Tag Archives: Teaching Kindness

Choosing Between Bystanding and Standing Up for Kindness

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“It is only with true love and compassion that we can begin to mend what is broken in the world. It is these two blessed things that can begin to heal all broken hearts.” (Steve Maraboli) 

Attribution: Donna CameronThe vast majority of young people are not bullies and are not the bullied. They’re bystanders, and this, I suspect, is where efforts need to be focused to make bullying a thing of the past.

It’s true with adults, too. We see bullying in the workplace, or perhaps on the sports-field or the grocery store parking lot, and we don’t like it but we don’t know how to intervene.

In the discussion of bullying—whether children, adolescents, or adults—the key to countering the abuse is motivating bystanders to step in and act in support of the person being bullied.

According to Megan Kelley Hall, co-editor of Dear Bully: Seventy Authors Tell Their Stories, “The bystander definitely has the power to help change the climate—with adults and children. In bullying cases with children, almost half of all bullying situations stop when a bystander gets involved.” She further explains that getting involved “doesn’t mean taking a stand or getting into the bully’s face, sometimes just the simple act of not giving the bully an audience or just taking the side of the victim is enough to get your point across.”

Helpful and Hurtful Bystanders

The website www.eyesonbullying.org describes both hurtful and helpful bystanders. The former instigate or encourage the bully, or sometimes they join in once bullying has begun. Sometimes they may not actively support the bullying behavior, but through their passive acceptance they condone the torment and offer the bully the audience he or she craves.

Helpful bystanders assess the situation and then directly intervene by defending the victim or redirecting the situation; or they get help from others present to stand up to or discourage the bully, or report the bullying to someone in authority who can intervene.

Why We Don’t Step Forward

The site also describes some of the reasons why bystanders don’t intervene. Among them:

  • They fear being hurt or becoming the target of the bully themselves;
  • They feel powerless to stop the bully;
  • They think it’s none of their business;
  • They don’t want to draw attention to themselves;
  • They fear retribution;
  • They fear that telling adults won’t help and may make the situation worse;
  • They don’t know what to do.

What to Do

The bystander’s reaction will set the tone for other witnesses and may serve to enlighten the bully without embarrassing or shaming them. Perhaps it will give them a means of exiting the encounter without feeling put down. Maybe—just maybe—it will teach them that there are more effective ways to behave—ways they haven’t learned at home and aren’t likely to. Silence and inaction sustain bullying. Whether the setting is the schoolyard, the workplace, social or recreational situations, or cyberspace, bullying must be nullified. For the vast majority of us who are neither bullied nor bullies, we have the responsibility to step in when we see bullying or other forms of cruelty. We need to say “no more” and model the world as we would like it to be.

It’s good to remember that everyone—bully, victim, and bystander—carries an invisible and heavy load. Perhaps one of the best reasons we are all here on this planet is to help others shoulder the weight of their load—even if we can’t see it and don’t know what it is.

The website www.bullying.org offers some excellent advice on what kids should do if they see someone else being bullied. Much of that advice is directly related to kindness. It suggests befriending a child who is being bullied—walk with them, eat lunch with them; involve or extend an invitation to the new kid in school or the kids who often seem to be alone. Don’t try to respond in kind to a bully—don’t fight them, make fun of them, or say mean things back at them—it usually makes things worse.

This is where parents and schools, and even the media, can help. If we have discussions about what to do when we witness bullying, we’ll be better prepared to act, rather than to be paralyzed by fear, confusion, or uncertainty. If kids—or adults—know that they can make a difference and are aware of strategies for intervening, they will be much more likely to do so.

Bullying Is Not a Rite of Passage

Jenny Hulme, author of How to Create Kind Schools, notes that bullying is not and should not be just part of growing up. “Bullying brings no benefits at all—either to the bully or the bullied. It can, instead, trigger a cycle of victimization that can last a lifetime. Studies have shown victims of bullying, including very able children, stand a much lower chance of doing well at school and are more likely to experience depression, anxiety and poor physical health as adults.”

According to Hulme, “Research into ‘bystanding’ demonstrates that people who are given a seminar on compassion, or were empowered to help others, are more likely to go against the majority” and step in to help someone who is being bullied.

Education is Key

Kids need to learn that bullying isn’t cool and it isn’t acceptable. They need to learn it at home, at school, from the media, and from their peers. And kids who are the target of bullies need to understand that there’s nothing wrong with them, and there’s nothing wrong with being different—it’s the bully who has the problem and the bully who needs fixing.

Schools and parents need to take seriously their responsibility to teach kids that it’s not enough not to be a bully, we must all be willing to step in when we see bullying, and let the perpetrator know it’s not acceptable. That takes courage, and courage—like kindness—is a capacity that strengthens with practice.

A Growing Kindness Movement

While unkindness and bullying are rampant, there also seems to be a growing movement to bring awareness of the issue, and growing efforts to both prevent bullying and nurture kindness. And, wisely, it’s often kids who are leading the charge.

Schools all over America—and in many other countries, as well—are building kindness into the curriculum, from K-12. Numerous programs have been launched to counter bullying—many created by and for kids. Among some great resources:

  • Kind Campaign – focused on helping eliminate unkindness between and among girls
  • The Great Kindness Challenge – with educational and “global” sites, it offers strategies and suggestions for practicing kindness in our everyday lives
  • Kidscape – a 30-year old U.K.-based anti-bullying organization focused on preventing bullying and protecting children
  • Bystander Revolution – lots of celebrities involved in this organization formed to counter bullying by focusing on kindness, courage, and inclusion.
  • www.stopbullying.gov
  • www.bullying.org

As we saw in an earlier post, “Adult bullies were often either bullies as children, or bullied as children.” It’s a cycle that must be broken. If you’re a parent, think about having a talk with your child about bullying and help him or her strategize how they will respond the next time they witness bullying. And do the same for yourself—whether you encounter it in the workplace, on the bus, or at a community meeting. Knowing in advance how we want to behave helps us to follow through when the circumstance arises.

Instead of standing by, let’s all stand up for what’s right.

“When we make judgments we’re inevitably acting on limited knowledge, isn’t it best to ask if we seek to understand, or simply let them be?” (Jay Woodman)

 

Little Bullies

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“You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late.” (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

attribution: Donna DameronI have absolutely no knowledge, training, or experience that would qualify me to write about children. But I am an American, so the fact of my ignorance shouldn’t stop me. Look at our lineup of 2016 presidential candidates.

Long ago, I appropriated a line from a quirky and underrated David Mamet movie, State and Main. When asked if I have children, I always reply, “No, I never saw the point of them.”

And it’s partly true. That whole biological-clock thing never activated for me. I never imagined myself a parent, and never, ever yearned to hold a baby or fill my home with miniature humans. I’m very glad most people feel otherwise, else we’d be a dying planet of self-absorbed baby-boomers with no subsequent generations to act smug towards.

But as I explore kindness, a frequent issue I encounter is bullying. I’ve written a few times about adult bullies, but I can’t ignore the huge problem of children who bully, or are bullied, and the long-term destructive effects of those behaviors. The vast majority of adult bullies were also bullies as children, or else they themselves were bullied or abused. The earlier we address and counter bullying, the better the chances of preventing it or breaking its cycle.

I don’t remember there being a lot of bullying in my childhood—of course, one of the benefits of aging is selective memory. Back when mastodons roamed the earth and the trendy social media platform was Pony Express, there must have been girls who were bullies, but I don’t remember any. Throughout my elementary school years, there were two boys whom I recall being bullies; they picked on smaller boys and strutted around like bantam-weight princes. I don’t think we called them bullies, though perhaps the boys they picked-on did. Neither boy was very bright; I supposed their bad behavior may have been their way of dealing with the fact that intelligence was rewarded at Greenbrae School and they struggled to keep up with their fellow 3rd graders.

21st Century Bullying

Bullying today is scary. It’s practiced and experienced by both boys and girls. It goes beyond taunts on the playground—which is bad enough—to organized hazing through social media and unimagined cruelty. Cyberbullying, especially, isn’t something that occurs and is then forgotten. It resides on social media sites, it gets forwarded, it takes on a life of its own.

Bullying takes many forms. What starts out as playground taunting might escalate into sexual harassment, gang activity, domestic violence, workplace intimidation, or elder abuse. The sooner we make it clear to all that any form of bullying is unacceptable, and the sooner we help bullies learn other behaviors, the sooner we will see declines in these offenses.

Stories are everywhere of the devastating effects of bullying. On her website, www.kindness-matters.org, Jacki James recounts the long-term bullying her son Peyton was subjected to, which eventually led to his suicide. We hear other stories of the quiet kids who were bullied for years before they snapped and turned a rifle on their persecutors, bystanders, and then themselves.

After her son’s suicide, Jacki James became an activist for kindness and to counter bullying. She created the website www.kindness-matters.org, which seeks to change the ways people interact with one another and to foster kindness on a global level. Ms. James explains that “Children bully others because it gives them a sense of power that they are otherwise missing in their lives. Many times, a bully will be the victim in a different situation, maybe at home or on a team. So to make up for their lack of self-worth, they lash out at others to give themselves power in that situation. It is a way of deflecting how they really feel about themselves onto someone else.”

Bullies, according to Ms. James, need to understand the damage their words can inflict. “They need to understand that they don’t know the demons another person is fighting and just because the person they’ve abused smiles or laughs, that doesn’t mean they’re ok. It just means they’re hiding their true feelings and either holding it all inside or lashing out at another time.” She cautions that no one wants to carry the guilt of saying something cruel and later learning that they were the last person to speak to another who took his or her own life. “That is a guilt that will tear you up, little by little, every day for the rest of your life.”

Kindness is Learned…As is Unkindness

It seems pretty obvious that kindness is something we learn—or don’t learn—as children. And then what we learn—or don’t—accompanies us into adulthood, where we become kind adults, bullies, or sometimes bystanders.

In an extensive study of 10,000 middle-school and high-school students, Harvard researchers found that 80% of kids said they were taught by their parents that personal happiness and high academic achievement were more important than caring for people. Though parents express positive views about kindness, their behaviors often negate them, and “their messages about achievement and happiness are drowning out their messages about concern for others.” Not surprisingly, 80% of kids confirmed that they, also, valued achievement and happiness over concern for others. Nor should it be a surprise, then, if 30% of middle and high-school students report having been bullied, half of all high-school students admit to cheating, and more than half the girls in grades 7-12 report experiencing sexual harassment in school.

How to Raise Kids to Be Kind

That same Harvard study identified five ways to raise children to truly value kindness:

  • Adults need to take responsibility. They need to assure that their own behaviors match the messages they tell their kids. They need to walk their talk.
  • Give kids opportunities to practice caring and helpfulness. Kindness is a learned behavior and will be strengthened with repeated opportunities to extend oneself and feel the satisfaction of helping.
  • Teach the skills to find perspective. The study describes this as “zooming in” and zooming out”—this means learning to recognize kindness opportunities in one’s circle of friends and family, and also to see the bigger picture of the need for kindness with strangers, the community, and even on a vaster, global scale.
  • Provide strong moral role models. Here, researchers stress the need for parents to acknowledge their own mistakes and to listen to kids and help them understand the world and develop empathy.
  • Help kids manage destructive feelings. Feelings such as anger, shame, or envy are unavoidable—but they can be expressed in harmful ways or they can be instructive and constructive. Through conversation, parents can help kids navigate the normal emotional roller-coaster of childhood and adolescence.

Recently, the Seattle Times ran a compelling and wide-ranging interview by columnist Nicole Brodeur with Melinda Gates, philanthropist extraordinaire and co-founder of the Gates Foundation. Ms. Gates, who seems to be a tremendously wise and caring individual, was asked what one piece of advice she has given her three children that she hopes they will remember. Her answer: “…be kind to other people, always find that place inside of other people where you can connect….that’s something that we talk about a lot in our home and live out. Kindness and respect.”

Children’s book author R.J. Palacio contends that most kids are—or have the potential to be—“little warriors of kindness.” That potential is either nurtured or stifled by what they see and hear as they grow. What an immense responsibility then rests on parents, teachers, other adults, and the media.

Even speaking as someone who doesn’t fathom kids, I recognize that it’s up to us adults to see that kindness is encouraged and not repressed. It’s up to us to model the behaviors we hope kids will nurture in themselves. It may be the most important job we have.

It is up to us…are we up to it?

[Next time: bystanders are the key to putting an end to bullying.]

“Be kind; everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.” (Attributed to Philo of Alexandria, Plato, and Ian MacLaren)

Extending Kindness to All

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

Attribution: Donna CameronThere’s an old adage that “a person who is kind to you but rude to the waiter is not a kind person.”

We’ve all seen it: some clueless person who treats a waiter, or a cashier, or a laborer as if they don’t matter and are only on the planet to serve Mr. or Ms. Clueless.

Viewed from another angle: we’ve witnessed the people who fall all over themselves to be agreeable when the individuals they are dealing with are famous or “important,” but who look at the rest of us as if we were either invisible or something to be scraped off the bottom of a shoe.

True kindness isn’t selective.  A kind person doesn’t pick and choose whom to be kind to.

A few years ago, there was a story on the news here in Washington about a farmer in the Spokane area who closed his million-dollar-plus account when his bank treated him rudely.  He had gone into the bank somewhat dirty and dressed as he had been when working in his fields.  The bank personnel assumed he was a vagrant and spoke impolitely to him, making it clear they wanted nothing to do with him.  So he decided he wanted nothing to do with them.  He closed his sizable account and moved his money to another bank.  Good for him.

As the story was repeated in different news media, the moral seemed to be “don’t judge a book by its cover,” but that misses the point.  It implies that if, indeed, he had been a vagrant, then it would be okay to disrespect him.  It’s never okay to disrespect anyone.  The deeper lesson of the story is that kindness isn’t situational and it isn’t reserved for some people and not others.

Along this same vein, there have been occasions in our office when someone will call to talk to me and I’ll learn afterward that they were rude and pushy to our receptionist.  I remember one instance in particular:  a representative for a national speaker called to see if any of our client associations were interested in hiring his boss to speak at their conferences.  He bullied and badgered our receptionist, he spoke to her as if she were insignificant, and then asked to talk to me.  When he spoke with me, he was deferential and even fawning—he wanted to do business with our company and he saw me as the key to that door.  When I hung up, Alison came in to my office to ask if he had been as rude to me as he had to her.  Indeed not.  Needless to say, his boss never stood on a stage in front of any of our clients.

Robert Louis Stevenson famously said, “Sooner or later everyone sits down to a banquet of consequences.”  I suspect the food at such a banquet is far more appetizing for those who have consistently chosen kindness.

Some people seem to think they only need to be nice to people who—in some way or another—can help them achieve their aims.  Maybe it’s advancing their career, making an advantageous introduction, or helping to acquire something.  Or perhaps—like the bank personnel—they make a judgment:  this is (or isn’t) an important person and I will treat them accordingly. 

Where do people learn that they don’t have to be kind to the cashier, or the waiter, or the service worker, or the homeless person?  I suspect they learn from watching others—parents first, but then probably bosses, friends, acquaintances, strangers.  Maybe they see it on television.  Children mimic what they see others do and say, not always understanding why.  How good it would be if parents and teachers remember the Marian Wright Edelman quote above and teach children the enormous lifelong value of practicing kindness.

It’s true that there are some people who don’t see any value to being kind, unless it can get them something.  There are some people who are, let’s face it: jerks.  But most of us aren’t.  We just need reminders occasionally that kindness begets further kindness, and that we can always choose kindness.

“We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.” (Kurt Vonnegut)

Kindness Counters Indifference … It Requires Engagement and Action

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“They say philosophers and wise men are indifferent. Wrong. Indifference is a paralysis of the soul, a premature death.”  (Anton Chekhov)

Attribution: Donna CameronWhile the opposite of kindness is, logically, unkindness, I think equally opposite is indifference.  One cannot be kind if caring is absent.  Unless we are willing to suspend our spectator status and jump into our lives, we will probably wallow in a state of relatively comfortable indifference.

And indifference and kindness cannot coexist.

An anthem to indifference, entitled, “Outside of a Small Circle of Friends,” was written and sung by Phil Ochs in the 1960s, in response to the horrific murder of a young woman named Kitty Genovese in New York.  Dozens of people were awakened by her screams, and even watched from their windows as she was attacked and stabbed over a prolonged period.  Yet none tried to intervene or even picked up the phone to call the police.  It seems unbelievable that no one would step up to help in any way.  But they didn’t want to get involved; they couldn’t be bothered; they were afraid; perhaps they assumed someone else had already taken action.

Ochs’ song satirizes our indifference not just to a crime such as the Genovese murder, but also to poverty, inequality, and the needs of others.  Like so many of Ochs’ songs of protest (and he was a master of the protest ballad), the song is outdated now, too strident and a bit corny.  But it still has a bite.

Today’s “anthem” to indifference might be a one-word phrase that is generally delivered with an accompanying shrug and a roll of the eyes: “Whatever…”

There is so much packed into that little word: who cares? … I can’t be bothered … what’s the big deal? … so what?

“Whatever,” delivered with the accompanying tone and gestures of indifference, is not a kind word.  At best, it’s a lazy word; at worst, a door slamming on potential kindness.

We learn indifference and phrases like “whatever” from the people around us.  Children, especially, model what they see, and from the time they are very young, they see a great deal of indifference.  But just as indifference is learned, so is kindness.  The earlier we start learning kindness, the sooner we are able to practice it, thus staving off indifference.

Teaching Kindness

According to neuroscience expert Patty O’Grady, PhD, of the University of Tampa, children can learn kindness in school through the teaching of empathy.  She cites many classroom experiences that can demonstrate and reinforce kindness, among them simple acts such as charting kind actions, noticing kindnesses, teaching tolerance, and group participation in activities that spread kindness.

In an online article on the Psychology Today website, O’Grady notes: “The neuroscience and social science research is clear: kindness changes the brain by the experience of kindness. Children and adolescents do not learn kindness by only thinking about it and talking about it. Kindness is best learned by feeling it so that they can reproduce it. Kindness is an emotion that students feel and empathy is a strength that they share.

Kindness and empathy are an antidote to indifference.  We cannot force kindness, any more than we can force love or respect.  But, the sooner we can replace shrugs with caring, and “whatever” with a smile and a genuine response, we will be on the way to countering indifference and engaging in the precious life that is only ours to live.

“Indifference.” Jerusha surprised herself with the answer. “Indifference, Gundhalinu, is the strongest force in the universe. It makes everything it touches meaningless. Love and hate don’t stand a chance against it. It lets neglect and decay and monstrous injustice go unchecked. It doesn’t act, it allows. And that’s what gives it so much power.” (Joan D. Vinge, The Snow Queen)