"The only place where everyone is always nice to each other is Heaven".
-Dr. Izzy Kalman, school psychologist and psychotherapist, creator of BulliesToBuddies.com educational resource.
Bully Teachers
According to Dr.Kalman's Bullying Survey, more than half of mental health professionals and educators are currently feeling victimized and they don't know how to make the bullying stop.
The survey involved about 1,000 mental health professionals and educators.
To the item, "There is at least one person in my life that I get angry with fairly regularly," 57% answered Yes. Furthermore the academic bullying experts define anger as an act of bullying. So by getting angry, these same 57% are simultaneously being bullies. That's because when you get angry, you feel like a victim, but you look like a bully!
6% of respondents answered affirmatively to, "I have a child who gets hit by other kids in school at least once a day."
21% answered Yes to, "My children hit each other at least once a day."
This means that children of mental health professionals and educators are three-and-a-half times more likely to be hit by a sibling at home than by a kid in school.
If experts at human relations do such a lousy job of protecting a couple of their own kids from each other at home, how in the world can they expect one teacher to protect thirty kids from each other in school? The answer is that they shouldn't expect it, but they do anyway.
Bully Parents
Anti-bully programs are based on the idea that bullying is a learned behavior. Just as kids have learned to be bullies, they now need to be taught how to be saints. Who, exactly, is going to teach our kids to be saints? You and I? Who do you think they could have learned bullying from in the first place?!
A review of national and international research about bullying, that was published in August 2008, has found increasing evidence of a family connection with bullying. Elizabeth Sweeney, a University of Cincinnati master's degree student in sociology presented her findings to the 103rd annual meeting of the American Sociological Association.
Sweeney reviewed research out of England, Germany, Norway, Japan, South Africa and the United States, and the majority of the research that she examined involved children between the ages of 9 and 16. She found that children raised by authoritarian parents - parents who are demanding, directive and unresponsive - are the most prone to act out bullying behavior.
"Children who experience hostility, abuse, physical discipline and other aggressive behaviors by their parents are more likely to model that behavior in their peer relationships," Sweeney wrote. "Children learn from their parents how to behave and interact with others. So if they're learning about aggression and angry words at home, they will tend to use these behaviors as coping mechanisms when they interact with their peers."
Sweeney reviewed research out of England, Germany, Norway, Japan, South Africa and the United States, and the majority of the research that she examined involved children between the ages of 9 and 16. She found that children raised by authoritarian parents - parents who are demanding, directive and unresponsive - are the most prone to act out bullying behavior.
"Children who experience hostility, abuse, physical discipline and other aggressive behaviors by their parents are more likely to model that behavior in their peer relationships," Sweeney wrote. "Children learn from their parents how to behave and interact with others. So if they're learning about aggression and angry words at home, they will tend to use these behaviors as coping mechanisms when they interact with their peers."
What Aristotle Could Have Told Us
In case you are curious, would you like to know why anti-bully policies don't work?
It's because they can't - never have, never will. Aristotle figured that out 2400 years ago.
Aristotle, the most influential thinker in the history of the Western world, advocated for good government and for providing maximum rights to people. Yet even he knew, "The one thing that no state or government can do, no matter how good it is, is to make its citizens morally virtuous." (Mortimer Adler, in "Aristotle for Everybody"; McMillan Publishing Company, 1978).
But this is precisely what the anti-bully movement is trying to do - guarantee our children a life surrounded by morally virtuous people. In other words - saints. Strange as this may sound, if you carefully inspect the academic definition of bullying, you'll realize that anyone who doesn't meet the criteria of sainthood is a "bully".
The Answer: Golden Rule
You have heard that it has been said, You shall love your neighbor, and hate your enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for those who despitefully use you, and persecute you. (Matthew 5:43-44)
Anti-bully activists have been trying to promote the Golden Rule. However, the activists don't truly understand the Golden Rule. They believe it means, Don't act like a bully. They are really promoting reciprocity: We will be nice to you if you are nice to us, but if you bully us, we will have no tolerance for you and we will get you punished ("administered consequences," in current jargon). What the anti-bully activists don't realize is that the Golden Rule really means, Don't act like a victim!
If I live by reciprocity, I have very little control of my relationships. If you are nice to me, I will be nice in return and we will be friends. However, if you are mean to me, I will be mean in return and we will be enemies. The GR puts me in control. I will be nice to you even when you are mean to me. Why? Because how long can you continue being mean to me when I am always nice to you? Before long, you are going to start being nice to me because you are biologically programmed to treat me the way I treat you.
f we were to replace our zero-tolerance-for-bullying policies with this simple expression of the GR–Love your enemy (bully); be nice to people even when they are mean to you–bullying would disappear. And if we were to teach it on an international level, we might achieve peace on earth.
