I was participating in a reading group and the discussion was centered on books that talk about bullying behavior among our children. I described the following incident that happened in one of my schools:
I work in a school district and once was asked to work with a group of children after an incident had occurred. Eight third grade, honor roll students, (seven of which had never before been in trouble), surrounded a kindergarten student with special needs, who could not communicate. They took his glasses, broke them, and began taunting him as their classmates stood by and cheered.
A teacher quickly came over to stop these actions and the eight students were brought to the principal for discipline, which included suspension. Their classroom teacher was shocked and dismayed as were all of their parents.
Upon their return to school, I was asked to find out why they chose to behave in that manner. I gave them a brief lesson on the different aspects of the human being; that is, their physical, their emotional, their mental, and their hearts (spiritual) aspects and asked each student to describe the incident. They were then asked to explain why they had participated in the behavior. As they each took a turn to respond, these were some of their answers:
“They made me do it!” “I don’t know but my parents said that I now have a record.” “I just stood there!” “My body was out of control!” Until, finally one young girl answered, “I didn’t listen to my heart!”
In this instance, one bully had seven peers participate directly and the rest of the class stood by and cheered. This was an overt, blatant form of bullying but how many more subtle forms of bullying are occurring every day that go unnoticed? Does this kind of behavior end when we become adults?
When I posted this story on the group site, the responses were overwhelming. Many people mentioned serious and destructive forms of bullying that occurred when they were children that not only were not stopped but in some cases encouraged by the adults around them. Some of the stories were about the more subtle forms of bullying that are occurring by adults on a daily basis.
When it reaches a certain level it is called harassment and this is usually stopped. But the milder forms of bullying, I believe starts when we form judgments or place labels on each other. We then seek out groups of people who will agree with our judgments and labels and it all starts.
Maybe instead of looking at our children who are doing the bullying behavior, we look more closely at how we are treating each other. Do we find that we are criticizing more, placing more blame on other’s actions, judging or labeling each other? In many ways we live in a very divided society.
Perhaps we could change this attitude and celebrate our diversity and different thoughts and opinions. Demonstrate to our children a new way of treating each other so they know that any bullying behavior is no longer acceptable. We live in such a rich and full society and have so much to learn from each other. Since bullying behavior begins in our thoughts, this process is totally under our control. Our hearts have an infinite capacity to love. Let us find the beauty in each other and celebrate our life together.