We cannot stop bullying with punishment, anger, hatred. In my experience, if you bring an energy of “anti-” to something you give the power to the very thing you wish to eradicate. (Sorry…Kids in the Hall sketch went off in my head – the Eradicator!). If we want to get rid of bullying we have to be “for” the opposite of what bullying is: tolerance, love, compassion, and mercy.
Most of the kids I have worked with, and many adults, who have reacted to their personal pain with behaviour that we call bullying have been driven out of the community many, many times because of their behaviour. All this has done to them is made them hurt more and because they have equated pain with weakness (and in the case of boys – “femaleness”) they have found solace in anger and abusive behaviours. They don’t know how to be anything else because their behaviour has so repulsed people that they are continually pushed away. They hurt because they feel, and are, unloved and forgotten and they are unloved and forgotten because they act out their hurt in a way that hurts others. The knee-jerk reaction of “anti-bullying” campaigns and programs only perpetuates bullying because the very people who need to be drawn into the community with love are being suspended, expelled, cast out, and bullied by the programs designed to end bullying.
Our logical brain cannot wrap itself around the idea of doing what must be done…hit hate with love head-on in spite of, because of, our own personal anger toward the acts of hatred.
Many of the kids I work with, or have worked with, (many of them boys) have been bullies or have been bullied or both. Many of these kids have come from a place where they had no one to love it out of them. They were/are keenly aware of how very flawed they are but they are rarely made aware of their beauty and perfection. I have watched very aggressive, angry young men soften and learn to be compassionate and caring. They learned to trust and love because they were loved and trusted in spite of their behaviour.
Last night, as I soaked in my tub, I kept thinking about a horrible image I saw on facebook – an image of a girl who had hanged herself with the caption “Todded” over it. I kept asking myself “what would make someone do that to someone else?” How much do you have to hate yourself to prey on other people? How could I love a kid/person that would think that was funny or ok in any way?
The questions pushed me down the rabbit hole of self-loathing.
Just try it. Put yourself into the mindset of someone who would tell someone else they thought they should kill themselves and really mean it. What is that saying about you? How much pain and rejection has had to have been in your life for you to feel this?
How much shame do you feel about your life and your mistakes do you have to feel to wish death on someone who has made mistakes similar or the same as yours?
How many times have we been angry with someone and wished they were dead? We have all done it. This doesn’t make us evil – it makes us human.
Now think about how much your anger, shame, pain, loneliness would be reduced if someone knew about how you felt, knew you said those horrible things, did those horrible things, and they loved you anyway. Don’t you feel softer inside? Don’t you feel like if that one person thinks you are loveable that maybe you are and they are worth changing for?
Doesn’t love make you wanna be a better person?
Please don’t misunderstand. Abusive behaviour to others is never ok. I am not a flakey-hold-hands-and-sing-kumbiya (however it is spelled) kind of person. All I’m trying to suggest is that we can’t get rid of bullying with more abusive, angry approaches.
Also understand that the question of loving the bully out of the person obviously becomes more complicated when we talk about adults. My experience is with teens – that’s what I need to focus on. Also, it’s kind of a no-brainer that the earlier we start working with people to try to change their behaviour, the more likely we are to actually instill change.
Kids who bully other kids to death don’t need jail, they need someone to hear their stories and to love them into compassion – for themselves first and others second because at the heart of a bully is self-loathing and loneliness.
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