Stop bullying by being nice to your bully?
Facebook strikes again, I was minding my own business lazily scanning my feed when I came across an anti bullying video. There was a demonstration of bullying with the bullied person reacting then there was a demonstration with the bullied person replying to insults with either agreement or a compliment to the bully. The idea being that such reactions take the steam out of the wood be bully and the bullied person has all the confidence in the world.
My first thought when it finished was well that’s all well and good so when do we get to the part about accountability for the bully? Of course telling kids to have confidence to love themselves to not let their people get to them is nice. In a perfect world or scripted stage it works too but the reality is that while that approach may well deter some of the not dedicated to making your life miserable the serious bullies won’t bat an eye. And once again the onus is on the receptor to extinguish behaviours they are not exhibiting we seem to have a love affair with telling people that they are the causes of others bad behaviour. Oh it’s often couched in terms made to sound like self empowerment but without any acknowledgement that you can do everything by the book and someone determined to do you wrong will find a way. There is a delicate balance between encouraging someone to be safe, to be confident to be above it all with a reality check that assholes gonna be assholes.
Most likely that presentation wasn’t about the consequences to bullies but by presenting only the obligation of the bullied to defuse 5he situation what’s being said is if you are bullied and don’t do blah blah blah well it’s your own fault. Not to mention that the kid who decides to be a bully hears that they can be as shitty as they like because if the other person really wanted them to stop they would behave in a particular manner, if they don’t then they either deserve to be bullied or at the least Hasn’t earned the right to be treated respectfully. Why do we as a culture settle for platitudes and oversimplified quick fixes instead of actual complex dialogs?
My first thought when it finished was well that’s all well and good so when do we get to the part about accountability for the bully? Of course telling kids to have confidence to love themselves to not let their people get to them is nice. In a perfect world or scripted stage it works too but the reality is that while that approach may well deter some of the not dedicated to making your life miserable the serious bullies won’t bat an eye. And once again the onus is on the receptor to extinguish behaviours they are not exhibiting we seem to have a love affair with telling people that they are the causes of others bad behaviour. Oh it’s often couched in terms made to sound like self empowerment but without any acknowledgement that you can do everything by the book and someone determined to do you wrong will find a way. There is a delicate balance between encouraging someone to be safe, to be confident to be above it all with a reality check that assholes gonna be assholes.
Most likely that presentation wasn’t about the consequences to bullies but by presenting only the obligation of the bullied to defuse 5he situation what’s being said is if you are bullied and don’t do blah blah blah well it’s your own fault. Not to mention that the kid who decides to be a bully hears that they can be as shitty as they like because if the other person really wanted them to stop they would behave in a particular manner, if they don’t then they either deserve to be bullied or at the least Hasn’t earned the right to be treated respectfully. Why do we as a culture settle for platitudes and oversimplified quick fixes instead of actual complex dialogs?
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