There has been a lot of talk recently about children who bully their classmates. You likely remember those kids from your own school days; for some reason (their own insecurities, behaviors learned at home), they used size, fear, or violence to get what they wanted.
I am not sure why we remain so startled by the schoolyard bully. Today’s children are exposed to an ever-increasing array of bullies parading as pundits and talk show hosts. Parents at peewee softball games yell and carry on when the coach doesn’t play their child in a choice position. People post comments on the Internet that are designed at a minimum to provoke or insult authors or a fellow commenter. Reality show participants are more likely to stick around if they have trouble getting along with the other members of their house or island; they are deemed interesting by virtue of their prickly or abusive nature.
If someone behaved this way at your dinner party, you wouldn’t invite them back. So why do we keep tolerating the behavior of bullies in our communities?
Since our children really are just windows into the souls of the adults around them, our first course of action in dealing with schoolyard bullies might be to take a good long look in the mirror. How often do we use power or threats to get what we want? How often do we direct anger and frustration at someone, in front of our children, over relatively silly matters? (One need only drive in traffic to witness this type of behavior.) And how often do we use words to describe others that we likely would prefer not to hear directed at ourselves?
Because isn’t that what sexist remarks really are: a form of bullying? Mean words designed to make women feel intimidated or small—just like back on the schoolyard. Demeaning language intended to make women feel less powerful in the workplace. Bullying language used by otherwise seemingly intelligent men to end talk show debates with female colleagues that they cannot win on the merits.
Creating a shift in how we interact will take some doing given all the challenges we face and the expanding influence of pundit journalism (read: angry and argumentative). But we each need to do what we can—so start small by opting for any of the following:
- Remembering that our children learn more by watching what we do than by listening to what we say.
- Trying to turn each interaction with others into a win-win situation for everyone involved.
- Turning off the television and radio rather than listening to media personalities who criticize and attack instead of offering solutions (and especially when they do so using sexist language).
Most important, let those in power—including your community leaders and media executives (and the advertisers who support them, often while looking the other way)—know that you want a kinder, gentler nation. Let’s work together to create a country in which we choose not to bully others with our words or behavior. Let’s make ours a nation in which children don’t know how to behave as bullies—simply because they have never seen one.
Cynthia
