Dr. Novik has decades of experience in bullying research and prevention. In this interview, Dr.
Novik goes through what we know about friendship and bullying and how we can use that
knowledge to help our children have healthy friendships and respond appropriately to bullying.
She also covers what parents should and should not do when children come home and report
bullying incidents in school. This interview is filled with interesting information about bullying
and practical interventions to help you help your children.

Rivka Fishman introduces the concept of “bucket filling”- a way to teach kids about the power
of kindness and the experience of feelings when others ignore or make fun of you. She walks us
through ways to “bully-proof” our children at different ages and stages, how to introduce the
skills, examples and role plays that you can use in your home. This interview also links to a
fantastic bullyproofing video Rivka made with her second-grade daughter about how to
respond to bullies while remaining kind.

Miriam Campbell starts with the importance of the underlying messages we give our children
when they struggle socially. She then walks us through specific tools that she teaches kids to
help them choose friends, make friends and keep friends. She shares her book “Double Bubble”
and how it teaches kids to check, match and join in social situations.

Tzipora Koslowitz defines trauma and how it shapes our reactions. She starts by addressing
what parents can do if their own school experience was in some way traumatic: how to identify
if we are reacting from a place of our own trauma and what we can do so that we do not
continue to parent from our fears. Then she addresses how we can support our kids who have
had a school-related trauma, when to seek professional support and how to help kids through
school related anxiety and/or school refusal.

This interview is packed with interesting facts about tween and teen brain development. Dr.
Fier goes in depth on why this developmental period is SO different from early childhood and
what we, as parents, can do to support (and not get into power-struggles with) and influence
our child’s neurological development. He also talks about screen time decisions with teens,

neurodiviersity in teens, parents’ big emotions about teen’s development and when to worry
about burnout, depression and anxiety.

Dr. Kobernik introduces some core principles of Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) and the DBT
model for the components of effective parenting. She then talks through building children’s
awarenss about their behavior, motivation for change and specific skills in Mindfulness, Distress
tolerance, and Emotion-regulation. This talk is a fantastic introduction to the world of DBT and
the tools it has for our childrent who struggle with regulating big emotion.