The Harsh Truth About Child Bullying And Our Active Role In It
5 Realities We’d Rather Not Face
This morning, I awoke to see three separate posts about bullying. All were parents asking what can they do about a child bullying theirs. There’s much to be done but it starts from early childhood. In order for children to change, adults have to change first, and that’s not something we like to do. Our children then are left to their own devices.
Here’s a few things we must realize if we wish to solve this:
Children Learn From Adults
Children learn to be bullies because, like animals, we are taught by demonstration of those around us. So children do this because usually they’re being bullied at home. Children aren’t natural bullies.
Schools Don’t Teach What Children Need To Know The Most
Schools teach children nothing about themselves, and so we become disconnected from our true selves the moment we enter Kindergarten. There is science behind this. The NASA creative genius study by George Land shows that at age 5, we operate at 98% of our creativity — our genius. By the time we’re 10, in the fifth grade, that number drops to 30%. By the time we’re 23, that number is 2%.
So, effectually the people operating at 2% are teaching the people operating at 98%. What a doozy.
Parents And Teachers Are The Main Bullies
It’s naive us of to think that these bullying children don’t turn into bullying adults. Bullying parents and bullying teachers. I had lunch with a friend the other day, who told me the exact story of what happened to my son at the age of 5, of what happened to her son who is now 5.
The teacher was constantly messaging and calling us because our sons “won’t keep his eye on the teacher” or “won’t sit still”. This school had a color system of red, yellow and green. If my son was put on yellow because he did not keep his eye on the teacher, he was literally stressed out the rest of the day in fear that he’d somehow make it to red. I pulled my son out immediately. Years later I homeschooled.
Imagine being fearful of your teacher having the power to say you were being “bad” when you don’t know what it means, except you know it isn’t good.
Another friend with a 5 year old called me and said, “They’re isolating my son from the rest of the class. He has to sit at a desk outlined with tape”. One of these friends is white, so this transcends race. What we don’t understand is that these are babies!
We have to worry about teachers being the bullies because they’re conditioned to teach in a certain way in order to meet state requirements, so the stress they feel is transmuted to the students, limiting their patience.
We Want It Both Ways
We’re such hypocrites — We don’t want our children to be bullied but violence is never ok. Many children are taught to strike a bully but the child will get in “trouble” if they do. Which way do we want it?
Cause if we don’t want violence then, we have to take effective measures to prevent bullying. Not wish a magical genie will appear when a child is stepping to another child.
The Public Education System Is A Disgrace
School systems continue to fail our children — and us who were once children in that system, year after year, and we sit back and do nothing. We don’t start new schools. We keep funding the ones we know don’t work. We are literally insane and our children can’t depend on us to advocate for their learning and well being. By advocate I mean, completely start over in terms of school. We are forcing them to enter a school system we know doesn’t do them justice.
So, who’s really the bully? We are. That’s for sure.
Call To Action
I call on funders who prioritize education to take a freaking risk, and do something different. Create new schools and don’t staff them or ask advice from those already in the school system because they’ve been too conditioned to think of it differently. They’ll do more or less the same. No offense.
This has to be led by people who understand soul psychology, and creative genius.
I’ve been wanting to do this for some time. Whether or not funders support this, it’s something we have to do.
