When Bullies Grow Up
We talk a lot about bullying among children. In the classroom, the locker room, on school buses or online, but we are usually talking about kids. The reasons to end bullying are endless, but almost exclusively tied to making childhood a better and safer place, but there is more to it than that.
I believe bullying is best prevented in our pre-schools, but when it happens, it must be stopped not just for peace today, but also for safety in the future. A playground bully who is never challenged, stopped and taught to change his or her ways will abide by a fundamental law of physics. A body in motion will stay in motion.
That kid on the playground that bullies another and makes a sport out of demeaning someone as a means to gain status, has learned a useful, if dangerous, technique. Bullies on the playground will keep going unless someone steps in.
No matter how much kindness or patience is shown to bullies, they don’t typically come to an epiphany on their own. They don’t often simply decide to turn over a new leaf and make a change from coercion to cooperation.
Bullies keep bullying until some outside force stops them. That force may be a community response, a skilled teacher, or even the police, but bullying keeps going as long as it is effective in delivering more feelings of power, status or self-righteousness to the bully.
Why does this matter to you? Even if you don’t have kids or feel personally affected by bullying, you are right in the middle of this nation-wide mess. Bullies grow up. They become doctors who discount what you tell them, lawyers who push around weaker opponents; teachers who can’t recognize the bullies in their own classrooms, or some even become professional athletes or politicians. Bullies like power and status and they often believe the end justifies the means as long as in the end, their needs are satisfied.
Ending bullying isn’t just a great idea for a children’s special, or a movement among parents who want fairness to rule the day. Ending bullying can become a matter of national import when bullies are in positions of trust. Bullies may begin as preschoolers who are never taught that empathy matters, but if it festers, it can lead all the way to global crisis or even war.
Parents sometimes feel like the job they do is at once fundamentally important, but still somehow less respected or vital than the careers they might pursue. Perhaps changing the world, or as Steve Jobs liked to call it, putting a “ding in the universe,” doesn’t happen at work as adults. Maybe the biggest ding we can make is understanding that there is no job as important to the world as being good parents. No job as influential as teaching empathy. Not just for the benefit of today’s children, but for the survival of tomorrow’s world.
Keep me posted,
Marilynn
Categories: General
