Tag Archives: Teaching Kindness

My Bully Pulpit

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“Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them.” (James Baldwin)

DSCN3317I don’t have kids. Every time I am moved to write about kids, I feel obliged to footnote that fact. I’ve never been in the trenches of raising them, of watching them take first steps and then fall on their butts, of witnessing them learn and grow and miraculously develop into autonomous little humans. I haven’t vicariously shared their wins, their losses, or their wounds—and felt these so deeply that I feared my heart would break.

Nonetheless, my heart does break when I read about the gauntlet of bullying so many children face on their journey to adulthood. I’ve written about bullying a lot, in this blog, and in my book.

For some kids, the pandemic offered a respite from bullying. Remote schooling provided a break from name-calling, playground taunts, and the accompanying shame and insecurity. However, remote schooling came with a cost—many costs. We’re learning that many kids are now lagging a year or more behind in academic skills. They’re reading at lower levels, and testing poorly in nearly every subject.

And it’s not just academics that have fallen behind. Studies are now showing that kids have lost a year or more in their social development. One way this is manifesting now that schools have resumed in-person learning is that bullying is back and often worse than ever. Continue reading →

Hindsight 2020: How Will Our Children Remember COVID-19?

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“If you can control your behavior when everything around you is out of control, you can model for your children a valuable lesson in patience and understanding…and snatch an opportunity to shape character.” (Jane Clayson Johnson)

When you were a child or adolescent, were there momentous historical events that altered your life and shaped who you ultimately became?

For me, it was the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, and Martin Luther King, Jr., and also the war in Vietnam. For my parents, it was the Great Depression and World War II. For other generations, the 9/11 attacks or Hurricane Katrina may have etched permanent impressions.

The noteworthy historical event for today’s children or grandchildren could well be the COVID-19 pandemic. They’ll remember it not just as that year schools closed and we stayed home a lot, but also for the way we as individuals and as a nation responded to adversity.

Will they tell their own children and grandchildren stories of scuffles over toilet paper, of hoarding and profiteering, of finger-pointing at people of different nationalities? Will they recount the politicization of life-saving, common-sense measures? Or will they describe how, even in isolation, people found ways to connect with and support one another? How neighbor checked on neighbor, shared provisions, and made sure that those who were most vulnerable were not overlooked. Continue reading →

Great Expectations

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“Being considerate of others will take your children further in life than any college degree.” (Marian Wright Edelman)

I recall bringing home a report card in my junior year of high school. It bore all A’s and one B+ in chemistry, a class I struggled mightily with. I was proud of the A’s and even the B+, knowing how hard I had worked for that grade. My mom took one look at the card and said only this: “If only you’d done better in chemistry—you’d have straight A’s.”

At first, I was devastated. My almost-straight-A report card had disappointed my mother. Then I was mad. How dare she not appreciate how hard I had worked to get these grades? For her, they were just something to brag to her friends about. All-A’s was brag-worthy; a B was not. That may have been the day I decided to stop trying to please my mother.

For years, I thought mine was the only mother who would find an almost perfect report card inadequate. But over the years, I’ve spoken with countless people who relayed almost identical stories. Author and physician Rachel Remen describes a similar experience when, as a child, she brought home a test paper with a score of 98%, Continue reading →

Kindness in the Face of Pure Evil

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“There are two ways of exerting one’s strength; one is pushing down, the other is pulling up.” (Booker T. Washington)

Attribution: Donna CameronA friend asked me to comment on how to apply kindness in the wake of the New Zealand shooting. Unspoken in her question may have been the implication that kindness seems awfully puny in the face of pure and undiluted evil.

Sometimes it feels that way.

When something horrific like this happens, we feel shock, sorrow, and anger. We feel bewilderment and a helplessness bordering on hopelessness. And, for many of us, the “Groundhog Day” repetition of mass shootings sickens beyond words. What possible good is kindness when hate is so heavily-armed? Continue reading →