Hurt People, Hurt People; Bully Proofing Schools will heal the planet, with Special Guest Peter Burkin

Welcome to the No Problem Parenting Podcast. Turn behavior problems into no problem with Jackie Fineman. Are you ready to become the confident leader your kids crave you to be? Do you want to learn how to make parenting easier and more fulfilling?

Whether you are at your wits end or you want to have more fun as a parent, you're definitely in the right place. Now here's your host, Jackie Fineman. All right. Welcome back, No Problem Parents.

I have a very special guest on to talk about something that is very near and dear to my heart today. I want you to meet Peter Birkin. Peter is a dad, a teacher, a success coach, and a consultant. He created a blueprint to help bully-proof schools and communities. As a bully-proof expert, he helps eradicate bullying, enhance self-esteem, manage anger, increase financial literacy, and much, much more. Peter believes if we have healthy public schools and private, I'm going to add, We were just talking about that.

The planet will heal. So welcome to the show, Peter. Thank you, Jackie. Thank you for having me on your show.

Well, we met through my dear friend, Melissa Dealy. She is my functional nutrition go-to. I appreciate her recommending you to me. And I really want to start out by having you share just sort of a summary of your experience and the reason why bullying is at the heart of what you do and what you're hoping to eradicate.

Very good. Thank you. So I was bullied as a child at home. My father got a hold of me a couple of times and my mom got belted me severely one time, another time. I loved them both dearly. They did the best they could with what they knew. But unfortunately, hitting a child and not spoiling the rod was a true thing going on in households. And a lot of times that whatever happened behind locked doors stayed home and we just got raised with an iron fist. I had two other brothers that taught me how to box and wrestle to get me ready for possibly a cruel world out there.

So I was being programmed to be kind of destructive. Fortunately, oh, another time my uncle got a hold of me and I challenged his poker hand when I was about nine years old, he had me by the throat. So that showed up in my life as an adult, you know, all these things, plant seeds to be destructive when you get older. So hurt people do hurt people. And that's a fact in my life too. Luckily, I was able to play three sports in high school. So I was able to take all the aggression and everything and take it out on my teammates and players on the other schools. So it gave me an opportunity to take everything that was penting up in frustration and anger inside of me and lawfully lash out with other people. And luckily, I didn't get into too much conflicts with my teammates. They put up with me. I just told them they had to toughen up so they'd be easier for the competition. And they bought into it, which was good. And then the competition. I made it where they're going to have a challenging day because I literally spent all my energy taking this all out on everyone else. So I'm a recovering road rager, domestic violence,

and I used to be not nice on the phone. So all these things became a destructive adult as well. So I've been working on things for quite a few years. I took anger management. I found out what my triggers were and I've recovered from all these things which is pretty pretty nice to say so I can help model that to my son though I have a 19 year old son so it's worked out.

That's interesting I agree you say hurt people hurt people and you were definitely hurt and you were brought up in a way that you had to defend yourself from your own family from your own parents the people that you I mean it's so interesting to me and this is in my experience working with, you know, kids and families that regardless of how the parent treats the child, sometimes the kids still long for that connection and that relationship, and they will kind of overlook the hurt and the pain in hopes that one day they'll have a good relationship with their parents will, you know, respect them and love them and show them kindness.

So that's a whole nother topic. But you talked earlier before we started recording, you were sharing with me a little bit about how the bullying started at home. But then it also happened when you went to school. So tell us a little bit about when that started.

Yes, I had classes and I had a lazy eye. So it was harassment around four eyes and hearing all that. I transferred from parochial school to public school. So I had a dress code at seventh grade.

And then when I went into public school, I had to wear the same clothes every day. They were laundered every day, but they were the same dress code. So it put me into a spot where I had to defend myself. Now, it could be physical or threats.

So I learned I could get away with both and defend myself that way. So I was constantly attracting bullies and I had to defend myself either physically or verbally. And you talk about having to defend yourself growing up and surviving on the streets. But then you say you grew up in a suburb, you know, you didn't grow up in inner city, But you still had to struggle, you know, pretty much every day to survive in the suburban streets.

Name calling, it started name calling, but your first real kind of experience with the physical bullying happened on the playground where a kid had pushed you down and was kicking you. And you thought, what is this? Nine years old. Here I have all these skills to defend myself.

And I'm getting kicked to the ground and kicked. And I'm like, this isn't going to happen again. So we used to literally challenge each other going to school and box with boxing gloves or fists to see who was the toughest kid in the school. And that's how we got by things.

We actually had in high school where you would keep fighting. And when the lights turned off, that means everyone thought it got pretty rough and it needed to stop. So it was a constant trying to figure out who was the toughest kid in the neighborhood. And if you were to go to a teacher or principal or something, what would happen?

Well, I took it in my own hands. So back when I grew up, we could stand up to the bully and you never got bullied again. Now our students are told they have to tell an adult. Well, when you tell an adult, they call you a snitch and a rat and a fank and they tell you to go sit back down.

So you become a full-blown victim now. So you're not acknowledged. You're not validated. They don't even ask if you're hurt or not.

And you're dismissed. And the thing is, if this was me and the way I was equipped to deal with the bully, I wouldn't go for that in a minute. I would say to the teacher, what are you going to do about it? And then if I didn't feel like they were going to do anything about it, I would communicate at home that it happened.

I would go to their administrator or principal and say, look at this what happened to me in class, unless you want me not to fight this kid right now, because I will beat him up. If you don't want me to do this right now, what are you going to do as a consequence to this person? So I feel like I don't have to be a victim right now. And then you could go to the board, central office.

I wouldn't stop with just, I would want to make sure that that kid was punished to a certain degree that fit the crime because they assaulted me. And, you know, there's police in these schools now. I would press charges if I had to. But I'll tell you right now, I would not put up with bullying in modern day right now, especially with the police in the school, because they are assaults.

Right. And what is the message that we're sending our kids? So, you know, the focus did, I agree with you that the focus went away from back in the day when we were able to stand up for ourselves, right? Now we're not.

We're teaching our kids that they can't do that because hitting and fighting back is wrong, which I agree with that too. But they shouldn't have to, right? They shouldn't have to. There should be a safe place.

There should be, you know, the message should be out there that if you harm another person, there's no second chance you are held accountable for that right away, because I think that would decrease the odds of the bullying in the first place. But the other thing is now, no matter how many programs, I hear this all the time in schools, there's these amazing programs that schools are learning to help curb bullying. But we're not, once the workshop is done or the conference or the, you know, the assembly where all the students learn about, you know, what we're going to implement in the school.

once that is done, it's like status quo. And the teachers have so much on their plate or have no power themselves that when a kid comes to them and tells them that they're being bullied or harassed or picked on, you know, they are often told, oh, just, you know, go back to your desk and get back to work or, you know, because it's not happening right there in that moment. And we are not validating our kids and we're not hearing them. And so as if it wasn't bad enough where the bully themselves could say, Hey, if you tell anyone, you know, I'll kill you. I'll put your lights out.

I'll do whatever I'll, you know, attack you or I'll do, I'll do something to make you pay as if that wasn't bad enough, which that still exists today. Now the kid knows, yeah, I better not, because even if I do go, the teacher's not going to do anything or the administration's not going to do anything. And I believe that this kid is actually going to make me pay. And so it's horrible. It just, it breaks my heart. And these situations can be minor, you know, where it's, it's, it's words that aren't, you know, super hurtful or threatening, but they're just picking on, you know, like four eyes and things like that, that things that, that hurt your self-esteem all the way up to the severe, I'm bringing a gun to school or a knife or, you know, whatever.

But we are, we're going in the wrong direction. And again, I don't mean to say that, you know, fighting back is the ideal, but what is, and that's what you're here to talk about today. And you've developed a blueprint to eradicate bullying. You have a 23-step model that you're actually working on right now, currently, to get published.

Yes, it's copyrighted. And I'm working with board members and administrators to implement it in the city school district here in Rochester. Yep, Rochester, New York, where I'm in Minnesota. So I want to be clear, I wish you were in Rochester, Minnesota, but you're in Rochester, New York.

And so talk a little bit about this blueprint. One of the big things is the emphasis is on peace rooms instead of consequential rooms where kids are being punished to the point where they feel so down and out that they can't be whole anymore. They're beat on by the administrator. Then they go into the room and they're treated like there's some type of criminal.

when the fact is it could be something like they're not at grade level all right and when they're not at grade level they're acting out because they're frustrated because they don't know the material so there's a lot of things mechanically that could go on in the classroom and some of the things in the blueprint are like tracking our kids that they should be at grade level come on let's get to it now let's get this seventh grader at the seventh grade level instead of being at the first and second grade level, which I saw all the time as an educator in the city.

I'd have 12th graders at the first grade level academically, and that's not going to work anymore, I don't think. The other thing is bell curve. We have a no child left behind thing that happened years ago, and a lot of our kids are getting left behind because our teachers figure that everyone has to pass the subject the first time. okay and if you have 30 kids and you're getting through only four chapters out of 10 chapters of chemistry let's say for instance which is the subject I taught you're missing out on six chapters for the year because you need everyone to pass those four chapters and then you'd run out of time no no no you expose the kids to the 10 chapters and the kids who can hang on there and pass the class get rewarded by getting a passing grade and getting to the next grade.

Whereas the kids who are not up to speed, they may have to go to summer school or repeat the grade in that subject. And what is wrong with that? Right. Agreed. We should talk a little bit about your experience as a teacher. 20 years, you were a science teacher and you saw this. So it's not just your own experience, but you actually saw the bullying happening in the school that you taught at. Oh, yeah. So coming out of college, I taught at a long-term suspended school, and I was being threatened to be killed at my workplace. And I was just like, you don't do this.

You know, the first one, you're just dumbfounded going, I just got threatened to be killed. And then later on, I fought back. It was intense. I went to war with these kids.

And then I had another kid that got assaulted in my room as I'm yelling for the one century of the school of 150 long-term suspended kids, one century, yelling for help because I knew I needed to get help to make sure that this kid was safe now because he wasn't safe with me. And so those two experiences, I had literally the United Kingdom, another country come to my classroom and school to see how our school is being run.

You have to go from the iron rod and the idea that you have to hit kids to nothing like that anymore. So what you do is you send a kid to a peace room to work on their social emotional stuff so they can recover from either being a victim of the teacher harassing them or them harassing the teacher and students in the classroom. But you have to extinct this bad behavior somehow. And one way to do it is let them go to a peace room.

For me, I'm a master level teacher and life coach and also a passion test facilitator. So what I would do is work on that social emotional aspect and also make sure to get their lessons done so they're not falling behind in class because they're out of class either. So I would make teachers accountable as well to have a week's worth of lessons in my classroom so they don't fall behind. And I feel comfortable making sure they get their work done.

And at the same time, realizing that they're also a victim. You know, they could have acted out in class. All right. So what are we going to do now to make it where you can see this teacher the next day and say grace.

And feel like you're still part of the community in a healthy way instead of saying, oh, gosh, here's the kid back again for another day to create heck in my classroom. when the fact is, is we got to make sure we can extinct this bad behavior. Well, and I like what you're saying because yeah, while the corporal punishment from years ago, quote unquote works, right. And some kids that was enough to kind of, you know, say, Hey, wait, I, I'm not in control. I need to behave. I need to be respectful.

Otherwise it's going to hurt. It isn't the ideal. and it never was the ideal. And it is a good thing that corporal punishment is eradicated or it should be.

I just heard not too long ago that there are still a few states that allow corporal punishment in the school system. And it's so hard because I can understand how we need to have the leadership and the ability to keep our all kids safe, ourselves safe as the adults, but also the other kids in the school safe. At the same time, hurt people hurt people. So people aren't born bullies. Something has happened to them to cause them to feel the need to protect themselves from something, whether it's their own low self-esteem, their home situation, you know, there's something going on.

and so I love that you've come up with a way that doesn't include corporal punishment and still reaches that child builds them up increases their self-esteem their self-regard and teaches them that they have value and they belong that they have something to offer the bully is not their identity there was a time I substitute taught at one of our schools called international finance. And I asked the kids, 30 kids, what international finance was. And then none of them knew. So I said, that's okay. Does anyone know what domestic finance is? And no one knew. I said, that's fine. That's why I'm here. For 90 minutes, I'm going to teach you how to make money in this country. And all I ask you to do is call me Mr. Birkin, Coach Birkin, or Mr. B.

If you have a question, raise your hand. So as a sub, I initiated how to make money in this country. and for 90 minutes it was happy and harmony and everyone got so much out of that lesson all it takes is 80 to 90 minutes to teach these kids how to survive on the streets I think it's worth the time to spend that kind of time doing that I agree and establishing your authority can be done in a way that doesn't require you to use force or aggression you know or threatening idle threats, you can establish your authority. You know, it just brings up recently, I was helping out at a daycare providing some observations, training, modeling for the other daycare staff. And even these little kids as young as four years old, just, you know, kind of running ragged throughout the classroom, just sort of, they weren't listening to the teacher,

they weren't following her direction. She was very nice and kind. And she's trying to do more of the gentle parenting approach, right? Or gentle approach. And the kids were just, I would say it's like there's fingernails on a chalkboard for a kid when the parent or the teacher doesn't show some sort of confidence in their leadership or their authority. And so I asked if I could just kind of take over and she said that was okay. And so I just announced in a firm, but kind voice, you know, just matter of fact, firm voice, pulled the kids all together, had them sit, asked where they were supposed to sit on their circles on the, you know, spots on the floor.

They all were curious because I was new. So this isn't, you know, like I was a new person here, but they were, they became curious about, is she mad or not mad or what? You know, I, they were wondering about me. So they did go sit the ones that didn't. I sent them off to a chair in the room, just five feet away and just said, Hey, have a seat outside the circle, take a break for a second. And I kept going and talking with the other kids and piqued their curiosity, asking them, you know, questions and having them do certain things for me.

And then I, within 30 seconds to a minute, I'd bring these other little kiddos back, say, come sit. Didn't need to be a timeout. It didn't, it was, there was no punishment. It was just, Hey, take a break, grab their attention, gain their curiosity again, pull them back into the circle, literally 30 seconds to a minute later, have them try again.

If they didn't make it and they, you know, talked out a turn or, you know, we're moving around, I put them back over to the chair. Hey, no problem. Take another break. wasn't angry about it. I then had them practice responses than saying, when I give you a direction, I went, I want you to reply, got it. I'm going to say, got it. And I want you to say, got it.

And so I would say, everybody sit on your, on your circle spot, got it. And then they look at me, got it. Okay, great. I see that you got it. Right. So that they were being reciprocal and kind of compliant. There is nothing wrong with compliance, right? We're not raising robots, but compliance is a good thing, establishing some leadership, right? And so at the end of this, it lasted maybe 15 minutes. I said, okay, guys, we're going to practice lining up because that was a really tough thing for them. Lining up to go from one classroom to another. And you're going to go to Miss, I'll call her Cindy, go to Miss Cindy, and she's going to be the leader. And I want you all to line up. Normally kids want to be the first in line, right? And they're all rushing to get to be first in line. I stood towards the back of where the end of the line would be, right? Guess what happened? I went behind you. They all wanted to be by me. And when I was speaking to this class initially, the teachers, and admittedly later, they shared with me, oh, geez, you sounded kind of stern. And I mentioned when I was stern to the kids, you're not in trouble. I just need you to be focused on me and paying attention to what I'm saying right now. And, and so it, but it came off,

you know, kind of harsh to them, which trust me, it was not, I can be, you know, I can be mad. It was not that. And, and, and so they thought it was going to be too harsh. Well, guess what? Kids knew what to expect from me. They knew there was, there was no wishy-washy, well, maybe I'll follow through or not, or maybe I won't, you know, hold your feet to the fire on this one, or maybe my expectations, you know, I won't follow through on my expectations. They knew that one little kiddo, as we were having them do some cleanup and I know I'm kind of derailing the podcast, but this is so important starting at this young age. And I think it really is in align with what you're talking about, Peter. You know, one of the kiddos, I said,

all right, it's time to clean up. And one kiddo looked up right up at me four years old and just no, real stern. Well, I could have handled that in the moment, right? But I didn't. I let that go for a second. And I directed my attention to the kids that were cleaning up. And I was noticing how they were cleaning up and what they were doing and all of that. And about five minutes in, I noticed that half of the kids were doing a good job cleaning up and the other half of the kids weren't. They were still messing around, playing, kind of doing their own thing. So I said to all of them. All right, stop. And I pointed out the kiddos that had been cleaning. I acknowledged them, said, hey, thanks for cleaning up, following my direction. You guys can all go sit over on that table and color for a while. And I said, the rest of you, and I had kind of lassoed them in,

and I said, the rest of you can finish cleaning up. Okay. Then they figured that out and they got it. Well, the one little girl, she had said no, and she started cleaning up. After that was all said and done. We did the lineup thing that, you know, I just shared that exercise with you.

And then when that was all done and I was about to leave, I went over to the little girl who had said no. And I do this thing called the make it right technique. And I went over to her and I said, you know, before when I asked everybody to clean up, what happened? Oh, now she thought she was in trouble. This is a girl that typically isn't in trouble, but she's kind of sassy and bossy with the other kids. I later learned, but she's not typically in trouble or, you know, at least not on the teacher's radar. So I said, what happened? And she kind of put her head down like she thought she was going to get in trouble and had a little nervousness on her face. And she said, I said, John, you're not in trouble. I just want to know what happened. And she said, I said,

no. I said, good job being honest. That's step two. You did say no. Thank you for being honest.

And I'm just wondering, what are you going to do to make it up to me? what are you going to do to make it right and she kind of looked confused she'd never heard of this technique before right so of course she's confused confusion is good it peaks the prefrontal cortex the logic part of her brain induces some curiosity from them so they're not in the fight flight or freeze in defensive mode they're like hey what's all happening here they're interested and intrigued so i said would you like some ideas step four to nod at her head yes and i said well you know i'm going to be leaving here in a little bit and i would certainly really appreciate if when i left And I said, goodbye, you would go open the door for me.

As I left, I said, do you think you could do that? And she shook her head. Yes. And then she got almost a smile on her face.

Like, that's it. Like, I'm not in trouble because of course she felt like she was going to be in trouble. She knew she had to find me. And, uh, and so I said, thank you.

Good job making it right. And then about five minutes later, I said, all right, class, it's time. I got to get going. I'm going to go head over to the other class.

I'll see you next time and I no more than started for the door and I didn't have to tell the little girl anything she ran to the door before I even said anything she opened that door for me looked up at me I get goosebumps telling this story and I said hey thank you for opening the door and thank you for making it right and I left and she was beaming with pride so our kids crave leadership structure uh you know all of that and i i just commend you peter for creating this this blueprint to eradicate bullying i've looked over these 23 steps in fact you're going to offer that as a free download a pdf for my listeners today right yes you mentioned law of reciprocity basically she reciprocated and she was happy to do that for you that's lovely i had a second second grader come run into my room as a substitute teacher. And a lot of teachers would have said, stop running.

I'm like, thank you for being here so quickly to class. You're the first one here. I said, I want you to help me today. Would that be okay? And he loved it. And I said, after a while, I might have to ask someone else to help out too. Would that be okay if I give the job to somebody else? He's like, yeah. So I got this kid totally charged up and ready to go for me. And then next you know when you get the kid who could have been the trouble and everyone sees him doing so well for you everyone else wants to do well too and it's just a domino effect and the law of reciprocity when it comes to high school the last high school I was at all you do is greet each one individually first and then when they're in their seats you thank them for everyone to be on their seats on time and it's before the bell and then you talk about the law of reciprocity and they're like what's that i said well what do you what do you think it means and they're like well you were nice to us we'll give me nice to you i said that's great that's that's right and someone brings up the golden rule we talk about the golden rule and then karma and then paying it forward next thing you know you not only got their buy-in but you build rapport and you didn't force a packet down their throat. And you took just what a couple minutes to build that rapport to get the kids to just be golden for you for the rest of the class. And you can do that as a sub day one.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, I won't, we don't have time for me to go through all of your 23 steps here in eradicating bullying. But I'm telling you, it makes perfect sense. It is, you know, there's that phrase that takes a village to raise a child. That's so true. So this, this isn't just about what the schools can do in the schools for the school and for the learning process, but really how we encompass the whole, the family, things going on in the family and what can we offer in the school that ultimately is about learning and education.

But we're not distracted or sidelined by the behaviors then. No, we're not. And we're, you know, a lot of people say, what are you going to do with the hard-nosed kids? And it's like, we're going to embrace and love everybody.

No one's going to be kicked out. unless you give us a good reason to. And I'll tell you, there's going to be a kid or two that might have to be an example for the whole bunch. Well, we're going to embrace everybody.

And I really believe that that love's going to just be the common thread to help heal the school. And that's from everyone from the gang leader right down to the kid who doesn't say boo ever. Right. Who's going to get the 4-0 regardless of how the class is going to turn out.

Right. I really appreciate this. So how can people get in touch with you? I know one of the, again, a very admirable thing here, Peter, is that schools can reach out to you. You're offering this training and support absolutely free right now. This is truly volunteer work for you.

Yes. And you can reach out to me at my email address, which is P as in Peter, Birkin, B-U-R-K-I-N at gmail.com. If you put in the subject line, Jackie in the podcast, and you're the first high school that jumps on board with this, I'll be willing to do everything remotely on Zoom, train administrators, teachers, staff, and parents in this program. And next thing you know, you're going to go from surviving to thriving very soon, very soon.

Yeah, I love it that you've, normally you would just offer this in person and to your, you know, local peeps there in New York. However, you are saying this is so important and it can be taught on Zoom. And it is ultimately the teachers and the administration that need to implement it, right? So you can educate that easily on Zoom and get really get the schools back on track.

Get those parents involved too, especially in our cities. Let's get our parents involved, realize that they are the first parents and we need them to be right on board with us to make sure we make their children as healthy as possible and whole. Yes, inviting them in and helping them not be embarrassed by their child's behavior. It's one thing to be the parent of the victim. It's another thing to be the parent of the bully.

yeah amen all right well thank you so much for being with me today peter you're welcome jackie thank you it was an honor to be on your podcast thank you for tuning in to the no problem parenting podcast join jackie next time for more tips tools and resources that will help you become the confident leader your kids crave you to be who do you know that we could support on their parenting journey. Like this podcast, subscribe, share, or leave a review of the show. Your support of the No Problem Parenting podcast pays it forward and helps us help more families.

Thank you.