Serving the people of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee
Margaret Plevak - Parenting Staff
The neighborhood bully materialized in an alley one late winter afternoon as I was walking home from St. Rita Parish Elementary School in West Allis. Dawn stood almost a foot taller than most of the other fourth-grade girls and sported a perpetual sneer.
She called kids names, pushed people down on the playground and made fun of the mildly retarded boy in our class. This day, she and two of her friends were crossing over to the street where I was walking, and then suddenly they were in front of me, trying to stab my face with what felt like handfuls of pins. I wildly waved them off and then sprinted two blocks to the safety of my house. I was frightened and angry, but too embarrassed to tell my parents or teachers. Instead, I took to avoiding Dawn when I could, trying to fade into the background when she was around.
Rather than hiding, children can face their fears of bullies, and parents can help teach them how, say area therapists and educators.
Bullies act aggressively for a variety of reasons, from issues of control to poor social skills. Judy Futterlieb, program manager of Parenting Network, remembers working with a 5-year-old who terrorized other children because of his knock-down behavior.
"He never learned how to get along with other kids. He only knew rough and tumble play," she told Catholic Herald Parenting in an interview.
Kathy Barthels, a Milwaukee area therapist who recently presented a workshop on handling confrontations with bullies said, "(Bullies may be) angry at someone else who's bigger than they are or has more authority, and are taking it out on someone 'littler' to regain a sense of power.
Sometimes people put others down as a way of bringing themselves up by comparison. Misery loves miserable company. There, low self-esteem is at the core."
In some instances bullying is a response to of pain and anger, Barthels said. "There may be something out of control in the bully's life that they cannot handle, tolerate or deal with. Then the behavior is acting out what is happening inside, especially emotionally.
"This person may be very angry and in lots of pain, and you could feel sorry for him or her, but the bully does need to know that what they are doing is unacceptable," she said.
Futterlieb, a teacher for 10 years in the Milwaukee Archdiocese, said both parents and kids need to pick and choose their own battles. In the most dangerous instances, where someone is wielding a knife or a gun, children shouldn't try to stand up for themselves, but get adult intervention immediately, whether that's a parent, a teacher, or even a police officer, she said.
But the playground or backyard name-calling, teasing, or shoving matches can generally be handled by empowering kids with the skills they need to face problems.
Sometimes all it may take is ignoring the bully.
"If a bully finds that he gets a rise out of somebody by doing something, he'll continue to do it. If there's no reaction, he'll usually stop," Futterlieb said.
But if a bully is buoyed by his friends into teasing, or refuses to stop, it may help a child to changes his own behavior patterns.
"Most bullies will single out a child who is already displaying some victim-type behaviors, like someone who is a loner or quiet," Futterlieb said. "If it's a matter of a bully picking on a child who walks to school alone, urge the child to develop a buddy system so that he or she can walk with a group of friends."
If the behavior persists, try more assertive actions. Barthels recommended that children use firm voices, direct eye contact and a to-the-point explanation when telling a bully that a specific behavior like calling them "metal mouth" or stealing their lunch money isn't OK and won't be tolerated.
"The best time to do this is when the behavior is actually occurring, but it's also very important that a child isn't crying when they approach the bully, so if they need time to calm down, they should walk away," she said.
"Don't whine," agreed Futterlieb. "If they show they're upset, chances are that's only going to make the situation worse. When I talk to kids about this, I tell them the response has to come from way in their tummy."
She also urges children to use easily understood "kid terms" like "Knock it off!" or "Get lost!" rather than psychological statements such as "I don't appreciate that kind of behavior." And she tells them to practice role-playing and response at home with their parents.
Sometimes even humor helps to defuse a situation. Marilyn LaCourt, a local marriage and family therapist with Confidential Counseling Services suggests children respond to name calling or foul language with a remark like, "You eat with that mouth?"
LaCourt, who believes that bullies are not people, but behavior, said that children also need to learn tolerance. She's the director of a pilot program that offers weekly workshops on cooperative skills to seventh-graders at Kosciuszko Middle School in Milwaukee.
"Ninety percent of the kids in our schools are not going to pull a gun on anyone or push them around in any way, but we're teaching communications skills that can result in much greater cooperation that will diminish the potential for violence," she said.
LaCourt, a former teacher, said the program helps students to differentiate between accidents and deliberately mean behavior and learn ways to stand up for themselves when they are pushed down. But much of the emphasis is on preventing such behavior to begin with through cooperation and reciprocity.
"Kids sometimes forget that being nice helps," she said. "When somebody's nice, be nice back."
She mentioned an example she'd witnessed in school of a boy picking up the books dropped by another student, known for his troublesome behavior, who then thanked the boy.
"These two boys don't particularly like each other, and they don't meet outside of school, but in this situation they're now sharing homework assignments and talking to each other. There's a kind of respect that's developed. They're never going to be friends, but they've found a way to kind of live and let live without being in each other's faces," she said. "This program reminds kids that it's easier to get along with people we like."
The best way for kids to develop empathy and cooperation is through parental interaction and instruction, therapists and educators agree. Make home a place where kids can easily talk to parents about any topic.
"Parents shouldn't jump at who's at fault or who's to blame," Futterlieb said. "Instead, they should look at this as a learning situation."
What if you start noticing bullying tendencies in your own normally well-behaved child?
Therapist Kathy Barthels suggested talking to the child about "getting a bad reputation, learning to make friends, and doing unto others." More importantly, she said, is finding out what might be causing feelings of anger, isolation or low self-esteem.
"Be open and honest about the consequences of the behavior and do not tolerate it," said Barthels. "A good lesson in empathy is required to let the child understand that his or her actions really do impact on others."
Educator Judy Futterlieb agreed. "Parents should take a step back and say, 'Wow, that sounded kind of harsh. I wonder how Billy feels about you calling him that name.'
"What works really well is talking about life in general with your child, taking time when, for instance, you're watching a television program, to explore life topics."
"How to Handle Bullies, Teasers and Other Meanies: A Book That Takes The Nuisance Out of Name Calling and Other Nonsense," by Kate Cohen-Posey, Betsy A. Lampe, illustrator (Rainbow Books, Inc., 1995).
"The Two Bullies" by Junko Morimoto, Isao Morimoto, translator (Crown Publishing, 1999), reading level ages 4 to 8.
"Bullies Are a Pain in the Brain" by Trevor Romain, illustrator, and Elizabeth Verdice, editor (Free Spirit Publishing, 1997), reading level ages 9 to 12.
Parenting Network Parent Stressline: (414) 671-0566, a 24-hour line staffed by counselors who can help with parenting issues and suggest other resources, such as support groups.
By Donna Pinsoneault - Special to Parenting
Eugene knew them best. In our crowded pre-Vatican II Catholic school classroom, Sister went up and down the rows giving each of us a chance to spout them off. Eugene could say them fast and get all six in chronological order. So, whenever one of us stumbled, Sister asked Eugene to stand and list them for us again.
"The holy days of obligation:" he would recite, "Circumcision, Jan. 1. Easter. Ascension of the Lord, 40 days later. Assumption of Mary into Heaven, Aug. 15. Immaculate Conception, Dec. 8. Christmas, Dec. 25."
There were other days like Ash Wednesday, first Fridays and feasts that one could consider holy, Sister explained. But at that time, these six were days of < B>obligation< B>. Every Catholic must go to Mass, she said, and we knew she was right because we could see back church pews, normally empty on weekdays, filled to the brim with laborers in work clothes, harried moms with whole bunches of toddlers, and gray-haired grandmothers in babushkas. This obligation was one adults seemed to take seriously, proof-positive to us that on holy days, like Santa, God must check his list of "who did and didn't show up twice."
Meanwhile, on a Beaver Dam area farm, young Mike Hammer was enjoying a childhood enriched by holy days marked with freedom from work and a spirit of pure celebration.
"What made a difference to us is that we were raised with holy days that were special," said Hammer, who is now a priest of the Milwaukee Archdiocese, specializing in AIDS ministry. "We didn't work. We didn't even have to make our beds. Even if the weather was threatening and neighbors were making hay on a holy day, we didn't. We had to milk the cows and stuff, but that was all. To this day, on a holy day, I don't make my bed."
In place of work, the Hammer family went to Mass together, then to his grandmother's house for a big breakfast.
"She always served fried bologna and fried potatoes," he said. "It was the best breakfast!"
The rest of the day was spent visiting friends or doing fun things with the family. In Hammer's experience, the emphasis was not on obligation but on holy - a delightful difference.
"It was not a holy day because it was proclaimed holy," he said, "but because of the way in which it was kept."
Some years later, children in the Calderone-Stewart household come home from school to find one of mom's sandals enshrined on the dinner table or purple mats at every place. When they ask what's going on, mom and dad offer clues hinting that the upcoming Advent Sunday Gospel will recount the story of John the Baptist or that the day marked the beginning of Lent.
"You have to remember that our family is a little strange since both parents work for the church," said Lisa Marie Calderone-Stewart, associate director for early adolescent ministry in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee. "We tend to do things that are a bit corny or extreme. We discovered early on that our children never had a clue about what was talked about in the homily on Sunday. Using an unusual object or symbol, even something goofy, as a centerpiece on special days gives families an opportunity to talk about holiness, to raise questions."
Gary Boelhower, theology professor and associate vice-president for academic affairs at Marian College, agreed.
"So much of our faith formation in families depends on creating family rituals and prayer time that fit with the natural rhythms of the year," he said. "The challenge is to create rituals that speak our values as Christians and as families."
Official holy days were first proclaimed by the church as a way of getting days free from work for serfs and servants, Hammer explained.
"The church couldn't get involved in mitigating for wages," he said. "But, if the church said people had to go to Mass, they could get some time off. The sense of holiness was supposed to permeate throughout the day."
Over time, the practice of filling Sundays and holy days with a sense of holiness was reduced, in the experience of many, to making sure the family got to Mass, then going on with business as usual.
"Sabbath is a wonderful tradition, part of the rhythm of life, the way we mark time," Boelhower said. "Culturally we got away from this and Sunday lost its specialness."
Hammer encourages Catholics not to see Sundays and holy days as punitive matters they are obligated to carry out, but as "little Easters," opportunities to indulge ourselves creatively. At Mass, he often asks the people present on holy days whether they came because they wanted to be there or because they thought they were supposed to come.
"When I ask, they kind of chuckle," he said. "I tell them holy days are about celebrating. If it's done as an obligation, that is kind of short-sheeting the whole idea of the day. It's not about sitting around and praying. Give glory to God, but then go to a movie or on a picnic."
Getting Sunday back as a holy and family day may be as simple as setting the evening aside as a stay-at-home night when the popcorn bowl comes out and the family gathers to watch a movie, Boelhower suggested.
Secular holidays, as well, he said, can become regular occurrences of family celebration. "We have to bring our Christian values, our way of seeing life to all the important days," he said. "Martin Luther King Day, the Fourth of July - they all give us an opportunity to make our faith come alive, to acknowledge what faith calls us to as a family."
What can make days holy for your family? Celebrating Mass together of course. But don't overlook the holy-ness in fried bologna, unmade beds, purple placemats, corny traditions, lunch with friends, whatever seems a good fit for your family. Keep things simple and inexpensive. And if you have never done anything like this before, now is a great time to start.
"It's never too late and it's never too early to begin family traditions," Boelhower said.
1. Get in touch with family who are far away. "It was pointed out to us that we were blessed to have those days," Hammer said. "We gave little cards or flowers to grandmothers or godmothers. Now we still call home on holy days. It's a way of staying in touch."
"One of the best parts about working in different parishes around the diocese is getting to hear wonderful stories from parents and kids," Boelhower said. "One mother told me that her daughter, now a young mom, called to ask if her mother was planning to send a little package of heart candies for Valentine's Day. It didn't matter that the hearts were available at 27 stores where she lived. She needed to get them from her mother. They were a sign of her love."
2. Do something special. "Make a special dessert. Take rolls to work or have lunch with a close friend," Hammer suggested. "Somehow show how glad you are, whatever the feast (day) happens to be. That helps people celebrate the day and gives witness to what you believe."
3. Create a special environment. "If the kids see flowers on the table or a special cloth, they know something is up," Boelhower said. "Simple things, like a red heart at each place on Valentine's Day, speak of the specialness of the occasion. God's presence is always there. The signs we create just remind us of that."
4. Read Scripture together. "The key is to talk about the people in the readings, about how they might have felt," Calderone-Stewart said. "For example, think of how the paralytic's friends were bummed out because they couldn't get the man into the house to see Jesus. Think how they felt when one of them came up with this crazy idea to lower him through the roof and it worked! Ask children if they have ever had similar feelings."
5. Start food traditions. Make a special coffee cake every Easter or fresh-squeeze orange juice every Christmas morning. During Lent, pick one day each week when you eat a little less food like soup and no dessert, Boelhower suggested. Give the money saved to someone who needs it. Fill a laundry basket with items a homeless shelter can use. Or make pretzels, an unleavened bread that reminds us of hands crossed over one's heart in prayer.
6. Take time to learn about the day being celebrated. Need information about the feast? Check your local or parish library. If you have access to the Internet, check out the archdiocesan website at www.archmil.org.
7. Serve others together. "Working side-by-side at a meal program, for example, families can learn so much about the process of being community," Boelhower said.
8. Pray together. When you have cracked open the Bible and read a verse or two together, add a prayer that comes from your heart and speaks what is in your mind, Boelhower suggested.
"Prayers don't have to sound great. God accepts all of what comes from the heart," he said.
9. Celebrate! "We like to think of the church as countercultural," Hammer said. "But that doesn't mean sackcloth and ashes. Look to rejoicing in the Lord. That's what the holy days give us."
For more ideas, read:
"Family Faith and Fun: Activities, Games, and Prayers for Sharing Faith at Home" (High Time, 1996) by Gary Boelhower.
"In Touch with the Word" (St. Mary's Press) by Lisa Marie Calderone-Stewart. Books are available for Cycles A, B, and C plus a separate volume for Advent, Christmas, Lent, and Easter.
Holy days are feast days of such importance in the liturgical year that participation in Mass is required.
The universal church's Code of Canon Law lists as holy days, in addition to Sundays: Christmas, Epiphany, Ascension, Corpus Christi, Mary Mother of God, Immaculate Conception, Assumption, St. Joseph, SS. Peter and Paul, and All Saints Day.
The code also gives bishops the right to abolish certain holy days of obligation or move them to a Sunday, with approval of the Holy See. The United States bishops decided not to make the feasts of St. Joseph and SS. Peter and Paul days of obligation, and they transferred Epiphany and Corpus Christi to Sundays.
Hence, in the United States the six holy days of obligation, in addition to Sunday, are:
Immaculate Conception, Dec. 8, celebrating Mary's being conceived without original sin.
Christmas, Dec. 25, birth of Jesus Christ.
Mary, Mother of God, Jan. 1, formerly feast of the circumcision.
Ascension Thursday (40 days after Easter Sunday), Jesus' rising into heaven.
Assumption, Aug. 15, Mary taken up body and soul into heaven.
All Saints, Nov. 1, honoring the saints of the church.
Patricia Lorenz - Special to Parenting
Recent holiday cards, e-mails and visits to my hometown in Illinois, have made me think about my family a lot lately. About my 29 first cousins, specifically. Twenty-one cousins on my Dad's side and eight on my Mom's. Fifteen males, 14 females, born from 1937 to 1957 and during the year 2000 will range in age from 43 to 63.
Eleven live in Illinois. The rest are in Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri, New Jersey, Ohio, Texas, Utah, and one in Wisconsin. I love my cousins. Seven of the women and I are as close as sisters.
The backgrounds, diversity and strength-under-adversity among my 29 first cousins is what I like most about them. Eleven of them are the children of an Illinois farmer who was accidentally electrocuted in a farm accident when the youngest was 6 months old and the oldest 19. One of those kids became mayor of a mid-size town in Illinois but was run out of town 25 years ago after he made some unwise investments with other people's money. Another dropped out of society after being diagnosed as psychotic and lives in a treatment facility.
One became a priest, ordained in Rome. One of the 11 is a farmer. One left the family with her young child in 1975 and disappeared for 23 years only to surface for a few weeks and then leave again. One died in her 20s of lupus. Another died in his 40s of the effects of alcoholism and heart problems.
The eight first cousins on my mother's side were the children of a full colonel and a major general in the Air Force. All eight are college graduates and wealthy by anyone's standards. One has her doctorate and runs the State of Kentucky's "virtual university." Her brother, the only boy in that family and the youngest cousin of all, is a whiz kid who, The Wall Street Journal said, has a "personal fortune of about $225 million."
Cousin Barclay, who also happens to be handsome and nice, owns the largest cable company in the United Kingdom. The same newspaper article said, "He is rarely seen without two cellular phones, a PalmPilot and a laptop computer. He uses the Concorde like a bus."
My seven favorite cousins are Judy, Kathleen, Marta, Jean, Karen, Meta and Mary Beth. Four from my Dad's side, three from my Mom's.
Their careers are varied: X-Ray tech, teacher, beautician, architectural estimator, two nurses and the virtual university director. They are the most fun, diverse, interesting women you'd ever want to meet. Four of the seven are divorced, three have remarried. The eight of us have mothered 22 children. And oh, the adventures we've had!
Judy, Marta and I were born within four months of each other and grew up in the same town. Judy and I went to school together for 12 years. Jean and I were college roommates for a year. Kathleen and I raised our pre-schoolers together in St. Louis for five years. Marta and I giggled and gabbed our way through my angst when I moved back to my hometown after my divorce. Mary Beth and I have had great conversations about life and love including one last summer while we swam in the Atlantic ocean together. Meta became a mothering mentor for me as I watched her raise her family from afar. Karen, my only sister-cousin in Wisconsin, and I have shared many cups of tea at her house and mine as we hash over the idiosyncrasies of our family.
As diverse as my cousins are, there's one thing that's a common thread among all of us. We are totally devoted to our parents: Aunt Helen, age 91, Aunt Mary, 83; Aunt Mary Emma, 82, Uncle Ralph, 81 and my dad, Ed, 80. We first cousins visit, phone, write to, and check up on the parents regularly, making sure they're all leading lives as full and happy as possible given the effects of aging.
Families come in all sizes and styles, with a variety of ideals, standards and goals. Some of my cousins are successful career-wise, some seem to fail at everything. Some are healthy, others sick and some have died before their time. Some are happy, others miserable. The rich ones don't seem to be any happier than the ones who struggle from paycheck to paycheck. One of the happiest is Marta, the beautician, who is loved by everyone in town and has an upbeat personality that makes every haircut an adventure.
My 29 first cousins and I are as diverse as they come but we love each other, cherish our mutual ancestral heritage, and bond together easier than sliding butter over a hot ear of corn. We respect our differences and remain close for one simple reason. We are family. We have roots in common. Ties that bind. Family. It's a lovely word, isn't it?
(Lorenz, a nationally known inspirational writer, lives in Oak Creek. A mother of four grown children, she spends most of her time writing books.)
James Pankratz - Friends of the Family
Have you gone to a bookstore lately to pick up a present for a son, daughter, niece or nephew? There is a wonderful selection of titles for children of all ages displayed in a bright, attractive manner. Many larger bookstores have whole rooms devoted solely to children. Maybe you were looking for a book on parenting to help you figure out just what to do to help your toddler or your teen-ager. You would have no trouble finding those resources as well.
Imagine your shock if you asked for a recommendation from the bookseller and, instead of suggesting "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" by J.K. Rowling, he handed you a copy of "The Family Well Ordered or An Essay to Render Parents and Children Happy in One Another." After marveling at the catchy title, you open the plain brown front cover and discover a date of 1699. The bookseller, Honest John Foote, points to the corner where the author, the Rev. Cotton Mather, is signing copies of his work.
You sit down on a hardback chair in the lounge area of the drafty bookstore and over a cup of strong, black tea listen to Mather expound on his 17th-century views of children and child raising. Mather offers this advice to children: "If by undutifulness to your parents, you incur the curse of God, it won't be long before you go down into obscure darkness, even, into utter darkness." Mather then asks you if you might like a lump of sugar for your tea.
He sees that you're intrigued by his advice and recommends an earlier work by a Puritan colleague of his, John Robinson, who first wrote down Puritan theories of child raising. Robinson (who lived from 1575 to 1625) considered children "a blessing great but dangerous." It is Robinson who introduces the notion of the "rod" into American consciousness. He recommends the "rod of correction" be used to break children from the nasty habit of developing "a will" of their own. He insists that a child's role is only to comply and quotes Proverbs 22:15 to back up his argument.
You are no longer thirsty. Making your excuses to Mather, you get up and look around the bookstore for a book that could suggest child raising ideas other than scaring and beating children into compliance. In a nearby discount book bin, you fish out copies of "The Book of Martyrs" and "Youth's Divine Pastime," which were routinely given to colonial children for a span of 100 years. Your jaw drops as you read page after page of violence and sex. This is more of the Puritan reasoning that scaring the devil out of the children was the best approach.
You "make haste" up the spiral staircase to the second floor. Here you find a shelf of 18th-century books with brighter colors. One best seller, imported from England after 1740, was Nurse Truelove, an adventure story about a boy and a horse, and a girl and a coach. Things are lightening up.
On a nearby table there's what appears to be a small paperback. "The Little Pretty Pocket Book," which is small enough to fit in your pocket, contains both moral tales for kids and advice on child care for parents. "The grand design in the nurture of children is to make them strong, hardy, healthy, virtuous, wise and happy." The idea that children should be happy has finally arrived.
Another idea was making its appearance in the colonies. In 1718 a Boston minister encourages his 9-year-old daughter to "look people in the face, speak freely and behave decently...." In 1750 a Swedish traveler wrote "It is nothing uncommon to see little children giving sprightly and ready answers to questions that are proposed to them...." In 100 years Americans were moving away from the Puritan ideal of the submission of children. The value of American initiative was being born and children were being allowed to demonstrate they have minds of their own.
As you climb the stairs to the 19th century, you marvel at the sunlight streaming through the large arch-shaped windows. This is the early Federal period, when Americans felt optimistic about their future and their future was in the hands of the young. You notice there are stacks and stacks of children's books strewn about on tables. This is in sharp contrast to the few volumes of the Puritan age. By 1825 there were many books written solely for the entertainment of children. You see a familiar cover and pick it up. It begins "Twas the night before Christmas...." "A Visit from St. Nicholas" by Clement Moore had made its appearance in 1822. After 1830, magazines for parents began to appear.
As you peruse the child-care manuals of the 1830s, "The Mother at Home and The Father's Book," you discover the old, punitive attitude toward children, which allows for beatings and whippings, continues its grasp on the American psyche. However, a moderating viewpoint is building. The author of "The Father's Book" states that small children should be diverted from their mischief rather than punished. He recommends comforting children's fears, avoiding confrontations, and comes up with the revolutionary concept that children should not be punished for acting like children. Equally revolutionary were the writings of a Congregationalist minister, Horace Bushnell, who alone in his time asserted that children go through developmental stages.
On the 20th-century floor you find a copy of the book "The Little Darlings: A History of Child Rearing in America," by Mary Cable, where I found the historical facts and insights outlined in this article. Cable's book leads me to the conclusion that the Puritan, Federalist, and Victorian ideas about children and child raising are still with us today.
Next time you listen to parents talk about their approach to children, try to identify which period is being reflected. The climb toward treating children as human beings, deserving of understanding and compassion, has been a long one. How much progress did we make in the 20th century? See next month's column.
(Pankratz is a marriage and family therapist in Catholic Charities' Milwaukee regional office.)
Copyright, 1997 by Catholic Herald, Milwaukee, WI
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