Where's the credit??? Our kids need more.

I know that it's wrong to bully, and that all the campaigns out in the media are created by people who mean well.  This post has nothing to do with food--but I've been chewing on this one for a while.

Anti-Bullying is not enough.
It's not enough.
It's not enough to teach them to not be mean.
It's not enough to teach them to not stand by while someone is hurting (bully and bullied).
It's not enough to demonize and vilify children as bullies who need to be fought off.  Bullies are kids too-- (maybe that's why it's so scary?).

Seriously.  They're kids.

What if we taught our children about kindness?
What if we taught them empathy for others?
What if we engaged them when we saw them acting out their kindness and appreciation for each other?
What if we expected them to be kind to themselves and each other and reinforced it?

Our kids don't need to start slowly-by cutting out the mean stuff.  They're learning every moment, they can skip right ahead to being kind (because it automatically wouldn't allow the hurtful, controlling behavior that lies at the heart of bullying).  We need to acknowledge that bullying behaviours are hurtful-but I think we're dwelling... we need to get on with the cure and the prevention.

What if we showed kids how to treat each other and protected (or at least talked with them!) about input that promotes speaking rudely as hilarious, that ignoring parents is what all the really 'happening' kids are doing, and that when someone is different they are worth treating badly for 23 minutes until the main character has a 52 second epiphany and apologizes--then rolls her eyes at the start of the next episode?

Would they think they're able to be kind?  Would they chose to?  Being kind means they would actually be choosing something positive, rather than just refraining from doing something mean.  Barbara Colorosso explains it as needing two hands:  one for stopping a child from hurting someone else--and the other hand for extending help.

So that's my "concerned for children" moment.  It represents my filtered and remembered bits from being raised (first of all!), from growing up, and from reading Barbara Colorosso's parenting books Kids are Worth It, The Bully, the Bullied, and the Bystander, and Parenting through Grief and Loss,  along with another book (different author) called Hold Onto Your Kids.  Each of these titles is worthy of a parent's book club.