Bully!

When I was thirteen I was one of those unfortunate children whose nose grew up before the rest of my face did.  This is a real phenomenon—I learned about it at one of my kids' maturation programs.  Unfortunately, at the time I just thought I had a huge nose.  I was teased about it a lot, and I was terribly self-conscious.  There was one boy who called me "eagle beak"—until one day my friend Kim grabbed my pointe shoes (which, for some reason I had with me) and clonked him over the head with them. 
When I walked home from school there were a few boys who followed me (I'm sure they were just going in the same direction, not following me) and shouted rude remarks about my nose, and my looks in general.  I would hug my books tight to myself and either walk slower or faster—depending on the day, and I often ducked into the public library to hide until I was sure they were gone.  I felt awful.  I hated my nose! (I still don't particulary love it, actually.) 

Today all those kids would be called bullies and they could get in big trouble which, presumably, would have the wonderful effect of stopping their merciless bullying (not likely).  But with that "fix" I can't say that my predicament would have necessarily gotten any better—it could be that I would have felt just as nervous as ever.

But, back in the day, here's what actually, really and truly happened:  I was walking along one day, hugging myself all tight and together, and watching my shoes and feeling bad as I headed for the library, when suddenly I had an epiphany:  I was not the one with the problem; I was perfectly fine and healthy and talented and smart and I had good friends.  It was them!  They were the stupid ones with a problem!  Ta-da!  I didn't say any of this to them, but after that revelation I walked with my head up; I relaxed; I didn't try to hide from them any more.  And guess what: They stopped!  Within days, they just quit bothering me. Huh!
Whaddaya know?

I bring this up because I saw this post on facebook today:  "A teacher in New York was teaching her class about bullying and gave them the following exercise to perform. She had the children take a piece of paper and told them to crumple it up, stamp on it and really mess it up but do not rip it. Then she had them unfold the paper, smooth it out and look at how scarred and dirty it was. She then told them to tell it they’re sorry. Now even though they said they were sorry and tried to fix the paper, she pointed out all the scars they left behind. And that those scars will never go away no matter how hard they tried to fix it. That is what happens when a child bully’s another child, they may say they’re sorry but the scars are there forever. The looks on the faces of the children in the classroom told her the message hit home. Copy and paste this if you are against bullying ♥"

>sigh<  In the first place I don't usually copy and repost these kinds of things, and in the second place I'm just tired of hearing about it.  Is bullying bad? Yes, it is.

But there's been such a lot of talk about school bullying lately.  School hallways are plastered with signs that say bullying is bad.  There are big, colorul posters showing sad little kids crying to grown-ups, posters showing mean kids picking on other kids, etc.  (Basically, they are posters that show kids how to be a bully.)  In fact I was totally shocked to visit Kaylie's classroom a few years ago and see two great, big, hand-written posters hanging on the walls: one was a list, compiled by the class and the teacher, that detailed bad behaviors—things you shouldn't do; the other was a list of things you shouldn't say. And, for some odd reason, this teacher had incredible classroom management problems. 
Go figure! 

Now here's something I hear a lot and have seen in action:  What you pay attention to, grows. 

So maybe we should quit giving the bully so much attention and give a little air-time to acts of kindness.  Let's correct some of the problems I just mentioned:  Kaylie's teacher could have had the class make both of those same big posters as an exercise, but then she could have also had them do just the opposite:  make a couple of big posters that listed good behaviors and nice things to say.  She could have made a big production of throwing away the bad things, and then posted the good stuff up on the walls for the rest of the year, where the kids could read them and make good ideas part of their every day. 

Maybe instead of big, colorful posters of sad children with captions that say "Don't be a Bully," they could hang big, colorful posters of happy children being kind and helping each other, with captions that say "Be Kind," or "Show Respect." And maybe we could facebook those messages—messages of kids helping kids, and say "repost if you love this"—instead of "repost if you hate bullying."  We could be like Mother Teresa, who said she'd never attend an anti-war demonstration, but that if someone held a pro-peace rally she'd be there.

As for me and my big, dang nose...I'm not exactly sure where (at the trying age of thirteen) I pulled that piece of self-esteem from.  But if we gave our kids  the love and the nurturing that allowed them that same self-esteem I bet there would be fewer bullies and fewer bullied, too.