Parenting Solutions for Teen & Pre-Teen Education & Behavior

16: Bullying: Root Cause Learning Strategies Stop, Defuse & Eliminate

• Ryan Kimball + Mike Tyler Educators & Behavior Modification Experts • Season 3 • Episode 3

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Bullying doesn’t start on the playground; it often starts where learning breaks down. We take you inside the root causes that push teens and preteens into the bullying game, then show how mastery, purpose, and true engagement pull them out—for good. Drawing on personal stories and practical tools, we map a path parents can use to make their kids “bulletproof” by restoring control over study, connecting lessons to real goals, and clearing confusion that hides beneath decent grades.

You’ll hear how partial understanding compounds into frustration and acting out, why a B can still mean 15 percent confusion, and how a simple shift to 100 percent mastery changes peer dynamics fast. We share the small consultations that spark purpose—questions that help a teen link reading, math, or science to independence and future work—and the exact moves to back up to fundamentals without shame. From misunderstood words and symbols to pacing and self-direction, we break down how to rebuild confidence step by step so progress becomes more rewarding than drama.

We also tackle the tough moments. Safety comes first: separate parties and remove threats. But the durable fix lives in study control, interpersonal skills, and a “defensive learning” mindset that keeps attention steady even when peers are unpredictable. Whether your child is being targeted or doing the targeting, the core repair is the same: restore purpose, master the basics, and give them the steering wheel. By the end, you’ll have a daily routine for visible wins, language to coach calm boundaries, and a lens that sees bullying as a replaceable game—not a life sentence.

We unpack how confusion and low engagement in school feed both sides of bullying, and how mastery-based learning restores purpose, confidence, and control. Practical steps show parents how to make teens “bulletproof” by linking study to personal goals and clearing gaps.

• why partial understanding fuels bullying dynamics
• engagement and purpose as the strongest antidotes
• backing up to fundamentals to rebuild mastery
• defining a real student as self-directed and in control
• using manners and interpersonal skills to steady social storms
• safety first, then address root educational causes
• one approach that works for both bullies and victims
• a daily cycle for visible wins and lasting confidence

Feel free to reach out to us anytime. We love to get feedback of people taking action with these simple but very powerful and well-researched tools.

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SPEAKER_01:

Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of the Parenting Solutions for Teen and Pre-Teen Education and Behavior. So today we're going to dive into a pretty hot topic these days. Mike and I are going to talk about sources of and solutions for bullying for teens and preteens. And unfortunately, there are quite a few instances of this that I've experienced both close to home with family and things I've heard of. And we're going to just talk about where some of the educational sources of bullying or related aspects might be. So let's kick it off with that. Mike, I'll let you take it away.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay, thanks, Ryan. Yeah, bullying is definitely something that I experienced as a child growing up. I experienced it both ways. There was picking on the little kid who was sort of quote unquote begging to be picked on in elementary school, you know, and then later on in middle school, I was I was that kid who was begging to be picked on. I got into trouble that way as well. So I have some experience with this, but I didn't learn about the educational factors until many, many years later when uh I discovered this study technology that we use. And um the fact is, is uh when you have a student who is 100% engaged in the learning experience, they they're studying something that they want to know about, they're effectively adding knowledge about the thing that they're studying, they're pursuing it on their own volition, their own self-determinism. You have a kid uh who is pretty much bulletproof against getting lured into either bullying or being bullied. It's this that other game, uh the game of bullying or being bullied, that whole it's just like the cops and robbers game. It's a it's a game that the kids go into that uh is a replacement for the fact that they're not actually learning. Okay. And the modern school system with its grading system, where they give a child who gets 85% of the information that was taught to them that week or that month or that semester or whatever, and it's like, well, great, that you did great, little Johnny. You get a B. Well, okay. What that really means is that they are 15% confused. And they don't go back and fix that 15%. They don't get the student to a hundred percent understanding. They just let it go and go, Well, you did pretty good. If you want to get do better, you better, if you want to get A's, well, you need to study harder, which they are not taught how to do. And so it just becomes a bit of a lost cause. And so bullying, partying, all these other activities besides learning, they follow from the fact of not actually learning. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Could you dive into some of the specific phenomena like uh a person doesn't understand or a child doesn't understand a word or a symbol and how that leads into a state of mind where they'll either be susceptible to being bullied or take on the role of a person who's bullying others?

SPEAKER_00:

Sure. You have this interesting thing, like I'll just bring this example up of the opposite, just to do a comparison. I asked a young man, he I don't know what grade he was in, but I was in a in a store doing some grocery shopping or whatever, and there was a young man in uh in line behind me, and I think he had a candy bar and he had a dollar or something. I wasn't there to give him recommendations on his food intake or anything. I was just saw a pretty happy kid. How do you how's it going? He was quite excited to be there. He's he's getting himself a candy bar. And I said, Well, how's school going? He goes, Great. And I says, Well, what are you learning about? And he he he had to look at it like he had to think for just a split second, which you know was a good indicator in this case, a good sign. He's looking like, well, yeah, what are what am I studying these days? And he comes up with something like he says, pH words, you know, which would be like phone and that type of thing. PH words, he came up, and I go, wow, like he knows what he's learning. He knows that there is something to learn. He's evidently being taught how to read, and he knows where he's at in the process. He's engaged and excited about it. He's learning pH words, right? Like, wow, that's like amazing. Now you take somebody else and you say, Well, what are you learning about in school these days? You know, I don't know. They show up up. They're not learning anything that they want to learn about. They're being taught things that that don't really matter to them. Nobody's ever driven at home as to why they're studying these things. And so they're they're missing half of what's being presented to them, or maybe all of it. Maybe they don't have any idea what's going on. And so then you have a student who's withdrawn and who's looking around for other things to do. They're they're young, they're vital, they have energy, and that energy is not being directed in a learning path. And so they just look around and they see some sniveling little kid and they go, they're gonna go kick his kick his desk or something, right? Um, and I saw this type of thing, even uh elementary school, junior high, this stuff goes, it gets gets worse as it goes on. The school bullies in high school or whatever, things get things can get violent, you know. But that start that starts in fourth grade, third grade, and stuff, you know. And it it all begins with not grasping the material being presented, not having a purpose for learning the material being presented, and just withdrawing and finding other games to play.

SPEAKER_01:

That makes a lot of sense. I know sometimes um you've mentioned that it's important for people to understand that, especially with how you approach things and how we look at education and helping teens and preteens, it's not just a help them get a better grade or help them learn something so that they can pass that next exam. It's more what you've been relating to here: that purpose, that understanding, the being engaged. How does one begin to foster that so kids don't have an inclination to get into bullying?

SPEAKER_00:

Well, it certainly begins with consulting your child, right? Um the student the students that are going to school these days, they're just sort of pushed into a system where they're moved around a little bit like cattle are moved around on the on the pasture, on the better farms, that is, or they're or or or they're being held captive in in rooms and they're just being taught at. And the first thing that the parents can do is consult the child as to whether any of this stuff is important to them. Is it interesting? Why do they need to learn about this? If it hasn't been explained to the child why they need to become a master of reading, for instance, that, well, they're just reading books, they're just maybe they do uh book reports and that sort of thing, and they're going for those grades. But if if they can be brought into a situation where they understand that reading is their pathway, their way to create a future. They have this innate goal of growing up and becoming independent. And that's what we that's what we want. We want independent learners. We want adults, younger, we want to turn them into the young adults who are actively seeking the information that they want to pursue whatever career and hobbies and hopefully well-paying careers. And that's that that comes from within. That has to be something that they're creating, that they're planning, what their dreams are. And you have to align the learning process to those dreams and purposes that they have. And if they don't have any, well, that just means we're years beyond where all this misinformation and good grades, bad grades stuff has just been piled on so much that they just all they want to do is get through and get out of school. Okay. That that student needs to be backed way up, backed up to something that they have mastered. Let's go back to something that they know really, really, really well. And let's validate that. Call out to them the fact that they did learn. I mean, they learned how to tie their shoes, they learned how to dress themselves, they learned a lot of things. And then where is the point where they stopped mastering things and having some pride of accomplishment in it? That's where we want to fix things. Because every single step should be a step of mastery, of like, I am the master of this thing. I've got this thing down a hundred percent. And that's what we want for our students.

SPEAKER_01:

That's that's great. And I really like every time we talk, it's not always, it's not just about school. It's always you're relating it to there's things to master in life, like skills of being a person that tie in. I think that is missed a lot. Do you find that when you're working with teens and preteens or helping someone with their education, that that's essential to bridge?

SPEAKER_00:

Absolutely. Absolutely. Interpersonal relations is not taught in elementary school. Good manners is not taught in school, really. They might expect good manners. They give you grades or marks or whatever on it, you know, but these are things that can be taught. And many parents do a fantastic job of instilling that stuff in their children. The problem is, is there are other influences. There are other influences. There's a lot of teen uh peer pressure and all that sort of thing. And so steering through that maze of influences is something that we can help the parents accomplish with our educational material. Let's keep them focused on the learning process and navigate that maze of all the other things that they could be doing in school.

SPEAKER_01:

Right. Yeah. No, that's great. And one thing I think we really hit on so far is how when a person's engaged in education, they don't go out and become a bully or maybe engage in that. But I think it's important that we go over clearly how you can also help the person who's the victim of bullying but through educational means. And could you go over a little bit of the theory of how that even comes, like how can a person not no longer be the effect of bullying through some of these techniques that you're talking about?

SPEAKER_00:

Sure. Well, so the person who's getting bullied, they're basically they are, they are being victimized by this other person. And and nothing I'm about to say makes okay the actions being done by this other person. But you want to make your child bulletproof to that sort of thing by putting them in control of their own studies. They can learn how to focus their attention on the task at hand of learning whatever it is that they're trying to learn. And it comes down to really the definition of a student. A student is not just a person in a class who's being taught. That's not really a student. You could say, well, there's 20 or 30 students in this classroom. Are they are they studying? Are they actively engaged in learning anything? Are they in control? Can they back themselves up or move themselves forward at their own discretion, under their own control? That's a student. The student is seeking knowledge and they're charting their way forward effectively, just like you drive a car. You want them to be in control of the car when they're 16 or sometimes 18 years old. They they need to be able to move themselves forward, backwards, left, right. They're in control of the car. And they learn how to drive in an environment where other people's unpredictable driving is still something that they're aware of and can, you know, we call it defensive driving, different terminology, but they can effectively still go from departure point A to arrival point B safely and effectively, no matter what anybody else is doing. The same thing goes for being in school. They can be taught how to learn things under their own control. They that that proofs them up against all this other random traffic that's going on around them. The kid who wants to come over and and and and pick on them. It's like, no, I'm doing this thing, I'm engaged, they're they're they're on it, right? And they can be put in control of that. That's the remedy.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And I do think that sometimes you have to see that to believe it. Like I've actually seen a couple students who were not doing well in their studies were victims of being bullied. And then they got in control of their studies, and all of a sudden they're not being bullied. And people, maybe it's because of the way Hollywood presents bullying or whatever, I don't know, but they don't really believe that. But it's it's kind of magical. Somebody gets involved in their studies, they're doing well, and all of a sudden, like you're saying, all that other random motion and whatever around them kind of drops away. So just to just to vouch for what you're saying. I've seen that with my own eyes as well. So I also wanted to go over uh specifically, I think there's two, probably more than this, but at least two main problems of the parent of the bullier, the kid who's going out and bullying others, and the parent of the victim of bullies, which we just touched on. Is the approach the same for either teen or preteen in helping them get to a place where they're just not playing the bullying game in any form?

SPEAKER_00:

Um absolutely. It really comes down to the fact that they are this whole bullying thing, is just a game that they're involved in because they're not engaged in the learning process. They they just they had to create a purpose for going to school. Well, now by the time they get into fifth grade, sixth grade, maybe their purpose for going to school is to pick on little Johnny. That's the like most fun thing that they could do. And it's a lot of fun. Johnny loves to be picked on, he cries well and stuff, he plays his part. And so that's that's all they have going on, right? So, but let's back it up to like, wow, what what didn't that kid master earlier? And there's just so much missing information in the schools these days, things that have been cut down so much so that once once a child learns how to quote unquote read, they're they're they're reading, and I put that in quotations for a reason I'll explain, but they're reading, and then they're all of a sudden they're they're studying sociology and science and stuff and all these books, and they're piling on all this information. Whoa! There's there's a lot to mastering reading. There's a lot more to the English language than 10 vocabulary words per week or whatever it is that they're doing with this kid. Uh, and your professional writers uh and people who go on to create works of art with the English language, they they learn English extremely well. But so does any lawyer need to learn the English language extremely well. What about a doctor? I met a medical doctor who couldn't pass an elementary school test on on uh simple the on English on the English language, and she's a medical doctor. The fact is, is she was struggling in her. I asked her, oh, how does your continuing education go? Well, I always struggle when I'm studying. Wow, you're a medical doctor. That's you know, a lot to say on her behalf with regard to the stick tuitiveness, right? Most people would just bail if it's that hard, right? But um she persisted and and and and she was benefited by backing up and learning some of the fundamentals of the English language. And every child, whether they're being bullied, they're bullying others, since that's the topic we're going on. If they're engaged in that game, let's back it up. Let's go before the bullying started, giving or receiving. What did they not understand? And let's go back and clear that up. Let's teach them the things that they didn't learn.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, absolutely. I think it's important to outline that these remedies that you're going over and whatnot, they may seem in a very extreme bullying situation where your child's coming home in tears, or you're getting lots of reports from the school about the horrible things they're doing if they're the bullier to others. It seems really extreme and like there's some drastic measures that need to be taken. And maybe there are behaviorally or ensuring the safety of the children, of course, of course. But these simple remedies, when they're really applied in the right way and the right missed things are found, it's it's like I was saying, not to overuse this word, but it's kind of this unexplained change that just occurs in that child, and all of a sudden, they're just no longer playing that game. And even if you have to do things to regulate the situation and keep, you know, people from being too overwhelmed by being bullied or vice versa, it's important that you do these remedies as well and don't just rely on the behavior immediate issues, like really dig in and find these reasons. So if you're speaking to a parent who would come to you with one of these situations, what are some of the first or continuing things that they might you might recommend that they do in either of these situations?

SPEAKER_00:

Well, uh, you're right, Ryan. There's always the immediate, let's let's get order put in, let's get the parties separated, keep everybody safe. We want the we want the kids to be safe. And that might involve taking away some dangerous element. And and if and if your child is the dangerous element, well, you got to just take them out of that environment. Simple. And but once you once you get them out of the environment, uh you know, being kicked out of school for three days, which I think happened to me when I was in in junior high school once, for getting into a fight, um, that fixes nothing. It it doesn't it doesn't remedy anything. Um you go, okay, it's a it's a disciplinary thing and it's for the safety of the children, and it's true. Uh I was safer, this other this other kid was safer from from from each other. But it doesn't fix what was underlying it. So, yes, if the kids have to be taken out of school or moved to different classrooms or different things, whatever, that's fine. Keep the kids safe, but then let's back it up. We always have to address the root cause. And I just love talking about the underlying cause. All these symptoms, you can't just you can't just treat the symptoms and and leave the root cause uncured. You have to get down to the bottom level reason or why is this happening. And um it's always earlier than you think. It's always some simple basic thing that was never either never taught, or if it was being taught, it was not understood 100%. It was 60% understanding, 65%, 85% understanding. That's not good enough. You cannot drive a car that's 85% built. It doesn't work, right? So with the child, you back them up and let's get those, let's get that, those aces going on, you know, let's ace this thing, let's master this thing, get their confidence up, get get some pride going on so that that child is just beaming with pride of accomplishment. I'm learning PH PH words, you know, right? Let's let's put this kid on a path of of being a public speaker, you know, whatever it is that they want to do, but let's let's let's let them master things so that they can be proud of what they're doing. And then that whole bullying thing, it just disappears.

SPEAKER_01:

Awesome. Yeah, such great, simple, direct remedies. Any parents who are listening, just take a leap of faith and use these things, or if they make sense and you just see how they work, then go ahead and use them on your child. And feel free to reach out to us anytime. We love to get feedback of people taking action with these simple tools, but very powerful and well researched. And, you know, they're probably more proven than many of the things we think of as proven in this life, to be honest. But yeah, let's wrap it up there, Mike. That was really great. I think that brings a lot of value. For everybody who's listening, we look forward to seeing you or hearing you in the next episode. And uh, we'll have more of these coming out. Feel free to drop messages to us on social media or if you're on our email list of things you want to learn about as well, or hear about us go over and give you solutions for. So until the next episode, have a great day. Keep learning.

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Ryan Kimball

Host
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Mike Tyler

Co-host