Change Your Brain Every Day - Peer Pressure: How to Avoid Getting Burned by the Bully Dragons

Episode Date: March 11, 2021

The way we treat and are treated by our peers has a profound effect on us. Our bullies can leave us doubting ourselves or questioning our own worth, but is it true that “Hurt people hurt people”? In this episode of The Brain Warrior’s Way Podcast, Dr. Daniel and Tana Amen discuss the ‘Friends / Popular Kids / Mean Girls / Bullies Dragon’ and the effect the internet is having on this generation’s children.   For more info on Dr. Daniel Amen's new book, "Your Brain is Always Listening", visit https://yourbrainisalwayslistening.com/  

Welcome to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. I'm Dr. Daniel Amen. And I'm Tana Amen. In our podcast, we provide you with the tools you need to become a warrior for the health of your brain and body. The Brain Warriors Way podcast is brought to you by Amen Clinics, where we have been transforming lives for 30 years using tools like brain spec imaging to personalize treatment to your brain. For more information, visit amenclinics.com.

The Brain Warriors Way podcast is also brought to you by BrainMD, where we produce the highest quality nutraceuticals to support the health of your brain and body. To learn more, go to brainmd.com. Welcome back. We are talking about dragons. Today, we are talking about friends, popular kids, mean girls, and bullies. Oh boy. I think most of us know something about one of these. I mean, we all know about friends, but most of us know something about the popular kids, the mean girls and the bullies at some point in our lives. Even if you were one of the popular kids or mean girls or a bully, you know, it's hard to keep that position. So you have to do a lot to stay there and it can be pretty, pretty painful, pretty challenging. So I want you to think about your life and how have the other children around you when you were growing up impacted what you believe about yourself? So your friends, the popular kids, the mean girls, the bullies.

Many people have been bullied and it's actually worse now than it's ever been because the internet. And even our niece was shaped on the internet. I mean, really like she's eight years old and this craziness is going on. So part of the thoughts you have and the voices in your head are from these categories growing up.

And I just want you to think what has been the influence of the other children and the other teenagers when you were growing up on your development, because they're often telling you you're less than they are. And they do that as a way to build themselves up. But if you already have certain insecurities, even if you don't, but if you already have certain insecurities and you already felt a little bit of that, and it pushes on, you know, a wound from the past, boy, that can really trigger a lot of pain and a lot of problems that can set you up going forward. Did you write about it?

I did. Relentless courage of a scared child when you change schools. I did. It was miserable. It was awful. I did write about so talk about it a little bit. So school was not fun for me. I was the dorky, skinny, weird, bookworm, nerdy kid. So, you know, when I I was young and then all of a sudden, like, I know this is like super unusual and weird and odd, but my middle school years became really good. I worked my way out of that place, became a cheerleader. So seventh, eighth, ninth grade were actually great years for me. Um, and I, I finally made friends. I figured out school, um, really liked school, but another thing happened and I developed really young. Now we didn't have the internet back then. People weren't doctoring their photos. Every girl you saw didn't

look like they were overdeveloped. So it happened like really fast and it sort of shocked me, but I had my support system. It was okay. Cause I had the support system of girls. I looked older than I was, but it was okay. But then we moved and we moved at the end of my 10th grade year and it wasn't okay anymore. All of a sudden I show up at a school and for whatever reason, and I think if I had had a different type of support system, if I had had more confidence, I would have handled it totally differently, but I didn't have that. And so because of my own insecurities from the past, my own lack of support, I didn't know how to handle all of these changes happening with me, as well as the girls that were not

just girls, boys talking about me. And I just crumbled. And I went into this shell of myself and I was bullied. Like I was really bullied. You don't just get bullied because you're overweight or because you, you know, you look like you, you think you don't, you aren't attractive attractive. Girls that are overdeveloped or look a certain way that for whatever reason, you don't fit in for any reason, you can get bullied. Well, and if you're really pretty, you were or are really pretty, it makes a lot of girls feel

very insecure, like you're going to take their boyfriend. Oh, I got labeled as a slut. I mean, I didn't even know these people. It was pretty crazy. How did you get labeled as a slut? I don't know. Some guy I never met said I slept with him. It was all over school. And I was like, what? I didn't know anybody. It was so crazy. So I literally went into a shell within myself. I became very depressed. I remember walking around school with my books in front of me and not talking to anyone. I hated school. So.

And the biggest influence for teenagers is actually not their parents. It's their friends. And we all have the idea that, oh, everybody else has this perfect life and our life is terrible. What teenagers don't understand, actually what most adults don't understand, is that most people suffer. And most people, the average number of dragons from the past that people have is six that's the average uh and none of our thoughts are unique when we're in pain like everyone's had painful thoughts you know but it's interesting because if you help your kids develop coping skills like we raised chloe so differently she she's had been bullied at school but she handles it so differently because she's got a different level of friends, but she's got a different level of confidence. How she

handles herself is radically different. Like how she handles situations that happen at school is just so different from how I did. She doesn't crumble. And, you know, so you can help your kids with this. You can help yourself with this by developing these coping skills, these strategies. Yeah. So I remember for me, I was the smallest in my class and I got teased about that, but it caused me to always look to be a peacekeeper because I wasn't going to win a fight. Well, and you're funny. I was not going to win a fight. So I deescalated situations quickly. Were you always class clown? No, I don't think people would have labeled me as the class clown.

Because you're really funny. Oh, but you were a flirt. Well, in college, I actually got voted most friendly. What was on the ballot though was biggest flirt. Right. But Gloria Carlson also got voted biggest flirt. Ah. And she hated that.

And so they changed the award to most friendly. So yes, I have this curse. Yeah. I'm not a flirt. You can be. Yeah, I have that skill, but I'm not because I'm taken. And, you know, under the pain of death, according to you.

I've never said that. I just said till death do us part. So how have friends popular kids mean girls and you know why are people mean their own insecurities well you know i really believe this when people are mean it really has very little to do with you has very little to do with you it has to do with them because they're mean girls now right it has very little to do with you. It has to do with them. Because they're mean girls now. Right.

It has very little to do. On the internet. But it has little to do. I mean, we'll talk about internet trolls coming up. You know, even like some of the reviews that you and I get or the internet trolls that we get, they're saying things that they don't know anything about. So it really has nothing to do with us. It has to do with them. Their own life experience. And early on when I

sort of went another way than my colleagues and said, hey, if you don't look, you don't know, you should be looking at the brain. Why don't we scan the brain? I was bullied. You still are sometimes. But I don't pay attention to it. And when I don't pay attention to it, I feel just fine. But when I pay attention to it, I know that that hurt can light a fire and I can get pretty angry. Well, and that stuff used to really get to me, but I, my strategy now is when I see something like that. Um, so I had someone actually leave a review and say that basically everything

I wrote about my life had to have been a lie because I don't even know why, but nobody has that much drama. Yeah. I was like, my life isn't even that dramatic compared to some of the people I know. I mean, I almost didn't write it because I'm like, it's not that big of a deal. I wasn't chained to a radiator. I wasn't, you know, whatever. It wasn't sex traffic, like some of the people that we know, but, but I, the point being this person doesn't know me. And so what I, my strategy is to stop and go, okay, according, like it has nothing to do with me. It has to do with that person, that person's life experience. It has nothing to do with me. It has to with that person that person's life experience it has nothing to do with me it has to do with where that person is coming from so you know what you think of me is none of my business and it obviously has nothing to do with me yeah unless they're hurting

you and then you have to ask for help oh yeah no you have to draw boundaries. Like drawing boundaries is okay. But if it's something you can ignore, ignore it. It's a conflict for parents. If they notice their children are being bullied, how much to step in and when? So, so for me, it's like, is this something much, because if you're not careful, your kids will get bullied more, right? There's always this balance. So you always want to teach your kids to be able to stand up for themselves. So if you're able to coach them, if it's something that it's not dangerous, if you're able to coach them to be able to do it for themselves, if it's something they can handle by themselves, they should, because you want to teach them the skill to be able to do that in life. If it gets to a point where you can see that they can't handle it by themselves, you can see that this is out of control. You need to step in. mean there's a point where it's too much yeah i mean that's why god gave us parents right

be our frontal lobes until ours develop um but if you do too much they don't develop the skill right and you can make it worse so what have you learned about friends, popular kids, mean girls, bullies? You know, the big thing for me is hurt people hurt people. Is that when people are awful to others, something may be going on in their brain or in their family or in their own mind that causes that. And so it's not all about you. Behavior is way more complicated than most people think. We hope this is helpful. When we come back, we're going to talk about more of the dragons, the they, them, and other dragons. Stay with us. If you're enjoying the Brain Warriors Way podcast, please don't forget

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