Babies Are the Best Weapon Against Bullies, Research Found

Around babies tough kids smile, disruptive kids focus, shy kids open up.                       
In the previous posts I mentioned that bullying is actually natural. Animals fight each other, the stronger species get to stay, while the weaker ones must die - an evolutionary law.We humans are the part of the nature and it seems that we are also hardwired to be aggressive and selfish. Well, the researchers from Princeton University found there is a biological reason for compassion.


Brain scans reveal that when we contemplate violence done to others we activate the same regions in our brains that fire up when mothers gaze at their children. It suggests that caring for strangers may be instinctual. When we help others, areas of the brain associated with pleasure also light up. Research by scientists Felix Warneken and Michael Tomasello indicates that toddlers as young as 18 months behave altruistically. 

More important, we are beginning to understand how to nurture this biological potential. It seems that it’s not only possible to make people kinder, it’s possible to do it systematically at scale – at least with school children. 

That’s what one organization based in Toronto called Roots of Empathy has done.

Roots of Empathy, a Toronto-based organization is doing incredible work in the hopes of reducing bullying worldwide, by increasing empathy in schoolchildren. 

At the heart of the program are a neighbourhood infant and parent who visit the classroom every three weeks over the school year. 

A trained Roots of Empathy Instructor coaches students to observe the baby's development and to label the baby's feelings. In this experiential learning, the baby is the "Teacher" and a lever, which the instructor uses to help children identify and reflect on their own feelings and the feelings of others. 

This "emotional literacy" taught in the program lays the foundation for more safe and caring classrooms, where children are the "Changers". 

They are more competent in understanding their own feelings and the feelings of others (empathy) and are therefore less likely to physically, psychologically and emotionally hurt each other through bullying and other cruelties.

In the Roots of Empathy program children learn how to challenge cruelty and injustice. Messages of social inclusion and activities that are consensus building contribute to a culture of caring that changes the tone of the classroom. The Instructor also visits before and after each family visit to prepare and reinforce teachings using a specialized lesson plan for each visit. Research results from national and international evaluations of Roots of Empathy indicate significant reductions in aggression and increases in pro-social behavior."

Watch baby Sydney visiting the high school within Roots of Empathy program

So far our researchers have evaluated ROE’s impact on children up to three years after program completion. Results show an increase in social/emotional understanding and pro-social behaviour and a decrease in aggression compared to children who do not participate.  Children become more caring, helpful and kind, and feel more accepted by their peers. 

The program has gone into 13,000 classrooms; when writer David Bornstein investigated, he said: “What I find most fascinating is how the baby actually changes the children’s behavior. Teachers have confirmed my impressions: tough kids smile, disruptive kids focus, shy kids open up. In a seventh grade class, I found 12-year-olds unabashedly singing nursery rhymes.”

So maybe babies are the answer. And since kids don’t get to experience babies at home anymore, I guess we need to bring babies to school.

See how The Prevention Team helps school kids stop bullying here: 
http://thepreventionteam.com/

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Why Anti-Bully Policies Will Never Work: What Aristotle Could Have Told Us

"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."

Watch Two Moms Who Bully Their Children Video

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.

More On Golden Rule

See What The Prevention Team Is Doing to Stop Bullying at Schools

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