Kids don’t always get along – adults don’t either. However, in general (though there are many notable exceptions such as the overzealous little league dad who actually physically assaults an umpire whose decision he disagreed with), adults tend to have the capacity to filter what they say to avoid giving offense, or restrain themselves from saying and doing things that are exceedingly hurtful. Often kids lack this same capacity, or it is not as well developed as adults’ ability to restrain themselves.
And so we see cases of bullying, whether physical, verbal, cyber, and so on. I saw a great meme on Facebook not too long ago, I think the words were something like “since it is certain that kids will encounter cruel enemies in this world, let them at least have heard of courageous knights.” As a martial artist and self-defense instructor, that really resonates with me.
It is important that we develop in our kids the ability to withstand hardship and willingness to fight, along with the self-control and discipline to restrain that fighting spirit when necessary. Controlled aggression and fighting spirit is the goal here. If someone is throwing verbal muck at a kid, the kid should know how to defend and throw some of that verbal muck back to show that he or she refuses to be an easy victim.
Now, in today’s litigious society and “zero tolerance” policies, this may contravene school policy. But do we really want school policy to dictate that our kids be helpless sheep when faced with cruelty? I doubt that is an optimal solution. “Just ask an adult or teacher for help” is of no use when there are no adults around to witness the bullying, much less put a stop to it. If we’re going with these zero tolerance policies, there needs to be a lot more careful adult supervision and adult intervention to immediately put a stop to any bullying. Yet there are many reported cases where the so called “responsible adults” fail to act firmly to stop bullying.
Another problem that is enabled by the “zero tolerance” policies is reverse bullying, where younger and smaller kids purposely provoke older and bigger kids, knowing that if the bigger kid retaliates, the school system will come down hard on the bigger kid. Now, I am not saying we should go back to the days when two gentlemen would settle a dispute with swords or pistols, or two antagonistic kids would be encouraged to settle things with a fistfight, but we need some common sense in school policies and how we enforce them.
What do you think? Please leave a comment below.