Episode 225: Bullies, Victims and Bystanders - Teens and Bullying

Feeding The Mouth That Bites You: Parenting Teens Into Adulthood

Kenneth Wilgus, PhD, P.C.

Christian Parenting, Christianity, Teens, Education, Teenagers, Kids, Kids & Family, Parenting, Religion & Spirituality, Adolescents, How To, Parenting Teens, Parents

4.9 • 714 Ratings

🗓️ 28 October 2025

⏱️ 34 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Bullying is one of those topics that hits close to home for almost every parent—and it’s rarely simple. In this episode, Cynthia and Dr. Ken unpack the complex dynamics between the bully, the victim, and the bystander, helping us see that there’s always more beneath the surface. They talk about how bullying shows up in different forms—whether it’s physical, verbal, or online—and why it is important to understand the context and power dynamics involved. The conversation also touches on the challenges parents face in addressing bullying, the impact of social media, and the need for open communication with teenagers.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Welcome back to Feeding the Mouth That Bites You, a weekly podcast guide on parenting teens and launching them into the world.
0:15.3	I'm Cynthia Yanov, and as always, I'm joined by psychologist and author Dr. Ken Wilgus.
0:22.1	Good morning, Dr. Ken. Hey, Cynthia. How are you? I'm joined by psychologist and author Dr. Ken Wilgus. Good morning, Dr. Ken.
0:23.2	Hey, Cynthia.
0:23.9	How are you?
0:24.7	I'm good.
0:30.0	You and I were laughing before we started about the social media.
0:37.1	And now that we have our feeding the mouth social media active and we're putting reels on there from the show.
0:38.2	Tell everybody what you said.
0:42.9	I just, you know, it's always disappointing when I turn my camera on. I now have to, you know,
0:48.5	like put a collared shirt on and because when I see it on the reel, I'm like, woo. Why would we ask this homeless guy for advice on parents? So we make a joke, everyone. we tape on some um it's called a platform called
0:56.2	riverside is how a lot of people tape podcasts and the joke about riverside is like when you're
1:00.9	taping and you're looking kind of like zoom you feel like hey i look pretty good and then it comes out
1:05.2	later in a reel on social media and you're like oh my gosh who is that. We would like y'all to follow us on social media,
1:12.1	but if we scare you, we just, it's, it's Halloween. It's coming up. Whatever. That's right. Don't show your children. It's fine. It's fine. It's fine, everybody. All right, we're talking out bullying today. And one time I heard an administrator that you and I both know where my kids went to school. And he said something that stuck with me.
1:28.5	He said in bullying, there's always three different persons in the situation. There's the bully.
1:35.5	There's the one being bullied and there's the bystander. And his point was everybody has a
1:42.6	responsibility or a position in when this is going on.
1:47.3	And he was like, I would just say, as your parenting, always watching to see, is your kid the bully?
1:53.3	Is your kid the bystander?
1:55.0	Is your kid being bullied?
1:57.1	Now, he was talking to a younger audience.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Kenneth Wilgus, PhD, P.C., and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Kenneth Wilgus, PhD, P.C. and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.