, stick to the facts, things like that, and then take further action, keep following up with your child. Is it getting better? Anything else I should know type thing.

And then sometimes you have to go back to the drawing board again and again. It just depends. And if it gets too bad, you know, contact an organization like us where we can help push that along a little quicker. ⁓

Tim Flynn (34:20)

Yeah,

why don't you tell us more about your organization really quick. Give us your website, what you guys do, what you guys probably don't do.

Dru (34:29)

Okay. Well, so Bulling Recovery Resource Center, we're located in Denver, Colorado, and we work across the state of Colorado. At this point, it's just in Colorado, however, we've helped families from other states. And the reason why we're just in Colorado at this point is the laws about bullying, harassment, things like that are different from state to state. So we work under some of those laws and things like that.

But what we do is support families that are impacted from bullying where a child is being bullied. And generally the school is not doing the right thing or anything to address it. So we provide support resources, things like that, coaching, education to help get that bullying stopped in whatever situation it is. And it's not linear. Every situation is different. Every child's different. You know, sometimes the best thing is to get them out of the school, quite honestly.

Sometimes you can work with the school and they can set up some things or you can have something written into an educational plan that will help protect that child. So and we also do education. I have a parent education class that we teach across the state as well and it gives parents kind of the resources before anything were to happen. So they kind of know if it should happen. These are the things that I should do and this is the order and if this doesn't work.

give Bowling Recovery Resource Center a call or, you know, progress it to this level type thing. And the newest and greatest thing, we're working on a pilot program to go into schools where we actually work with the administrators and the teachers and the parents and the kids to make sure there's a solid understanding of what bowling is, how to intervene, why to intervene, and see if we can make a cultural

change in school from kind of hitting it at all those angles, spending a good amount of time in there, making sure the policies and procedures are correct. There's a valid definition of bullying that everybody understands. So that's kind of what we do in a nutshell.

Tim Flynn (36:27)

Yeah.

I love it. And what's your website?

Dru (36:33)

It's bullyingrecoveryresourcecenter.org.

Tim Flynn (36:37)

Perfect. For those watching on YouTube, saw it go across the screen. Everybody else, you'll find it in your link descriptions. And also, sign up for Dru's ⁓ monthly emails, because that's how I found out about this topic.

Dru, thank you again for coming on my podcast today.

Dru (36:51)

Absolutely,

absolutely. It's always a pleasure talking with you.

Tim Flynn (36:54)

Yeah, same here. Have a good day, Dru.

Dru (36:56)

Thanks, you too.