Bullying: The world needs more "Lucys" (amazing video!)

[CoffeeCat]

This is video of teens who thought they were auditioning for a reality show. Actually,
they were set up by Dateline producers. Child actors acted out a bullying
scenario, with hidden cameras rolling and the unsuspecting children's trying to
handle their situation. Their parents parents watched behind the scenes, hoping
that their child would do the right thing.

What happens is amazing.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/39172695#39172695

There will always be bullying and bullies. The key to ending this horrible
behavior, is the bystanders. There absolutely must be a contingent of children who will NOT
stand by and watch as others are helplessly brutalized and demoralized.

I can't watch this video without tearing up. My daughter was bullied in kindergarten
and the principal told me the answer was that my child "needed to be more assertive."
The bullying went on for three months and my little girl was afraid to go to school.
Endless trips to the school were fruitless. It was a horrible time for our family.

That little kindergartener grew up to be a forth grader who witnessed a child being
bullied--beat up, kicked and bruised daily. My daughter told me that she felt powerless
and feared retaliation, so she told me about the bullying and asked for help--in tears.
She got help. Considering that the school and I failed her--when she had been a bullying
victim--I am incredibly proud of her.

I'm proud to say that she is a "Lucy."

I encourage everyone to show this video to your children. It's one thing to tell your kids to
"do something." Showing them what a cool, amazing child like Lucy does--is powerful.

I've watched this with my kids and so have many other moms I know. Everyone who watches
it is profoundly impacted.

Here's to the "Lucys" of the world and here's to ending this deplorable behavior.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/39172695#39172695

[Poll_Blind]

1. That was awesome to watch! I see so much of this with adults too.

I'm not usually one to tout Dateline but that was really, really worth watching. I hope my boys have a little Lucy in 'em. Hell, I hope everybody's kids do.

Cause that's the only way I think we're ever gonna make it through this mess.

PB

[Lyric]

2. I watched it on my own, and then had my 10-year-old watch it.

We talked about it afterward. I talk to him all the time about bullying (because *I* was horribly, horribly bullied as a child) but this was a really great way to give him a real-life, first-hand connection. Thank you.

[seabeyond]

9. good for him/you. i am going to show my boys. they are older, and they

have/do stand up, especially youngest, but i want it to reinforce lots of other kids are the same. as a whole... collective. not so muh a pat, but an expectation.

[CurtEastPoint]

3. Wonderful experiment. I love how Lucy's dad said of her: "I just love her."

They are bringing up a wonderful person!

[wellstone dem]

4. that was something that struck me too

How he knew how she would react, and still did not take it for granted.

[CoffeeCat]

5. Yes, and at the end when...

...Lucy was crying because she thought it was real--and how caring her father was. It was
really touching to see such love between Lucy and her father.

[Karenina]

6. . .

[Hannah Bell]

7. that brought tears to my eyes.

[pacalo]

19. I'm very proud of those outstanding young people. We could use more like them.

[seabeyond]

8. wow. they were all wonderful and yea... no disappointment. but, wht a girl....

crying all over place, family thinks i am weird.

yea

thanks for posting this

[HCE SuiGeneris]

10. Thanks!

Really worthwhile. :thumbsup:

[asdjrocky]

11. Lucy for President. nt

[Ruby the Liberal]

12. Awesome video!! What great kids. :)

[Broken_Hero]

13. K&R,

that Lucy is going to grow up to be something special.

[LWolf]

14. I met Michele Borba 8 or 9 years ago.

She was speaking to a group of teachers about the importance of growing the whole person, rather than focusing on academic achievement only. She's the author of a book, Building Moral Intelligence: The Seven Essential Virtues That Teach Kids to Do the Right Thing. According to her book, the 7 "essential virtues" are:

1. Empathy
2. Conscience
3. Self-Control
4. Respect
5. Kindness
6. Tolerance
7. Fairness

She made a big impression with me, because I've been watching what seemed to me to be the decline of empathy for others in American culture since the 80s.

I don't think schools can be responsible for teaching those virtues. Those have to come from our culture, and from the homes that are raising the children. We can and SHOULD be supporting, extending, and enriching the efforts by families to grow healthy, positive people, though. It puts the current obsession with data, and using that data to evaluate, pay, punish, and fire teachers, in a whole new, ugly, dysfunctional light. Schools should be focused on the development and well-being of the whole person, as partners with families and the rest of the community.

We hear constant frustration about the amount of bullying that happens in schools, with good reason. It happens. The kinds of things schools can do to minimize bullying and maximize an environment that grows those 7 virtues is limited by resources and mandates. To do away with bullying, schools and classrooms need to be small, and need to be fully staffed, including staffing supervision for all those areas bullying happens when there aren't enough, and close enough, adults to intervene, and to staff counselors. Spending instructional time on social skills and team building, valuing all the things that create a positive climate at a school just as much as academic achievement, is essential.

Am I the only one that notices how the culture of bullying has been on the increase in my 5 decades of life? How the current authoritarian, top-down threaten, blame, and punish culture of education "reform" models the very bullying that so many complain of?

[FredStembottom]

15. I'm seeing anti-bullying campaigns everywhere now!

I couldn't be happier about it.
I was an otherwise popular kid who had to endure quite a bit of bullying due to being over-weight, kind of book-ish and sensitive despite being extroverted and a real socializer.
I constantly saw both worlds - and never knew when it would suddenly flip from one to the other.
(I won't describe what was done and said to me, it's just ugly.)

Many bullied kids never have the good side of my school days. They are just mercilessly harangued - I used to befriend these kids and just experiencing being befriended seemed to spin them around 180 degrees!

It works. Let's build an "army" of befrienders out there in the schools. One kid at a time.

[Uncle Joe]

16. That good girl will become a great woman.

Thanks for the thread, CoffeeCat.:thumbsup:

[HuckleB]

17. K & R.

[Quantess]

18. Kids that age are especially mean, and it persists into high school.

Today's children and teenagers are no kinder than in previous eras, but it definitely seems like there are more suicides these days, which is the saddest part. If they could only hang in there until they are in their 20s, they would see that life gets better, at least in terms of bullying.

[renate]

20. I love Lucy too!

That was heartwarming. I think most kids are good at heart but they're intimidated by bullies too--even the ones who aren't victims at any given moment could be ostracized for no good reason the next day, so they're scared to step in. And I can see why--the consequences could be so severe. I also think there's a tipping point (hopefully it's being reached--I've seen more about bullying in the past few weeks than in the past few years) and bullying is going to be cracked down on hard.

[CoffeeCat]

21. You make a good point...

We want the bystanders to be like Lucy. And hopefully more will be like her. However, some
kids are just plain terrified. They're traumatized from watching others being bullied and they
just hope that they're not next. It's not that they're heartless, they're terrified of being
next.

Like you, I hope this is a tipping point. We need to make bullying totally uncool while
positioning people like Lucy as role models.

I think Lucy should travel around the country and talk to grade-school and middle-school
aged children. I think a program showing the video, followed by a talk from her--would be
highly effective.