Learn how to handle teen aggression and bullying with Brooks Gibbs. Discover why emotional resilience is the key to winning the dominance game and staying calm.

True emotional strength is about not being offended in the first place. If you can make someone angry, you have successfully dominated their internal state; but when you stay calm, you refuse to play the game.
Podcast over emotionele weerbaarheid en pubergedrag volgens Brooks Gibbs: waarom kalmte, verbinding en zelfcontrole sterker werken dan straffen, terugpakken en machtsstrijd.


According to resilience educator Brooks Gibbs, teen aggression and bullying are often played as a dominance game. In this scenario, the aggressor's goal is to see you lose your cool and react with anger. This behavior mimics the alpha mentality found in the animal kingdom, where one individual tries to overpower another. When you get upset or snap back, you are essentially letting the other person win the game by proving they have power over your internal state.
Brooks Gibbs defines emotional resilience as the ability to maintain emotional control and not get upset when faced with defiance or bullying. It is the practice of keeping your cool even when someone is intentionally pushing your buttons to see if they can dominate your emotions. By refusing to react with frustration or anger, you retain your own power and demonstrate true resilience, effectively winning the dominance game by not handing over the remote control to your happiness.
Reacting with anger is ineffective because it gives the bully or aggressive teen exactly what they want: a reaction. Miles and Lena discuss how we are often conditioned to believe parenting is about maintaining control through force, but reacting emotionally actually signals that you have lost control. If an aggressor can make you angry, they have successfully dominated you. Staying calm is a counterintuitive but powerful parenting strategy that prevents the aggressor from winning the dominance game.
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