In this episode, Dr. Tim Jordan shares how Mr. Rogers overcame bullying as a child and how his story can inspire your daughter to overcome bullying, too. Parents will learn effective ways to support their daughters by encouraging healthy emotional outlets, fostering friendships that align with their personalities, and promoting a sense of community in schools where children stand up for one another. With the right tools and guidance, you can help your daughter build the resilience she needs to overcome bullying.
Resources to help support your daughter:
- Jordan’s previous podcast: How to Bully-Proof Your Daughter
- Jordan’s article on teaching kids to stand up to bullies: Bullies Beware!
- Biography of Fred Rogers, The Good Neighbor: The Life and Work of Fred Rogers
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Watch episode here
Listen to the podcast here
Mr. Rogers Learned How To Overcome Bullying And So Can Your Daughter
Introduction To The Episode
I’m really glad that you’re here because I’m going to be talking about an issue I think that probably every one of you reading has dealt with and you’ve probably been frustrated by. That issue is how do I help my daughter when she’s being bullied at school or bullied on her sports team? I hear that question a lot from parents. They feel helpless a lot of times and their daughters feel helpless and they feel stuck.
In this show, I’m going to give you some ideas through the story of someone I think you know. That person who, I think, is Fred Rogers, i.e. Mister Rogers. Mister Rogers was bullied a lot as a kid growing up. Some of the things that he learned and some of the things that he did and his mom did for him were very helpful. Especially one of the things his mom did that I also do for a lot of my patients, which I think you’ll find is a different way of looking at bullying.
Stick around through this show to make sure you hear about Mrs. Rogers and my idea. Fred, by the way, was a really sickly, chubby little kid all the way through grade school and middle school. He was the wealthiest kid in town. He wasn’t, but his family was, to the point that he had a chauffeur who drove him to school every morning, and then a chauffeur picked him up at lunch and brought him home, then brought him back to school. The chauffeur showed up again at the end of the day to take him home. That made Fred feel very different because none of the other kids had that money growing up.
A lot of the kids, because he was chubby because he was sick, we teased him and called him Fat Freddy. They teased him a lot. He felt very left out and very lonely and didn’t know what to do about it. At first, his parents did what a lot of us do, which is we say, “Just ignore it,” which is easy for us to say, but it’s hard to just ignore it when it’s happening a lot, especially when it’s not just one kid. It may be a kid who gets other kids around them who also contribute, and especially now.
I cannot tell you how many girls I see in my counseling practice who have a problem with their best friend. Their best friend breaks off the relationship, and then they take the whole group because they start spreading rumors about this girl. They’re gossiping about her, and then all of a sudden, the whole class starts to not want to hang out with them. Fred didn’t have social media back when he was a kid growing up, but there was still a lot of that going on in his school. What did Fred do about it? A couple of things. The first one was that Fred sought out stories of other people who also were foreign spirits, people who were being oppressed through books, through stories he found in lots of different places.
That helped him feel like I’m not alone. That’s one of the reasons why I really love it when girls come to our weekend retreats and summer camps because when we do our little circle time, girls are sharing about their experiences. Most girls, by the time they’re in middle school or high school, they’ve had a time in their life when they felt left out, teased, made fun of, or excluded.
When they hear stories from other girls their age that they also have experienced things that are similar and have felt very similar feelings, it’s magical because they start to realize I’m not alone. I’m not crazy. I’m not the only one who’s experienced this. It’s healing and magical when girls experience that. That’s one of the reasons why Fred reached out to books and stories is to also find other people who were experiencing maybe what he was. The other thing that Fred did was he spend a lot of time in his imagination. He learned how to play the piano very well.
He also would make his own little puppets. He would play with his puppets and marionettes. He was very sickly. He had very severe asthma to the point where, in the spring and the summer, he couldn’t go outside. That’s how severe it was back in that day. They didn’t have the meds, I guess, to help. He spent his whole summer inside. He had one little friend, Peggy, who would come over and he would entertain her with his puppets and his marionettes, which probably was a precursor for his TV show years later.
Finding Outlets For Emotions
That helped because at least he had an outlet. He had one friend he could spend some time with. The other thing was he had a good outlet for his emotions because, like all kids who are being bullied and teased and left out, lots of feelings come up. Anger, hurt, sadness, disappointment, confusion. Fred said that his outlet, his refuge, was his music. This is a direct quote from Fred Rogers.
“I was always able to cry or laugh or say I was angry through the tips of my fingers on the piano. I would go to the piano even when I was five years old and start to play how I felt. It was very natural for me to become a composer. All kids need outlets when they’re going through tough times in their lives. When they’re being bullied, they need to have a place to express all those emotions I just mentioned, either through music or through journaling or through writing stories.
I saw a girl the other day and I encouraged her to write some letters to a kid who was bullying her at school and so she had done that for two weeks and she came back and she felt a lot better because she got it out. She poured out her anger onto the page, but she didn’t send the letters. She just got it out. Then she did it, but also it was very beneficial. She crammed up the letters and she threw them away. Research has shown that if you write letters like that, that’s beneficial, but if you write them and then smash the letter and either burn it or throw it away, that’s even more beneficial for releasing those emotions.”
Fred found an outlet for his emotions so they didn’t overwhelm him. He also poured himself into his imagination through his playing with his puppets and things. Something happened that his mom helped him with. The star football player at his school, his name was Jim Stumbo. He was in the hospital for a few weeks. He was sick. Fred’s mom arranged for Fred to bring this kid his homework and also to tutor him so he wouldn’t get behind.
They became fast friends in those two weeks, with Fred helping him every day. When that kid, Jim, returned to school, he started including Fred with his friend group. Fred started to gain confidence. He became very well-liked because he was a nice kid, to the point where he ended up being the student council president. He was the editor of the school newspaper.
He acted in plays and theater at the school. He became a confident kid because that one kid took him under his wing. That new friend Jim, who was a football star, told all of his friends that Fred was a great guy and you guys should start to get to know him. Fred said this. This is a direct quote. Mister Rogers said, “That made all the difference in the world for me. What a difference one person can make in the life of another.” It’s almost as if he had said, “I like you just the way you are.” That became a very famous phrase of Fred Rogers, Mister Rogers, in his TV show.
The lessons you parents who are listening to this can learn to apply to your daughters and sons, for that matter, is to allow them to have their feelings when things are going on. Always listen. You can guide them over time to have some healthy outlets for those emotions, be it writing, journaling, playing music, writing songs, dancing, painting, or art.
There are so many ways to express what’s going on. Writing letters, writing stories, writing poetry. Make sure your kids have outlets for their emotions. The other outlet is just the ability to have someone safe to share it with because talking about it and sharing about it and having people listen and say, make sense, I get what you’re saying. It makes sense why you might feel that way. That is healing for kids. They have somebody that they feel safe with to come and share their stories with.
Kids need healthy outlets for their emotions, whether it’s writing, music, or art. It’s crucial for them to express what’s inside. Share on XI think it’s also good to encourage your daughters to speak up and set boundaries. They cannot let words hurt them. I did an episode called How To Bully-Proof Your Daughter. I talked about tomato words, not giving their power away. We can teach our kids not to allow words to hurt us. That’s important, as opposed to victimizing them by saying things like, “You poor thing. I can’t believe they’re doing that to you.” There are ways that girls can learn to have their own shield. They can learn to not take things personally, they can learn to smile, walk away, etc. Go back to that previous episode and read that.
I told you I had done something that Mr. Rogers did. I oftentimes encourage parents when their daughter is having a hard time finding a good friend in their class to talk to the teacher and say, who’s a good match for my daughter? Who’s somebody you think would be kind and inclusive? Who’s at my daughter’s emotional level? I see a lot of girls who have a hard time finding friends because they’re more mature or sometimes less mature.
A teacher who’s been in a class with kids for weeks or months at a time they have a sense of who might be a good fit for that kid. Then maybe reach out to that child’s family and invite that kid over. Then your daughter at least has somebody they can start to establish a relationship with, especially out of school. It’s hard to deepen a friendship when you’re walking around school and there are 50 kids out in the playground screaming and yelling and running around, but having a kid come over for a Saturday afternoon or a sleepover, they get to spend that time, that’s where the friendship can deepen.
You might be able to find that person by talking to the school, your child’s teacher, and maybe the school counselor. Find a good match and see if you can’t get those kids together. Just having one good friend can make all the difference in the world. My wife and I have a program called Strong Girls, Strong World, where we go into schools and we work with classrooms of girls to help them learn how to get along if you will, how to create a classroom community that they want to come to.
How to take responsibility for creating that community. One of the things that we teach the kids is what we call courageous conversations. How to resolve conflicts directly, effectively, and peacefully. There might be a teacher or a school counselor who can sit your daughter down with somebody who’s teasing them and have them talk it through. Have your daughter tell that person how they feel and what they want. Have the other kid tell your daughter how she feels and what she wants. Have them work it out, come to an agreement, and then here’s the important thing, and then follow up.
I’ve had some kids who had that conversation, but then there was no follow-up. What happened was it got worse because the kid was angry because they were called out into the counselor’s office with this kid, and then they started spreading rumors and gossip, and then it ended up getting worse because nobody followed up to make sure to hold both kids accountable to whatever they agreed to. The accountability piece is important.
The Role Of Community In Bullying Prevention
There’s a famous quote by a man, his name is Alexander Den Heijer. The quote goes like this, “When a flower doesn’t bloom, you fix the environment in which it grows, not the flower.” Sometimes, what your daughter needs is for someone to work with the class. The best anti-bullying programs in schools are not the ones that address the bully or the victim. They’re the ones who address the whole class, the bystanders, if you will. If the whole class gets behind, this is not okay with us.
When a flower doesn’t bloom, you fix the environment in which it grows—not the flower. Share on XWe will not allow that behavior in our class. They start to role-play and then make commitments about standing up for each other. That is the most valuable thing that can happen a lot of times for a kid is that the environment changes, the community changes, and they all start taking responsibility for each other. You can encourage your schools to allow the time to do work like that. To teach kids those kinds of social-emotional skills.
Lessons Parents Can Apply
They really do help. Your daughter will understand also that other kids will be resolving conflicts. You will realize I’m not the only person who is having some struggles with my friends. Work on the context, not just your kid. You work on the garden and the soil, not the flower, if you will. Fred Rogers had a challenging childhood with bullying, but he learned to transcend it with some help from his outlets and with some help from a friend who took him under his wing and helped guide him to create some friends.
That’s all that can hold true for your daughter as well. By the way, there’s been a couple of good documentaries about Mister Rogers in the last couple of years. Also a book, the book is called The Good Neighbor: The Life and Work of Fred Rogers. I read that biography as well, and I think that’s where I got these stories from. It might be a good read for you and or your child if they’re old enough.
The article that I talked about about how to help your daughter stand up to bullies is called Bullies Beware. Use Mister Rogers’ story and his examples to support your daughter in learning how to handle her emotions when it comes to being teased and bullied. Learn how to stand up for herself. Also, learned some ways for her to make things better for herself.
Then maybe go back and watch reruns of Mister Rogers’ show. Thanks so much for reading. I imagine all of you have been approached by a daughter or a son because they’re being teased, bullied, or left out. I think the example of Fred Rogers and his mom will be important for you to have a better idea about how I can support my daughter. Thanks so much for stopping by here on the show. I will see you back here next time.
Important Links
- Strong Girls, Strong World – Past Episode
- The Good Neighbor: The Life and Work of Fred Rogers
- Bullies Beware – Past Episode
- How To Bully-Proof Your Daughter – Past Episode