There has been a lot of media attention about bullying lately. Several talk shows just last week talked about this topic due to a recent suicide of a teen that was bullied. This subject is highly charged in the schools as well.
But I think the “b” word is being thrown around without people even really thinking about it or knowing what they are talking about. From my understanding, a bully is someone who either physically or verbally continues to hurt someone even after they’ve been asked to stop. Usually they pick on someone who is shy, won’t stand up to them, and is smaller or weaker than them. This is just my definition. And I’ve seen kids like this who feed on the insecurities of the weak. It is wrong and not only should those kids have consequences, but the victims need to be counseled as well as the bystanders. I think everyone agrees so far.
Lately it seems that any time an incident happens between two children, it is called bullying. Yesterday a boy was swinging around a sticky hand toy and accidentally hit one of his friends in the back. It was an accident, the boy yelled at him for doing it and ran to tell his mother who came over and told the boy to apologize. She then told the boy that bullying is not allowed at school. Luckily, this boy knows what bullying is so he told her he isn’t a bully. Although in my mind, I wonder if a mother standing over a 9 year old yelling at him would not be considered bullying?
When I came home and did some poking around on the internet about bullying, I found out that the parents of victims are encouraged to not step in and protect their children. The kids are supposed to learn to defend themselves and not be made to feel more powerless by someone else taking over for them. So I wonder why this mom jumped to use the “b” word? Is this a problem they had before? Isn’t it harmful to your child to make them feel that something bad has happened to them and they are a victim instead of just addressing the incident at hand and letting the kids make up and move on.
I have been thinking about how everyone says that bullying has become “an epidemic” since we were kids, but in reality, I see hardly any bullying at all at my kid’s school compared to what I saw when we were kids. There are plenty of fat kids, kids with glasses, ugly kids, different colored kids, special ed kids, and every other kind of kid at my children’s school, but seriously, I never hear anyone making fun of them or picking on them at all. So why all the attention to bullying? Are we just raising kids to be super duper sensitive? Is all this talk about feelings making our kids into victims and thus encouraging the very behavior we aim to avoid?
My kids went to a family day care from the ages of 2-4. The day care was run by a 40 something mother whose children were grown. The ages of the kids were 0-5 and there were told to be nice to each other. They had time outs if they were not nice, but the one whose feelings were hurt didn’t get coddled or specially treated. The “victim” was apologized to and told to “get over it” or “let it go” or “move on, it’s over now”. Pretty much the way I was raiser…to take responsibility for myself.
When they were 4, they attended preschool, where the kids are encouraged to really express themselves. They talk a lot about feelings and when someone has been wronged, they say, “How do you think he feels about what you said to him? Doesn’t he look sad?” and to the “victim”, they say, “Tell him how that makes you feel. Tell him that hurts your feelings.” I think it’s great that they encourage the children to express themselves, but aren’t they also saying that when someone says something not nice to you, you should feel sad? I think there are some kids who wouldn’t care if they hadn’t been told by an adult that they should care. A child doesn’t hold a grudge, doesn’t feel wronged. These are learned feelings. Learned from adults who are projecting their own grudges, hurts, and memories on to their children.
I know it’s a little far out there, but it’s something to consider before projecting to your own children. Maybe they aren’t bothered or hurt. Maybe if there were less victims, there’d be less bullies.
