An Anti-(self) Bullying Policy

In Australian schools in recent years there has been an attempt to stamp out bullying. This is an excellent thing and in some places has been successful. In many more it has not.

I was talking about this with my partner and the question she asked was, “Why do children bully other children?” Good question, which it hadn’t occurred to me to ask. Here are my thoughts on the matter.

Schools put people of the same age together – so there is not much of a chance to learn social skills from those a little older. Teachers tend to get put into a separate category. So a fairly primitive set of social arrangements tends to rule. If schooling was done in groups with a spread of ages then there may be less bullying (one of the things that works in anti-bullying interventions is having older kids mentor younger kids. This isn’t foolproof – there needs to be some checks on how the children involved are treated.).

Children learn to bully from being bullied: whether by other children or adults.

This brings us to adults and the culture we have created. Think of most workplaces and those ‘representatives’ of ours, the leaders of our countries – and their behaviour in parliament. Why should children take seriously adults telling them to behave well when adults don’t? The hypocrisy is so flagrant that it passes without remark.

Then there is the way children are treated. They are often forced to do what they don’t want to do by threats and physical duress.

Then there is the way children are treated at school. I vividly remember a common question in my high school maths class: Why do we have to study this? The teacher’s reply: To pass the exam. I’m not making this up – and it happened more than once (it was not an isolated incident). In other words: your concerns and interests are of no concern, you have to do this because those with power say so; if you don’t you will be punished. (I.e. bullying). From what I hear (at least in Australia) things haven’t improved in more than thirty years!

In an Emergency
In an emergency there is little time for debate or consultation. What would normally perhaps be bullying is perhaps necessary. Usually it is someone who knows what they are doing who takes charge and so the ‘bullying’ is pretty minimal. People are normally grateful to be told what to do and can see the sense of what is being commanded (an emergency is usually obvious and so the commands can be seen to be common sense and what is necessary).

Emergency situations can be appealing to those who are impatient or to those who like to be seen as authoritative. Politicians love to speak of a ‘crisis’ – then they can be seen to be ‘leaderish’ (a word coined by Australian journalist Annabel Crabbe). The problem of course is that these ‘emergencies’ may not be at all new, may have been entirely forseeable because they have been decades in the making, and sometimes are made worse by the ‘strong action’ taken by the politicians.

In the everyday world we can let a situation build up until ‘we have to do something’ – anything! But decisions taken under pressure can be fairly poor quality. It’s often better if we have the time to consider the situation and take a guess at some likely consequences before we decide.

When We Don’t Have Enough
Situations of scarcity tend to lead to competition, and competition (if not regulated) can often lead to bullying. This presumes that the resource competed for is scarce. And it can be: there may not be enough houses for everyone (in a particular location); there is only one Van Gogh Irises.

Sometimes the ‘scarcity’ isn’t so direct. We live in a world where people don’t get enough to eat, and where food is wasted in an extraordinary way (from restaurants to farming and all points in between.) This kind of scarcity is more complicated – it pays supermarkets to throw away damaged food – even if it doesn’t affect its food value. The places where people are starving are often hundreds or thousands of miles from where the food is wasted. The value of food is not the same as its price.

In situations where ‘scarcity’ is complex there can be concealed abundance. Collaboration, rather than competition can lead to abundance. In everything from car-pooling to vege’ buying co-ops collaboration can lead to everyone having more. The insurance industry exists because people recognise that misfortunes can befall any of us – when spread around the risk becomes easier to deal with.

This complex ‘scarcity’ is sometimes human created. The same house can cost very different amounts (be more or less scarce) in different countries (or even in different suburbs in the same city). Community Supported Agriculture can lead to a better deal for farmers and consumers (but not supermarkets).

What I’m suggesting is that sometimes the ‘scarcity’ is in how we see things (and the institutions that perpetuate this way of seeing). I’m suggesting that in our world, “there is enough for everyone’s need but not for everyone’s greed”. (Yes it may be that we will need to do things differently – but aren’t you willing to eat a little more simply to save children’s lives? And yes, there does need to be a way for people to see that there changed behaviour makes the desired change – and doesn’t just enrich food corporations or whatever. But these things are not impossible.).

I’m suggesting that it is only in rare situations that competition for scarce resources need occur. And I’m suggesting that when we see things this way there will be far less bullying.

What We Can Do.
At the social level it will usually mean joining other groups. From community supported agriculture, to micro-credit schemes, to training in non-violent communication. There are many options

At the individual level we have options too. As this is a blog, which is read by individuals, I will focus on this.

Don’t Bully Yourself (this is what the title of this post means).
Note when you slip into the “Just do it!” way of operating. This can mean that you are disregarding a part of yourself.
When you have a task that you force yourself to do, ask if there is a way to make it enjoyable.
It need only take a few moments and in my experience this is often all it takes to think of a way to make the task at least a little more enjoyable.

Don’t Bully Others (easier said than done I know).
When I have bullied others it is because I have felt that I had no choices or that I was weak (and so lashed out). Stopping ourselves at the time can be difficult at first. So we can begin by taking a minute at the end of the day to think about all the choices we had that we weren’t aware of at the time. It’s OK to be absurd and have fun with this: we do have the option of trying to communicate with our kids in duck language, we can make funny faces while we’re on the phone with someone, we can imagine putting someone on trial for obnoxiousness. Gradually, as our sense of choice increases our need to bully others will diminish.

Even if we can’t influence schools much (and have little chance of influencing the behaviour of politicians) we can have a big influence on our own experience by instituting our own Anti-(self) Bullying Policy.

Have you been involved in schools with anti-bullying programs? How did you find them? Have you found yourself engaging in bullying behaviour and been ashamed of it afterwards (I know I have)? Have you had success in dealing with any tendencies you have to bullying? If so how did you do it? Was it just getting older or something else? I’d like to hear your experience in the comments to this post.

If you liked this post you might also like,
How to Deal with our Violent Feelings
Rage
Doing Anger Well

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Tags: bullying, children, powerlessness