In the past few years I’ve been asked to talk to about the subject of bullying. It’s a hot topic now adays.

I’ve mostly shied away from these requests because I’m not sure if people would like what I have to say.  Their intentions are sincere, but I still get the feeling that they want me to show up, be a funny dancing monkey for an hour and throw a couple of nice clichés about being nice to one another.  Once I was asked to talk to kids about using humour to deal with a bully.

OMG!!! NEVER USE HUMOUR TO DEAL WITH A BULLY.  I learned this the hard way.  You will show them how smart you are.  That in turn, makes them feel dumb.  Which usually leads to being put in some type of container.

There isn’t a simple one-hour “funny” solution to this problem.  I was bullied as a kid.  It was awful and from what I see in the news, it has only gotten worst in the years I’ve been out of school.  I will gladly talk about bullying if it will help.  But in my opinion, it has to be part of a much bigger tearing down and rebuilding of the community we raise and teach kids in.

Here are some of my ideas.  I hump things and tell pooh jokes for a living.  So this is just my opinion.

REAL CONSEQUENCES FOR BULLYING:

In the adult world no one would be expected to put up with what some kids are expected to just “suck up” and deal with at school.   In the adult world no one would be expected to go to work everyday to a place where they are being verbally and/or physically attacked on a regular basis.

I’m not saying that this doesn’t happen in the work force but working adults have options that school age kids do not.  First, you would go to your companies human resources department and if you can prove that you are being harassed then it’s the company’s responsibility to see to it that the harassment stops.  They probably have a big old book in their office that lays out exactly how they must deal with it.  If you are part of a labour union, they can also help you deal with the issue.  If that doesn’t work you can take it to a Labour board or your provinces Ministry of Labour.  If you still haven’t reached a solution you can take it on over to the Human Rights Commission.  Now if you can prove your case, your employer is going to pay through the nose for not helping you out.  Heck, if all else fails, there’s always the media.  They love them a good bully story.

Long story short, if an adult was being bullied at work the bully would more than likely be transferred, suspended or fired. What ever their big book of employment standards tells them to do would be done and it would be over.

Knowing that this big book exists somewhere keeps most jackasses in line.  You want a job, you can’t bully people.  Plain and simple.

So, if we are preparing kids for the real world why do real world rules not apply to them?  Yeah, they’re kids, I get it.  We don’t punish kids as severe as we punish adults because adults know better. This is a valid point.  But lets use the example of swearing.  Cuz I LOVE swearing.

I love to swear.  I adore swear words.  Their pure honesty and raw emotion has always fascinated me.  Luckily, I have a job where I can swear almost as much as I want.  Most jobs you cannot swear.  Heck, when I’m on TV or doing a corporate gig I also become one of the many adults who, if they drop the F bomb too many times, won’t get paid.  And I like money more than I like the word F#$%.  So I don’t swear.

We know that little Timmy and Sally can’t swear at work when they grow up so they are not allowed to swear at school.  There are consequences for bad words.  If Timmy gets caught calling teacher a flippity, ditpity, dooo (trying not to swear here) he is going to get detention, his parents will get called in, and if it doesn’t stop he’ll get suspended and maybe if it keeps on going, he’ll get expelled.  No one looks at Timmy swearing up a storm and says, “kids will be kids….it’ll get better.”  No, it’s not going to get better, if something is not done, it will spiral out of control and in the future Timmy and his filthy mouth won’t be able to hold down a job or worst, he’ll have to become a stand up comedian!!!  We don’t want that for Timmy.  That’s why we put down consequences, it’s for Timmy’s own good.

There must be the same kind of consequences for bullying.  The first time it happens, yes, try and get the kids to work it out themselves.  But for the love of God monitor the situation!  You wouldn’t stick a mugger in a room with his latest victim and hope they sort it all out.  Go back and keep going back to make sure these kids REALLY sorted things out and that the bully didn’t just add a new layer of butt kicking to the situation.  If it doesn’t stop, it’s time to separate these kids as much as possible, after that it’s suspension time.  In really bad situations, it’s time to call the police.

Being this tough is good for the kid being bullied, as their pain is being legitimized and respected.  Something is being done, finally.  But being tough even more so helps the bully.  Without some tough love, they will grow up believing that victimizing someone weaker will help them get ahead. And honestly, in some cases, that might even work for them for a while!   But it sure as hell won’t make them a happy person or the world a better place will it?   Empathy for others will get lost and you’ll be left with adults that can’t function properly with others.  More fighting, more greed, more of the same garbage mankind has lived with for centuries.  It’s time to start reaching for something better than that.

NOT ON OUR PROPERTY, NOT OUR PROBLEM

I often hear in news stories that in cases of cyber bullying and attacks that happen off school grounds the school boards hands are tied.  If the bullying happens off school property there is nothing they can do.  This has to be changed.  These rules have to be re-written to reflect the realities of today.  If an employee of a company is attacked or harassed by a fellow worker off work property they would not be expected to show up the next day and take a meeting with them like nothing ever happened.  School Boards need to start working hard at how they can change their rules and guidelines.  Throwing your hands up in the air and saying, “there’s nothing we can do, these are the rules,” is no longer a valid excuse.  Kids are killing themselves.  Start the process of changing the rules now.

TEACH BY EXAMPLE ***HEAR ME OUT***

Lets go back to the swearing example for a minute, Timmy will never see teacher swearing. He learns by example how bad swearing is.   But it has been my experience, ***my experience so don’t go getting all angry*** that some teachers SOME teachers do not lead by example when it come to picking on the kids that seem weaker than the rest.

Here me out on this.  Teachers are humans just like the rest of us.  We humans are capable of being awesome loving folks and crappy jerks.  Depends on the day which one we are going to be.  Most days, we fall somewhere in between.  It’s unfair to hold a teacher to some unattainable level of human perfection that the rest of us are incapable of reaching.  I only ask that teachers open their minds to the possibility that they might sometimes be insensitive without even realizing it.  I’m not even asking you to fix it; I’m only asking you to be aware of the possibility.  Here’s my experience:

I get asked to talk about bullying a fair bit.  No one has ever asked me if I’ve actually been bullied.  They hear the lisp, they see the crocked nose and the scars and they know.  There’s no point in asking if I was bullied.  It’s obvious to them that I was.

So for the most part, not in every case, but for the most part, we know what kids are more likely to be bullied.  The ones that look different sound different, act different, the ones that don’t seem to have any money, the ones that don’t seem none too smart.  It’s human nature, we’re animals, animals instinctively know what ones in the heard are possibly weaker.  They need to know this for survival.  Some animals abandon the perceived weak ones. Others form a circle around them for protection from predators.  I like to hope humans do the latter.

And lets be honest, us ones that are different can sometimes be a challenge.  We sometimes need things to be altered for us, we sometimes need help doing stuff, sometimes we’re hard to understand, and sometimes we need extra compassion and patience.  I would imagine in a classroom full of thirty or more kids, patience is probably as rare as saffron. I get it 100%…. it’s hard.

When I was in Elementary school, early grades, I won’t say what grade, as I would like to protect all involved.  There were kids at my school that lived in nice middle class houses and kids that lived in the lower income trailer parks.  I was one of the kids from the trailer park.  Now, we didn’t have much money but I had a Mom and a Dad who both worked. They made it work on a tight budget.  I just thought they were cheap.  But there were kids that had it worst than that.  “Debbie” (not really her name) was one of those kids.  Looking back on it now as an adult, there was something going on at “Debbies” house.  Addiction, mental illness, something.  All I knew at the time was “Debbie” never seemed to have her hair washed and her clothes were old and dirty.  “Debbie” also came to school late or not at all.

One day in the middle of winter she came in late.  In front of the whole class the teacher asked her why.  We were so young at that time, we hadn’t yet learned how to lie.  So “Debbie” told her the truth.  “The trailer was too cold to get up, so we stayed in bed.”  Most trailers in our park were heated by oil back then.  Obviously, her genius parents couldn’t afford oil and the tank was empty.  They had no heat.

“Well,” said the teacher.  “I guess we all should have stayed in bed because it was too cold but we all managed to get here didn’t we? That’s no excuse.”  The class chuckled and at lunch a group of kids surrounded “Debbie” chanting “stinky Debbie, stinky Debbie.”   Not a good day for Deb.

We were too young to lie and we were too young to be responsible to get to school on time.  I’m talking lower than grade four.  At an age where if Mom says, “it’s too cold to get out of bed.”  Then it’s too cold to get out of bed and that’s that.

Maybe our teacher was having a bad day.  No doubt she was frustrated with “Debbies” parents.  But on that day, she didn’t circle around the weaker one.  She left her to be eaten by the other animals.

I don’t know what became of “Debbie” I hope she’s okay.

I’m not saying that every teacher that drops the ball should be fired.  I’m only asking that you make sure that you remain aware of your actions and words.  Make sure you aren’t unintentionally bullying or apathetically sitting by while it happens.

This can be said to all adults.  I’m pointing it more towards teachers as they spend more time with kids than their parents do.  That’s just how it is. Maybe we need to be backing you up more.  Actually getting our hands dirty and volunteering at our schools.  Which leads me to my last idea….

BUILD A BETTER COMMUNITY.   BUILD A BETTER WORLD

The bullies are not the enemy.  These are kids.  And while their actions must be taken seriously and must be dealt with seriously.  Something went wrong for them.  You aren’t just mean for no good reason unless you are a sociopath.

I bet a lot of bullies will tell you that they too have been bullied.  I don’t think they are lying.  To be totally honest, I’ve been bullied and I’ve been a bully.  I’m pretty good with words; I’ve hurt people with words in order to deflect attention away from me.  I’ve gone after weaker kids than me in order to protect myself.  I’ve failed to circle around the weaker kid.  At times, I’ve been a crappy human.  Catherine (you know who you are) I am so sorry.

In my opinion, this isn’t just a school issue, or a bully issue or a victim issue.  I honestly feel that it’s just another wake up call for us to start being better humans.  We see it in our depleted environment, our global economic down turn.  We got to start rethinking our “get more, get mine, get it before someone else” mentality.  The kids are just reflecting what they’ve been taught.  We can do better than this.

We have got to start building a sense of “we are in this together.”  There are school rules but what about a code of conduct, a statement of purpose that the student body creates themselves?  Created by and maintained by the kids themselves? Make the building of their school community and the morals they stand for just as important as math, science and history.  And not just one day, make the creation of a safe, happy environment part of their everyday responsibilities.  I know this is happening in some places but not all.

This will take effort.  School boards have to do their part, teachers theirs.  Parents have got to jump in. Those of us who have been bullied don’t get a free pass either.  We owe it to those experiencing it now to do something to help.  If the whole community is pulling together for these kids then, when someone has a human moment, and drops the ball, there are loads of people to catch it.

We circle our weak until they are strong.  I can’t imagine a better lesson to teach kids.

Here are those ideas again:

1.)   Real consequences for bullying.  That not only helps the victim, it helps the bully learn how they are going to be expected to behave as an adult.

2.)   The days of “it’s only our problem if it happens on school property” has to end.

3.)   Teaching by example.  Make sure we aren’t being bullies.

4.)   Creating a mentality in our schools that we are a community.  That we look out for each other.  All of us.

We are having a snow day today!!!!  It started in the morning and now it’s early evening with no sign of it stopping.  I took Emillio Estevez out for a pooh/pee combo earlier.  He stepped ever so slightly off the doorstep and did his business right there in the walk way….can’t say I blame him.  It’s starting to dawn on us both that our years in Toronto might have made us a wee bit (I’m gonna say it) soft.  Back in the city, we loved snow days.  Here in New Brunswick, you’d think we were waiting out the Apocalypse.

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