April 2, 2012
I have had writer's block lately - all the times I have sat down at the computer to write a post, have concluded with me staring blankly at the screen and then giving up. Any subject I am able to come up with has seemed trivial (like bunnies eating up my flower beds). Today a subject was divinely intervened, by way of my niece but, most surely, direct from God. And it is a subject that nearly everyone on the planet has been affected by at one time in their life or another and is a current epidemic in this world. Bullying.
My niece's request was simple - vote for a video that she and a couple of friends created for The Great American NO BULL Challenge, a newly created leadership and social action organization that inspires teens and young adults from around the world to say NO BULL, by taking a stand against all things hateful, through leadership and leveraging the power of filmmaking. My niece and her friends want the anti-bullying messages to be virally communicated to the world. She wants victims of bullying to understand that there is love in this world. She wants no one to be driven to post a final message to their family and friends. She wants to end bullying.
If you go to The Great American NO BULL Challenge site (https://www.nobullchallenge.org/), you will be brought to tears. Not only because the videos are startling and the content difficult to think about but because each and every student submitting a video has at some time or another felt the way the actors in the videos portray the victims. It is heart-breaking. So many young, bright, beautiful people being hurt and tormented and abused - by their peers and friends and even sometimes by their family. So many of those children thinking the only way to stop the torture - the only final solution - is death.
But what if there was another final solution. One that didn't require the loss of life. What if we were able to raise the awareness of bullying so high that it made us, as a population, stronger. What if we all stood up with the victims and said "We have had enough." I am not naive enough to think that voting for a video will end the pain. But it is a start. So is talking to our kids. Early and often, if we want to make a difference.
I want my kids to know the true definition of bullying but I want them also to know that bullying begins somewhere else. Bullies are not born. So bullying isn't just something that someone gets up and does one day. Bullies are victims first, then cope with their feelings of inadequacy by bullying others who are weaker. There's more to bullying than physical dominance. Verbal, social and cyber bullying are JUST as hurtful as the physical kind - the problem is, you can't visually see the signs of the abuse.
All the definitions and articles about bullying say that social exclusion and teasing are not bullying. But I believe they are the beginnings of bullying. A couple of kids calling another person a nickname that he/she doesn't like - say it enough and it becomes bullying. A child that is excluded from group play, just because, has hurt feelings - do it enough and it becomes bullying. But when is it enough? This is the problem. The definition for bullying includes words like "habitual" and "patterns over time." Who defines those words? Who's to say that the teasing of someone has been done enough and can now be considered bullying?
It seems to me that with all the advances in this world, our simple and steadfast "golden rule" has been set aside.
I want my kids to grow up understanding how beautiful and wonderful they are, no matter what anyone says, does or texts. I want my kids to know in the depths of their heart that they are loved beyond imagination. I want my kids' friends to stand up with them and "have their back." I want my kids to have the strength to tell someone that their bullying ways aren't right. And if my kids become victims I want to be able to help the situation, not perpetuate it. I want everyone to understand that it only takes one statement or one seemingly small act of exclusion or habitual name-calling to push someone to the edge and then over. I want the final solution to be everyone treating others the way that they would like to be treated. I want all of this because I want to end bullying, not someone's life.
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