Another Way to Tell

So I recently had an insight...

Something one sibling abuse expert has said is that, when trying to determine if a sibling is being abusive, disregard the emotions. Separate the emotions from the behavior, and look at the behavior itself. 

That's sound advice.

But I think that where a lot of parents miss the signs of bullying is thinking that both kids are "equally contributing to it" because the victim child is fighting back. 

Something else parents should try is looking at the emotions. 

Often, in families where it looks like both kids are being mean to each other, you can still tell that one is the abuser and the other the abused. How? The abusive one is mainly doing what she's doing for fun. Is she smiling when she's insulting her brother? Is he laughing when he's teasing the other one? If you can see a smile on the child's face, then you've spotted the bully, whose motivation is power.

The abused, on the other hand, often does what she's doing out of anger. If there's a hurt tone of voice, if he doesn't look happy, then that's the victim. His motivation isn't power--it's revenge.  

Yes, disrespect should not be allowed. From either party. But I firmly believe we need to get real about the root cause. In many families, the disrespect can be traced back to one party in particular: the one who thinks it's fun to be mean. 

Don't just hold children equally accountable. Be honest about who's the main antagonist. Yes, victims should be taught to respond appropriately, but the burden does not fall on their shoulders. It is adult accountability that will really put an end to bullying (and consequently, the fighting), and this accountability needs to target the ones who are accountable. 

Expecting to Be Teased

Something must have happened to my brain after my siblings used me as a receptacle for their own insecure feelings. All the teasing and torturing impacted my life in countless ways. One of the ways I have not yet

touched on is the expectation I held throughout most of my childhood and adolescence that teasing was inevitable. Wherever I went, whoever I was with, I simply expected to be teased. 

This is one of those things you don't notice until you reflect on it. Growing up, it never struck me as odd that I was the constant target of teasing. Heck, the teasing itself never seemed abnormal at all. It didn't feel good, but it felt...habitual. Like I deserved it. I grew up "laughing off" the snide comments that were constantly aimed at me, so in my relations with my peers I did the same. 

I remember one incident where one of my older sisters and her friend were making fun of me over something I wrote. It was a poem or a letter or something they thought was stupid, and they quoted the thing to me in annoying, mimicking voices. What did I do? Did I get defensive and tell them to shove it? Nope. I grinned sheepishly and laughed with them. In my head I thought that because they were older, they must be right. It had been a stupid thing to write. I deserved to be made fun of for writing something that stupid. 

As I got older, I had more encounters with insufferably disrespectful people. We all do, but the difference between me and most people I meet was that my reactions to these rude people were way different from most people's. Often, I had no idea that someone had treated me disrespectfully. 

In college, my friend Rachel and I once had to meet with someone to discuss housing options. The person we met with seemed nice enough, and we had a short, pleasant conversation with her about our housing plans for the next school year. Or so I thought. As soon as we got outside, Rachel muttered something about that "bitchy housing lady..." I didn't say anything out loud, but I remember thinking, "Oh, you thought THAT was bitchy?!" One comment she had made to us had seemed a little off, but it didn't strike me as being that big of a deal. 

I've had more experiences like this. One time I was at a bar with a group of friends, and our server comes over to get our drink orders. When it's my turn to request a drink, I quickly give my order and then sit there, waiting for him to move on to the next person. I had forgotten that (at least at my age) servers look at ID before serving alcoholic drinks. My server motions for me to take out my driver's license, and then shouts "Come on! Come on!" as he's waving his hand. When he leaves to go back into the kitchen, my friend turns to me and says, "Ugh, that guy was so rude to you." 

I hadn't even noticed. In fact, I was giggling as he was waving and shouting at me. His reaction, of course, was right. How could I have been so stupid as to have forgotten to take out my ID? As usual, I was denying any defensive messages inside of me, and agreeing with the message of the bully. The child inside of me who laughed off embarrassment and thought her powerful older siblings were always right had made an appearance. And she thought she deserved to be teased. 

I ask myself if there's anything someone can do that would make me think they deserve to be teased for it. I can't think of anything. I don't tease people. Ever. Knowing how painful it is to be on the receiving end has made me extra aware of others' feelings and of not hurting them. Even in cases where people have made a serious goof-up somewhere, I correct as gently as possible. I never make fun of them for it. 

There is one very special case where I think someone deserves to be teased. And that's right after they've teased someone else. My philosophy is The Golden Rule: Treat others the way you want to be treated. If someone disobeys this rule, if they think they can taunt others for the thrill it brings them, they deserve to be on the receiving end of the same treatment.

It's funny how sometimes the bullied are accused of being "too sensitive." In my experience, bullying made me DE-sensitized to things I shouldn't have been. I've come to realize that we're all sensitive, and we all don't like being teased. In all situations, (well....with a few exceptions, as mentioned above) we deserve to be treated respectfully. And in my own life, I know I need to work on replacing my teasing expectation with a different one: expecting to be treated with respect.    

A Fifth Reason: Inflexible Personality

My friend Amanda once rented a room in a house from a woman who had two small daughters, Hannah, 7 and Elizabeth, 5. Hannah was a very sweet, well-behaved child who never gave anyone around her any problems. Lizzie was a different case altogether. She was defiant and explosive, and it seemed like the smallest things would set her off. Amanda once told me about an incident that really illustrated Lizzie's personality. She was playing CandyLand with the girls while their mom was fixing them dinner. Lizzie landed on one of those bad spots that make you miss a turn. Most young children might have been disappointed, but Lizzie's reaction was way off the charts.

"She just started screaming and crying," Amanda was telling me the next day. "I don't know what her problem is! She's too old to be doing something like that. At that age, you're old enough to know you won't always win a game."  

But this wasn't the only bad thing Lizzie had recently done. There was more that Amanda wanted to talk about.

"And sometimes she'll be not very nice to Hannah."

This made me confused. A younger sibling being mean to an older one? No way.

"What does she do?" I asked, hoping details would explain the situation.

Amanda struggled for words. "I dunno....It's hard to explain. She's just...mean. Nasty. Like, once she said, 'I hate you!' to her mom. And I was thinking, WHOA, that was uncalled for! you know?"

I did know.

I grew up with a sibling like Lizzie myself. She was what many mental health professionals would call "inflexible." She was explosive, had a very low tolerance for frustration, a short fuse, a need to follow strict routines, and would lash out at people if things weren't going her way. We shared a bedroom growing up, as well as a laundry hamper. One week, it was my turn to sort our laundry. I was sitting on the floor, simply sorting the clothes. Well, I must not have been doing it the way she wanted it done, because she grabbed the pile of dirty clothes out of my hands, got right in my face and started screaming at me. At the top of her lungs.

Dealing with an inflexible child can be unpleasant in and of itself. Screaming at people is definitely not civilized behavior. But I believe there's another consequence of an inflexible personality, aside from just the meltdowns. An inflexible personality can also lead to bullying.

One family I know of really illustrates how this happens. Dana and Isabella, two sisters I know of, had a sibling abuse dynamic going on in their family. Dana, the older one, had an inflexible personality and had explosion incidents similar to the ones described above. Understandably, inflexibility leads to more meltdowns and more conflicts. But there was something else going on. Dana was repeatedly calling Isabella names. "Loser" was her favorite one, and she dropped it at every opportunity. If Isabella did something silly, she would say, "Nice job, Loser!" If the two were playing a game, she would say, "You are so not gonna win, LOSER!"

So why did that happen? Why did Dana feel the need to attack Isabella, even if she wasn't being provoked? My theory is that inflexible children simply feel the need for control. They know that if they can have a general sense of control over someone, then they will never be threatened by them. Also, people with a low tolerance for frustration will try to force the desired result when not given what they want. So, a child who loses a game of CandyLand may scream and cry. Or she may throw insults at the winner.  

Either way, inflexible children are more prone to tearing someone down. It helps them build their own stability.

My Reply to a Misguided Mom

Here is a note I found on this website titled "When Should I Intervene During Teasing?"

My 13-year-old son is constantly teasing his younger brother, who is 10. I never know when to intervene. On the one hand, I want to let them work it out themselves. On the other, I worry that my older son is going to think it's OK to be mean and my younger son is going to have some lasting emotional scars. What do I do?
- Janet

And here is my response:

Dear Janet,

You're a good mom. It sounds like you're involved in your kids' lives, and want the best for them. You want to do what's right and you follow the advice from experts, parenting books, and most likely the people in your life: children should be left alone to "work it out themselves."

But here's the thing: "Working it out themselves" is something that applies to your kids' conflicts with each other. If your sons are fighting about what to watch on T.V, or who stole whose skates and broke them, or which video game they want to play together, then they can be left alone to work it out themselves.

During a teasing situation, children should not be left alone to handle it. While conflicts can be dealt with by compromising, teasing is very different. In this situation, there's nothing to really "work out." We're dealing with misbehavior here. And when a child misbehaves, it is a parent's duty to step in.

Telling a teaser and a victim to "work it out themselves" is like telling a child running around a restaurant screaming his head off to "work it out himself." The restaurant-screaming child is not going to stop until an adult steps in and punishes him for misbehaving. The same goes for the teasing child.

You are absolutely right that your older son is learning that it's OK to be mean. The fact that you are worried and the fact that you wrote this letter both tell me that your intuition has given you the answer here. You know already that it's time for you to intervene.

And when do you intervene during teasing? If the teasing is constant, if it's meant to embarrass or dominate the victim, if one child is always teasing and the other always being teased, then you must step in and hold the aggressor accountable. You're worried that there's some sort of acceptable limit for teasing, and you shouldn't intervene until the teasing has surpassed that limit. What all parents should know is that the threshold is a lot closer than they think. If you can say "teasing is present in my house," then chances are the limit has already been reached.

Try your best to stamp out the teasing and let your older son know his power to be compassionate. Then it will no longer be necessary to intervene

Sincerely,

Spunky Sybil



 

A Fourth Reason: Insecurity

A year or two ago, the television show "Girls," was the next big thing everyone was talking about. Created by mid-twenty-something Lena Dunham, the show is often described as a modern version of "Sex and the City" for twenty-something women. I don't have HBO, and "Girls" isn't streaming on Netflix, so I never really got around to watching it. Recently, though, a friend told me about this website where you can watch a bunch of different television shows for free (illegally, of course), and "Girls" was on there. My curiosity got the best of me, and one night I sat down and binge-watched my way through the entire first season.

I don't like Lena Dunham (more on than later) so I was expecting to hate the show. But to be honest, I didn't feel that strongly about it. The characters were annoying and the dialogue was clearly contrived from eavesdropped Starbucks conversations, but nothing else really stood out to me. Except for one scene.

During one part of the first season's finale episode, Hannah Horvath (Lena Dunham's character) and her roommate, Marnie have a fight. It begins with Marnie passively-aggressively insulting Hannah, and then spirals from there. The two begin attacking each other, and Marnie says at one point,"You judge everyone, and yet you ask them not to judge you!" And then Hannah responds with a line that made me reach a new level of clarity in my quest to understand sibling abuse:  

"That is because no one could ever hate me as much as I hate myself. Any mean thing someone's gonna think of to say about me, I've already said to me, about me, probably in the last half hour!"

Pause. Rewind.

Let me take you back to the year 2010, and introduce you to another, lesser known creation produced by Lena Dunham, "Tiny Furniture." This was the first feature-length film Dunham created, and tells the story of Dunham and her post-college graduation crisis. This film doesn't say much of anything--in fact, it's one of the most boring movies I've ever seen--but it does reveal a lot (at least in my opinion) about Dunham herself.

Fiction is always at least partly autobiographical, and "Tiny Furniture" is definitely a mini-autobiography of Dunham's life. Many people will notice many different things when they see the film, but one thing that certainly stood out to me when I watched it is the relationship Dunham has with her sister. What stood out to me the most was that Lena Dunham was an abusive older sibling, and her younger sister, Grace, sought revenge in her teen years. How do I know this?

As someone who has developed an eye for abusive sibling relationships, I can confidently tell you that "sibling abuse" is written all over the relationship Dunham has (or had) with her sister. One thing I dislike about Dunham is the fact that she always portrays herself as the innocent victim. In the very first scene of "Tiny Furniture," Grace starts being snarky to Lena, who then says to Grace, "You're being mean!" (Grace then quips back with, "And you're being over-sensitive!," a remark I'm sure was always leveled at her when she defended herself.)

That film made me dislike Lena Dunham (I have no tolerance for abusive older siblings, and even less for ones who think they're innocent), and "Girls" made me understand her. Why was Dunham mean to her sister? Because she was filled with insecurities, and picking on her sister made her feel better. What we see in that episode of "Girls" is not Hannah Horvath talking, it's Lena Dunham talking. And she's telling us about the hurt that pushed her to want to destroy others.

Insecurity in the abuser is another big reason for sibling abuse. For these abusers, the words they say out loud are reflections of the thoughts inside their minds. In a weird way, the abuser is also being abused--by their very self. And if we want to stamp out sibling abuse, we should focus on all of the abusers present, even the ones not visible.  

Victim Blaming

I was sitting on the couch in my therapist's office, trying hard to absorb what he had just said to me. I felt confused. It just didn't make any sense. We had been discussing my past with my siblings, and how this connected to the overwhelming depression and anger I had been feeling for the past few years. I wanted to get better, and was looking for answers. After a few sessions of listening to my problems, my therapist presented to me the reason why: it was all my fault. 

"I think that no matter who your siblings were, this would have been the outcome," he said. "Your personality invites it," he told me, referring to the bullying (and my nicey-nice temperament). At the time, I thought that since he was my therapist, he must have been right. So I ate his words, and said to him, "I guess if I had fought back, my sister would have stopped being mean to me."

"Oh I guarantee you she would have," he replied. 

Looking back on that conversation disgusts me. I do not believe, for one second, that what happened to me was my fault. As I've said before, there are many factors that contribute to sibling abuse. The victim him- or herself is not one of them. 

Victim blaming is a problem in discussions about sibling abuse. While my therapist is probably the most blatant example of the problem, I've seen it creep up in other resources too.

The parenting classic Siblings Without Rivalry trespasses into victim-blaming territory with its proposed solutions for bullying siblings. In the chapter "Siblings in Roles," the authors address bullying behavior in their subtopic "Freeing Children to Change." They use a little formula called, "No more 'victims,' no more 'bullies'." They show how this works with little cartoons where a parent can "free a bully to be compassionate and a victim to be strong." 

So that seems harmless enough, right? What's wrong with that approach? 

A couple of things. 

First of all, what the authors are proposing is the "don't use labels" approach. This has been used before in bullying prevention, but it has never been used--and isn't supposed to be used--as a main solution. Not calling the bully "a bully" and not calling the victim "a victim," is supposed to be one of many, many tactics that can be used to help prevent bullying. But it is not the panacea for ending bullying. And it is surprising to me that the authors of Siblings Without Rivalry present it as such. 

My second beef with this approach is the assumption the authors are making. They're assuming that if a child is being picked on, that child is weak. Throughout the book, not just in the chapter on sibling roles, the authors provide example after example of a bully picking on a sibling who is meek and mild. They're implying the bullying is happening because the victim is timid. Not a single anecdote is given for cases where the chosen victim fights back. 

And unlike what Faber and Mazlish have presented to us in their book, victims do fight back. In real families, sometimes the victim is timid, and sometimes the victim is tough. Sometimes the insults cause the victim to shrink back, and sometimes they make the victim lunge out. But in either case, the result is the same--the victim's reaction almost always has no effect on the attacker. I've seen many families experiencing sibling abuse. Whether the victim reacts passively, aggressively, or assertively, the bullying almost always continues. (This is why it's important for parents to understand that sibling abuse can exacerbate the fighting between siblings, and even if the two of them are fighting, it's important to get to the guilty party and hold that person accountable.) 

What does a victim have the power to do? They have the power to

• (Try to) avoid their sibling
• Tell their parents the bullying is bothering them
• Emotionally distance themselves from their sibling
• Stand up for themselves ("stop making fun of me," etc.)

I know children who have done all of these things, and still the bullying didn't stop. Ask people who were once victims of sibling abuse,and 99.999% of them will tell you, "I DID stand up for myself!!!....And it never worked." This is why "learned helplessness" is one of the long-term effects of sibling abuse. It's not that victims are "weak," it's that their attempts to protect themselves have very often failed. 

Within the family, children are not in charge of punishments. Those belong in Mom and Dad's territory. And as any parent will tell you, one of the first rules of parenting is to not nag and yell, but follow through with consequences. If a child misbehaves, that child gets one warning. If he doesn't comply, his action should be immediately followed with a consequence. So what if you're a kid, and you can't give out consequences? What happens then? 

Also, a parent saying "stop it" is very different from a child saying "stop it." Parents are the authority figures in the family, and are in charge of setting family rules and expectations. Unlike siblings, parents are not equal to their children. They hold power over their children, and are expected to make their children comply. Siblings simply do not have this power. 

This power dynamic shifts once the kids grow up. When you're an adult, you have the power to cut off a relationship with your sibling. This couldn't have happened before, when you were both living in the same house. But as an adult, you finally do have the power to provide consequences--in the form of taking away your sibling's privilege of having a relationship with you. This threat of "treat me respectfully, or else you'll lose me" is often enough to make the abuser comply. And if they don't, then the power is still in your hands, and you can finally punish your sibling--permanently. 

To my old therapist--I can guarantee fighting back would not have stopped my sibling. But more involved parents, family expectations implemented earlier, and consequences would have. In finding solutions for sibling abuse, pointing fingers at the victims will not empower them. Instead, let's hold the proper parties accountable, and take the burden of blame off the victims' shoulders. What happened to them is not their fault.  

Risk Factors: Sibling Emotional Abuse

There is yet to be sufficient research into how and why sibling abuse occurs. But experts have found a number of risk factors that can make sibling emotional abuse more likely. I have used this website and this one to restate experts' findings. I have also made some of my own observations, which I have also included below. 

• Parents are uninvolved 
• Parents are in denial that there's a problem
• Parents don't understand that it's a big deal 
• Parents think they must always hold children equally accountable
• Parents are permissive
• Parents accept sibling rivalry as normal, rather than working to minimize fights
• Parents have not taught conflict management from early on
• Parents don't intervene
• The abuser has a personality that craves power
• The abuser has low self-esteem
• The abuser exhibits inflexibility, or a low tolerance for frustration
• Jealousy after the baby arrives initiates abusive behavior in the older sibling, which later become habits
• The abuser lacks empathy
• Abuse has been modeled for children

What is Sibling Abuse?

So now that I've got this blog rolling, let’s get down to the nitty-gritty issue: what exactly is sibling abuse? Researchers disagree on an exact definition, but it can be broadly defined as the “physical, emotional, or sexual abuse of one sibling by another.”[1] But how, exactly, can we put this definition into practice?

We can all agree that there is no excuse for physical or sexual abuse. Emotional abuse is not as clear-cut. Parents know that it can be hard at times to ascertain which sibling is being picked on and which is doing the picking. Being able to define sibling abuse requires an ability to distinguish abuse from rivalry.  Different researchers have come up with different strategies for making this distinction. Doctor Vernon Wiehe, a professor of social work at the University of Kentucky, is a prominent researcher of sibling abuse and has developed a system for ascertaining if a situation is abusive. His method is available here. He has some intriguing theories as to why siblings become abusive and what parents can do to prevent abuse.

Systems such as Wiehe's can be a bit complicated and hard to follow. So I have developed my own system for ascertaining if a situation is abusive. I call it: Four Red Flags of Sibling Abuse
Here’s a breakdown:

• Their roles are rigid. One sibling is always the victim; the other is always the aggressor. [2]
• One sibling is frightened of the other
• The aggressor's main objective is to get a thrill from the behavior (rather than to retaliate, express a frustration, compete, etc.)
• One sibling consistently attacks with no provocation

If parents notice one or all of these signs, they are dealing with sibling abuse. Once they have found out about it, they must do everything in their power to stop it. This means educating themselves, finding resources, and practicing different methods until they have successfully eradicated bullying from their homes. I hope my blog will point them in the right direction.  

              

  

                

                

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[1] Frazier BH, Hayes KC. Selected Resources on Sibling Abuse: An Annotated Bibliography For Researchers, Educators and Consumers. SRB 94 – 08 Special Reference Briefs. 1994. Formerly available at URL: http://www.cyfernet.org/research/sibabuse.html. Accessed 23 May 2008.

[2] Boyse, Kyla, RN. "University of Michigan Health System." Sibling Abuse: Your Child:. N.p., Nov. 2012. Web. 01 Feb. 2013.