A Mountain I’m Willing to Die On - Children are not cruel. Children are mirrors.
Along with every other concerned parent, I watch America’s responses to bullying-related suicides closely. People always seem quite shocked by the cruelty that’s happening in America’s schools. I’m baffled by their shock, and I’m concerned about what’s not being addressed in their proposed solutions.
The acceptable response seems to be that we should better educate students and teachers about what bullying is and how to react to it appropriately. This plan is positive, certainly. But on its own, it seems a little like bailing frantically without first looking for the hole in the boat.
Each time these stories are reported, the sound bite is: “kids can be so cruel.” This is something we tend to say: kids these days, they can be so cruel. But I think this is just a phrase we toss around to excuse ourselves from facing the truth. I don’t think kids are any crueler than adults. I just think kids are less adept at disguising their cruelty.
I heard a radio report that students who are most likely to be bullied are gay kids, overweight kids, and Muslim kids.
....
I bet that at this point in American history, gay adults, overweight adults, and Muslim adults feel the most bullied as well.
Children are not cruel. Children are mirrors. They want to be “grownup,” so they act how grown-ups act when we think they’re not looking. They do not act how we tell them to act at school assemblies. They act how we really act. They believe what we believe. They say what we say. And we have taught them that gay people are not okay. That overweight people are not okay. That Muslim people are not okay. That they are not equal. That they are to be feared. And people hurt the things they fear. We know that. What they are doing in the schools, what we are doing in the media—it’s all the same. The only difference is that children bully in the hallways and the cafeterias while we bully from behind pulpits and legislative benches and sitcom one-liners.
http://momastery.com/blog/2013/03/26/a-mountain-im-willing-to-die-on-4/