When Adults Fail Children, Children Fail

I sit down at the airport gate, waiting for my flight, and within 5 minutes I hear “if you do that again, you will never go on another airplane”.  Shortly after a loud “don’t crawl on the floor or I’ll take your toy away” and finally “I have had it, why can’t you sit still and be quiet”.  Each of these voiced by, I am certain, weary travelling parents, some carrying more than their two arms could possibly hold.  I have great admiration for parents who travel with their children, and fond memories for my days of flying with three children, two car seats, and assorted strollers.  What today’s experience brought to mind, however, was how, when adults fail to think and act like grown-ups, when they do not set the stage for their children’s success,  those children are likely to fail. 

Each one of the beleaguered parents I saw were not actively engaged in helping their children behave, until misbehavior happened.  Then, they were drawn in to the struggle, and engaged in pleading, demanding and punitive ways.  Again, I realize, they were exhausted, some were travelling as single parents.  Phone calls had to be made, bags rearranged.  I get it.  But it seems so unfair, no, it is so unfair to punish children when we adults have set them up to fail.  What is a tired, or stir crazy travelling toddler to do in an airport, if not crawl on the floor and touch every disgusting dirty morsel, if we grown-ups don’t plan in advance and pull out of our tote bag an intriguing game or book.  If we don’t engage the toddler in looking at the planes, or counting the seats won’t the toddler do what is natural for her species?  In that case, who really deserves “punishment”?

A painful but critically important lesson of parenting is that, for the most part, there are no shortcuts.  Oh, there are helpful hints on where to buy school supplies, and time-saving on-line tips, but the real work of parenting needs to be done 24/7/365, even when we are tired or overwhelmed.  So often, rallying the energy to be the grown up, to plan and anticipate, to engage and distract, pays dividends in behavior that is so much easier to manage than if we rolled the parental dice, and just hoped for the best.

My preparedness leaned heavily on children’s love of novelty.  I used to squirrel away the toys that came in cereal boxes, bargains from the dollar store, and interesting games and crafts that were travel appropriate.  Sometimes I would even slyly hide a favorite game or play item for a few weeks before a trip, so it would be fresh and exciting when our boys needed to be occupied.  For years, once we outgrew diaper bags, my pocketbook was a treasure trove, ready to yield entertainment on demand. 

Harder than packing a knapsack of toys, however, is getting in a creative state of mind when parents are tired, or busy with the mundane or important business of life.  It is so much easier to be direct, demand that children sit up, stay still, be quiet, than it is to think of a game, or pretend to be secret agents quietly sneaking around the airport.  That is what our children need us to do.  They need us to be strong when they are weak, brave when they are scared, and smart, creative and engaged when they are tired, willful and unraveling.

The school year is starting, or has started in some places.  Grown-ups everywhere, parents and educators, can fold our arms and tap our toes and wait for children to misbehave.  We can yell, punish, and lecture as they show us all the trouble children can get into.  Or we can be the grown-ups.  We can set the stage for their success.  We can commit to being there for them before they have trouble behaving, pulling the magic out of our travel bags and out of our heads.  When adults fail children, children will fail.  And when adults think and act like grown-ups, children, while not perfect, have all they need to grow and soar.

ELI Talks – Video on Socia Skills and Empathy

I was privileged to do an ELI Talk at the recent YU Championsgate Conference.  Here it is.  Perfect timing for the start of the school year . . . but anytime is a good time to think about empathy.

http://elitalks.org/social-intelligence-foundation-jewish-living

 

Driveway Petunias and Thoughts for the New School Year

Every time I pull into my driveway, a hint of pink makes me smile.  There, nestled between the crack between two concrete sections is bright pink petunia.  I did not put it there.  I have no idea how it got there.  I did buy a flat of petunias at the start of summer, and filled the pots at my front door and office entrance with their cheery blooms.  But I certainly did not plant one in the driveway, yet there it is!

As August arrived, and as it seems to be speeding by, like so many educators and parents, my thoughts are turning to September. What message might this late summer random petunia offer for the start of a new school year?

There is no doubt that this year, like all years, teachers and parents will find themselves facing interesting students, children and situations that they cannot explain.  Like my mysterious petunia, these will occur without our choosing, and deny explanation.  We could focus on the “wrongness” or spend time thinking of who is to blame.  We could react as we do to many novel and unplanned situations – with anger, upset, and the strong will to quickly and totally eliminate the problem – to “root it out”.

I suspect my wayward petunia initially resembled a weed, one of many that have made their home in our driveway cracks.  Had the summer been a bit less inhumanely hot, had I been less busy, had I allowed my need for order, neatness, and curb appeal to take over, I would have pulled the plant from its unlikely home before its pretty pink blossoms ever brought me cheer.

Pulling out of the driveway today, leaving the petunia in the morning rain, I thought of the year ahead, and the endless possibilities it offers.  I hope I, along with all parents and educators, will greet the unexpected with patience.  I hope we will look at the things that don’t belong, that seem unusual or out of place, and see the possibility that, with time, they may enrich us.  And I hope we will recognize that even when the children and students in our lives are in our way, mess up our plans, are not at all what we wanted, that we will still nurture their growth.  I hope we do so not with a fragile hope that with our love and care they will blossom.   I hope we meet each challenge, each unwieldy student, each unpredictable child knowing with absolute conviction that with time, and love, and care they will survive even in life’s toughest moments and places.  Then we will be worthy parents and educators, and our homes and classes will be graced with petunias, daisies, roses, and all manner of wonderful surprises.

 

 

Cardboard Boxes and unpacking Trauma

Driving to work earlier this week, I heard a radio talk show host discuss the miraculous and wonderful safe release of 5 year old, Ethan, who was held in an underground bunker after a crazed gunman killed his school bus driver and took him captive.  “That’s over”, the radio announcer commented, “just in time for Ethan to celebrate his 6^th birthday, and go on with his life”.  Just like that, the story was packed away, on to the next chapter.

I had an immediate and visceral reaction to the abrupt dismissal of what would have had to be days of suffering for parent and child, and a trauma likely to leave life-long imprints.  I also had two images come to mind, the packing boxes I used when we moved four years ago, and the small cardboard boxes that housed various screws, nuts, and bolts that populated my Dad’s workshop.  The latter were small and drawer like, arranged on shelves, with my father’s all capital letter printing on the front, identifying 3” brads, machine screws, cement nails, and myriad other hardware necessities.  The packing boxes I remember from our move were a much less organized assortment of shapes and sizes, with scribbles all over identifying the room they were meant to be shepherded into by the movers, and taped shut with reams of packing tape, to secure their contents.  In both cases, Dad’s shop and our move, the cardboard containers were deceptive, they gave the illusion of certain and organized containment.  One look at the shop workbench, however, routinely revealed all the hardware that had escaped its home and was living in comingled disarray.  And our moving cartons, tightly taped and neatly labeled, disintegrated when a heavy rain flooded a corner of the basement.  Their contents mushed together in a soggy heap!

The radio announcer seemed to say, Ethan is out of his underground box, so we can now pack away his trauma.  Neatly wrapped, taped up, and labeled, it is ready to be filed on a shelf or in a basement corner.  Human trauma is so much more complex, messy, and insistently present.  All week, as Ethan’s terrifying containment progressed, survivors of the 1976 Chowchilla bus kidnapping, which also buried children underground, revealed the lasting (37 year) scars and memories.  It is important to understand that trauma doesn’t end as soon as the danger abates, especially for children, so that we can be certain to provide the space, time and support children need to heal.

Trauma also has its own peculiar and individual logic.  It brings things together in our brain that may seem random. It triggers memories we’d prefer to forget and can raise our blood pressure or make our palms sweat for what seems trivial.  As I write this, the snow is falling in the Northeast, for what is predicted to be a superstorm.  It is no surprise that cars are lining up at gas stations, and everyone I speak to talks about losing power.  We are all re-living our Superstorm Sandy nightmares, not because we are actively seeking to connect today’s snowflakes to October’s rains, but because our minds can’t help but make the connection.

The human mind and spirit are also incredibly resilient.  Ethan, the Chowchilla survivors, the Sandy storm-ridden, can move beyond trauma into calmer, brighter days.  But our traumas are never fully packed away.  Like with my Dad’s cardboard screw containers, and my cardboard packing boxes, things spill over and leak out.  They get messy and rearranged.  That’s life.  No neat packages.  Stories don’t end the day of a rescue, except on the radio.  Stories of hurt and healing are written, re-written, and lived in weeks, months and years.  When it comes to children’s stories, our job, as educators, parents, clinicians, is to give them the time and tools they need to write their happy endings.

 

 

Bioluminescence and the Start of Another School Year

  Looking for a few days of relaxation and rejuvenation before the beginning of another school year, the Caribbean beckoned.  Who would have imagined that I would find not just rest, but inspiration for my teaching, and for my students, who will be teachers, on a moon-less night in a secluded bay in Fajardo, Puerto Rico.

The concierge told us there were no power boat reservations available, and to visit this natural phenomenon we would need to join a group kayaking tour.  With trepidation I agreed, not wanting to miss seeing one of the few bioluminescent bays in the world.  I have never kayaked, my fear of small boats overtaking me, but off we went.  We arrived to see dozens of very young people strapping on life jackets and we were briefed on the 2 mile round trip kayaking we would do, in the pitch dark, through a mangrove forest, following the small LED light on the boat in front of us and trying to avoid low hanging branches and the roots that dot the shoreline.  That I couldn’t see much actually kept me stay calmer in the gently rocking kayak, and eventually I noticed a change in the water.  Each time we paddled, the water shimmered, as if stars were stirred from the bottom of the channel.

When all the kayaks reached the bay, our guide explained the bioluminescence we would observe.  The isolated bay is home to a dinoflagellates- an algae organism, that when moved or shaken emit a glow.  We splashed our hands beside the kayak and were treated to a white, shining glow.  As we paddled through the bay, each and every kayak was engulfed in a halo of white water.

It has been weeks since that magical night, but as I work on syllabi and planning for the upcoming term, I wonder how many of our students are simply waiting for the right conditions to stir them to glowing success.  How many of our students will be fortunate enough to have teachers who will follow winding ways, sometimes in seeming pitch dark, to find the route to the quiet, hidden place, where, with a bit of stirring, they will shine?  How many times will students who are hard to reach, who remain apart from the group, who seem uninterested and uninteresting, be left as untouched as a secluded bay.

As the guide finished his bio-chemical explanation for what we were witnessing and entertained questions, I asked why, even before we came into the bay, our paddles seemed to stir stars in the water.  We were extremely lucky, he explained, with the tide going out as we made our way to the bay, the dinoflagellates, even in smaller concentrations, created the sparkle that welcomed us.  Many in our group hadn’t noticed it – they were waiting for the bay and the greater glow they were told was certain.

Parents and educators put in so many days and nights of work with little or no indication of their impact.  Children blessed with the skills and dispositions to provide regular glows of accomplishment can be easier in engaging parents and teachers.  Children who keep us in the dark, who may offer little indication that we are on the right track, can present an enormous challenge and cause us to give up.  Maybe if we forget the big glow we’ve been told to expect, and look instead for the small sparkles our actions can stir, we and the children we teach, can share small wonders.

I will be teaching courses this term that I have taught many times before.  Many of the educators in my class will undoubtedly be in similar circumstances, teaching material they could teach with their eyes closed.  It is easy to turn to autopilot, lean on routines.  On one vacation night, doing something new and totally different left my muscles soar, but my spirit soaring.  So all you parents, educators, and students, ready or not for a new year, here’s wishes for a sparkling journey.                  

Bullying: Much Ado and Much To Do About Something

A colleague forwarded me an unsigned editorial in a local paper in advance of a community-wide workshop on bullying that I will be giving next week.  The impassioned and angry words reveal a mother’s heart, and a mother’s pain, which can be powerful in and of itself, but which can also see things in a very personal and particular way.  (I was sufficiently distressed by the negativity in the editorial, that I am opting not to give the link to it here). This mother’s contention that bullying is always about money, is unchangeable, and workshops say all the same things but change nothing is understandable, but I am sorry to say, unacceptable.  Such dismissive and vituperative words only contribute to the continuation of the problem.  As long as we simplify bullying, vilify segments of the community, make ourselves impotent, we will fail.  I have the amazing job to work with schools, parents and children in addressing bullying, and it is unbelievably challenging and at times, unbearably painful.  But it is never fruitless.

 

Bullying is about power, but power is not only gained with wealth.  On the ball field, power comes with skill.  In social settings, the most personable or suave wields power.  And we also know that power in and of itself is not bad, any more than wealth, by definition, is bad.  It is all about how one uses that power.  Bullying is not only perpetrated by the wealthy or privileged.  But bullying flourishes when we throw up our hands in hopeless, helpless frenzy and say we know it all, heard it all, and nothing will change.

 

I wish that the hundreds of lectures, workshops and seminars I give yearly were the same old bully talk, delivered to people who already know it all.  Instead, I am routinely greeted by a room full of parents, educators, and sometimes students who have been misinformed, who get their only information from high-profile news stories and internet posts.  There is a wealth of sound, careful research that can help us make a difference.  And we learn more every day.  We have learned that working with bullies or victims independently is not the solution.  We have learned the power of bystanders, and are beginning to learn how to catalyze that power in teen peer groups.  We have learned that how adults act makes a huge difference in whether bullies, victims or bystanders will make good choices.  I for one have learned to keep listening, learning and talking, to anyone and everyone who will open themselves to the possibility that we can, should, must, make a difference in children’s lives and in our communities.

 

Perhaps the most disturbing part of reading the extremely negative, pessimistic editorial was thinking about what a parent who believed it would communicate to their children.  This comes after I spent yesterday at a school, asking students to complete surveys about bullying, some of which included questions about what their parents think.  I had numerous students ask “How can I  answer this question, I don’t know how my parents feel about bullying, teasing or leaving people out”.  When I asked students if they knew how their parents felt about religious observance (it was at a religious school) they responded in unison, “of course”.  They know their parents’ feelings about the Sabbath and other religious parameters, they say, because they see what their parents do, AND their parents talk to them about it.  (for a full description of this experience, see  http://www.rabbihorowitz.com/PYes/ArticleDetails.cfm?Book_ID=1576&ThisGroup_ID=238&Type=Article&SID=2).  If parents are hopeless, negative, pessimistic about the possibility of improving the world, being social agents of goodness and change, they are not likely to be modeling for AND talking to their children about doing all they can to make our communities safer and more welcoming.

 

The distraught mother titled her editorial Much Ado About Bullying But Nothing Will Be Done.  In decades of work with children, educators and parents, I have been wondrously and continuously surprised.  Human beings are remarkably capable of growth and change, individually and in the groups they inhabit.  I am so saddened by this mother’s pain, and her frustration.  Equally sad is the knowledge that she is not alone and others will, I’m afraid, have similar experiences.  In that context, I will speak to what I hope is a large crowd of parents next week.  I will share what I know, and hopefully they will leave a bit better informed.  More importantly, I will share my unwavering belief in the power of people to make a difference.  If that opens the ears, minds and hearts of even a few in the audience, I will feel it worthwhile.  And I will speak again, and again, and again, until we all carry, in our mother’s hearts, the belief that we and our children can make our world a better place.

Celebrating Freedom – Connected To Adult Children, From a Distance

       We are hours away from the Jewish holiday of Passover, a wonderful celebration of freedom from oppression and the spiritual growth of the Jewish people.  Families will gather around seder tables, sharing song, dialogue and food.  The hope is to inspire the young to question and the adults to feel rejuvenated, as if they themselves experienced redemption.  I have fond and vivid memories of children standing on their chairs to proudly demonstrate their latest learning.  I can easily feel the pride at their amazing accomplishments.

We are years from those days of little children underfoot.  Blessed with adult children, all well ensconced in their lives, holidays present the challenge of staying connected, even when we are apart.  I am well aware that there are parents that mourn their children’s growth – saddened by their first steps, distressed at the first day of school, tearful as they move into their dorm.  I am not one of those.  I greeted each of my children’s milestones with joy and pride, seeing these signs of normal growth not as moves away, but as steps forward, in the direction they were destined to travel. So this year, as we approach the holiday most associated with families around the table, I will miss the children who will not be with us.  But I am genuinely joyful at their “freedom”.

One of our children will be trekking with his bride to share the holiday with her lovely family.  We will miss the gentle warmth and genuine joy of this young couple at our table, but know they will be totally embraced and enjoyed by the in-laws.  I am so proud to have raised a boy, now man, who I trust implicitly to make his way in the world, and in his new, expanded family.  I will kvell (Yiddish for experience pride) just thinking of him sharing his insights at the seder table, trading ideas with his equally bright wife and her family.  Though I will miss his lovely singing voice and centered presence, I am certain he will be totally accepted and appreciated for the gem he is.

Another of our children is studying abroad and flourishing under Mediterranean sun and amidst ancient stones and books.  He will spend the holiday with a combination of teachers, friends and family, and I trust that whoever’s table he will join, will be graced with his good manners, keen mind and earnest and unbridled joy at learning and celebrating.  Though I will miss his probing questions and fervent faith, I know the holiday will be moving and meaningful, and that he will grow from it, as he has grown all through this year.

Our oldest child, and his new wife, will join us this Passover.  We are thrilled that they are travelling with us, and will enrich our seder table.  We look forward to their bright spirits and deep thoughts – filling our holiday with meaning and fun, in equal measure.   We know that their life’s journey, like their siblings, may take them any number of places, so time together is a treat, to be relished and appreciated.

We are relatively new to this phase in our lives, this parenting of adults.  We are learning as we go, making mistakes certainly, but hopefully sharing our pride and love with our growing children so that they know their growing is okay, their moves forward are not moves away.  We hope they will move and change as they are meant to, but will value staying connected as much as we do.

We will celebrate this holiday of freedom and redemption with a somewhat empty nest, but with very full hearts.  Where ever they are, we will feel connected to our wonderful children and children-in-law, beautifully grown and growing, by love that knows no bounds.

 

The Bully Movie: A Tool for Beginning

       I let the tears dry and reflected a bit before writing this.   From the opening moments of the Bully movie, my heart was breaking.  The stories woven through the film make very real the unbearable pain bullying leaves in its wake.  The NYC theater was filled, but it is not enough.  Everyone, every child, parent, educator, human being needs to become aware of the epidemic raging through our country and claiming our children.  For building this awareness, and telling victims’ stories with such care, the Bully movie deserves acclaim and thanks.  It may be impossible, however, for any film to fully capture the complexity of bullying, its causes, effects and what can be done to address it.

I went to the movie with my husband, at his insistence that we trek into the city for it’s initial release.  I was interested in his reaction, since I am so immersed in bully prevention work and therefore not they typical viewer.  He wondered why all the stories shared were in rural towns.  “Are there no big city bullies?” he asked.  It seemed to him that there was greater focus on physical bullying and harassment, that the two living victims most fully portrayed were notably different from peers; one with limited social skills, the other a lesbian teen.  He wondered, as do I, if this will allow students and parents sitting in big city theaters, or their own small towns to feel these things can’t happen here, it’s not like this in our schools.

Dorothy Espelage and Susan Swearer, two eminent US researchers on bullying and bully prevention have emphasized a growing international understanding that bullying is a phenomenon that is embedded in a larger system.  Since bullying is about those with more power hurting those with less power, one needs to consider how systems are created or maintained that allow a non-democratic, non-egalitarian reality, a place where some are valued more than others.  The Bully movie provides a window into a few schools and districts, and the view we get is pretty damning.  The audience in our theater let out a shared moan as the school principal showed herself to be nothing short of moronic in her approach to bullying.  Over and over the film told us of schools doing nothing to stop the harm done to their students, of parents who do not stop their bullying children, of police and government looking the other way.  There is no doubt that schools, parents, government agencies can and must do more.  But I was very uncomfortable with the film’s over-identification of easy villains.

Bullying is extremely complex and embedded in the culture and system where it occurs.  It is easy to blame schools and lampoon administrators.  After all, if they are to blame, all we have to do is fire the bad guys and hire new ones.  If we need better laws, we simply lobby our representatives to pass them.  Everything we know about bullying, however, says peer bystanders are critical.  When in the film we see a busload of students torment a victim, or sit idly by while their classmates do so, the administrator focuses on finding and punishing the bullies.  What of all the students who watched this occur for weeks and said nothing?  They quietly allowed the bullies to continue.  They callously ignored the victim, cementing his status as unimportant and non-valuable.  They did not reveal what was happening to adults, serving, although unwittingly, as the bullies’ henchmen, hiding violent actions from adult view.  Laying “blame” places other than with peer bystanders is common because I think it is easier for us to conceive of replacing administrators and making laws than it is for us to imagine creating a cadre of caring bystanders.

I have the privilege to work with schools on bully prevention regularly.  I say privilege because while we certainly work to improve the lives of victims and correct the actions of bullies, we do the difficult but crucially important work of creating socially responsible, empathic bystanders who can and do make all the difference.  We do not accomplish this with moving assemblies, balloon releasing ceremonies, or powerful films.  Those impactful events may start the discussion, but they are too quickly forgotten.  Building caring bystanders takes hours of teachable moments, weeks of well-thought out lesson plans to build concrete skills, and a school and community commitment to years of building a culture where every child is equally valued, and values others equally.

The Bully movie’s focus is so clearly on documenting pain and loss, helping us see the devastating cost of bullying.  I hope many will see it.  I hope after their tears dry they will carry with them the stories in the film, knowing that there are many more stories, very different stories, in big cities and small towns, about regular students and those who are different, with good administrators and bad ones, all struggling through a problem that is both prevalent and complex.  Unfortunately, the Bully movie barely uses its teachable moment to tell us what to do.  There are rallies, and hints that we should stand and speak for the silent.  The key, I believe, is that we need to stand and speak for everyone.  We need to engage in ourselves and our children a level of intolerance for cruelty, exclusion, and the abuse of power to hurt those who are weaker or have less power.  We need a generation that cannot look away, or walk away from the suffering of others.

As parents and educators, it is easy to feel overwhelmed at the enormity of the task before us.  The parent of a child lost to bullying declares “I will not be silent”, reminding us that we must raise our parental and educator voices.  We must teach over and over, again and again, – empathy, social responsibility, humanity.  I have seen what empowered children and teens can do when we give them the tools.  I have seen what parents and educators can do to create environments that value the value of each individual.  One of the film’s victims says “I don’t believe in luck, but I believe in hope”.   Like the parents who have lost so much, we cannot afford silence.  But like the victim who believes in hope, neither can we afford paralysis or despair.  The lights came up.  The movie ended and my red eyes have dried.  The work is just beginning.

Helping Children Feel Safe in An Unsafe World

         I turned on my computer this morning to be greeted by the terrible news of the school shooting in Toulouse, France, at a Jewish day school. This afternoon, I received a security alert from the University, explaining that while there are no specific concerns, please report anything unusual and be certain to have your ID with you at all times.  As I, an adult with degrees, training, and experience in managing trauma, struggle with sadness, anger, fear and loss, I wonder how we can help our children and students make sense of such tragedy and cope.

Many Jewish students, whether in day schools or congregational Hebrew schools, have become accustomed to having their Israeli counterparts in their prayers.  They know that the children of Sderot and other Israeli neighborhoods live in the shadow of bombs and never stray far from shelters.  To show solidarity they have sent books, cards, and wishes.  Many children in the US seem able to simultaneously be distressed at the situation their Israeli cousins experience, but feel safe in their Jewish institutions and lives here in America.  After all, Israel is a country surrounded by those sworn to destroy it.  Israel is a country that experiences wars at and within its borders.  America, even when fighting a war, maintains a peaceful life in its streets and neighborhoods.

The shooting in Toulouse may arouse greater concern among Jewish students.  Although some are aware of the dangerous increase in anti-semitism worldwide, their personal lives have been, to a large extent, wonderfully free from anti-Jewish violence.  Today’s events, an ocean away, may feel too close, happening at a place too much like the places American day school students spend their days.

As parents and educators, we have to do what we always have to do in times of challenge and trauma.  We have to be the grown-ups.  Sobbing and panicky inside, we need to present ourselves as capable of protecting, as taking all the right steps.  We can engage older students in providing for the victims and their community, whether with words or concrete items.  We can, in developmentally appropriate ways, answer children’s questions, recognizing that more than information, they need reassurance.  Of course, right now, every head of school and every parent is feeling incapable of providing just that.  How can we reassure children that they are safe, when the images of violence in schoolyards is fresh in our minds?  But we cannot respond to children’s questions about safety with silence.  We need to tell them that we are  doing and will do everything to make our schools safe.

Jewish children worldwide have just finished reading the Purim story, a dramatic reminder of the power of anti-semitism, and our power to be victorious.  Jewish schools are now busily preparing for Passover, learning of the Jewish nation’s emergence from slavery.  These are stories of trauma, but also of resilience.  Educators and parents should be open to both narratives in their children’s current stories.  We should be ready to listen to their words of worry and sadness, and be able to sit strong and patient as they share feelings of vulnerability and danger.  We should be prepared to provide some extra cuddling or other TLC, to be a bit lenient with bedtimes and homework due dates.  We should watch tv with our children and students, prepared to address any disturbing images they see.  We should also listen for and build their resilience, and engage them in filling their personal narrative with chapters of helping and healing, praying and giving.

When we think of the families in Toulouse, in Sderot, in Chardon, Ohio, in tornado alley, and in too many places in the world where war and disease invades childhood, it is easy for us to become paralyzed and overwhelmed.  Our children need us to see beyond trauma and tragedy, and to help them see a world where even in terrible moments, adults are here, listening, protecting, and getting ready for tomorrow.

Beating Bullying – Can We Afford Not To?

This is not a new story.  Columbine, West Padukah, now Chardon.  In these harrowing moments, we tend to react in knee jerk ways – but we need extended and extensive efforts to address this complex problem.  We need to see children as more than the recipients of knowledge and schools as more than driven by standards that measure how much academic content has been delivered.  We need to create learning and living environments for children that provide lessons in humanity as well as math, science, English and other valued topics.  We need to be as focused on standards that promote our students’ social responsibility as their knowledge of facts.

 

The challenge is substantial.  No assembly, or one-time lesson will do.  Impassioned pleas by powerful speakers will not fix the problem.  Mandates for policies and consequences by government agencies, often vague and without adequate funding to support them, will not fix the problem.

 

Research on school climate and culture documents the slow and effortful – but possible – process of creating caring and safe environments.   Evidence exists for effective bully prevention, but so many schools rely on less than optimal programs because they lack the time, resources or awareness.

 

The pressure to perform on high stakes testing, the evaluation of teachers based on students’ grades, forces the production of healthy, socially-competent and socially engaged citizens to take a back seat.  Can we afford to graduate generations who know a lot, but contribute little?  Can we afford to point fingers or create contingencies after devastating acts of destruction, rather than look carefully at what we create in our schools?  School violence is not about eliminating a problem.  It is about building – building children’s skills and teachers’ repertoires, building parent-school partnerships to support children’s social-emotional growth, building bridges between research and practice that support large-scale implementation of sound bully prevention and social leadership programming.

 

There was a time, not so long ago, when virtually every parent feared for their child’s safety from the crippling disease of Polio.  In my lifetime, a vaccine has made such fears totally obsolete, so much so that today’s children are puzzled by the funny scar-like marks some of us have on our upper arms.  I don’t hold out hope for a vaccine for bullying any time soon.  I do hope that we will not become immune to the palpable and deadly ills that wait to hurt our children.  I hope we will devote tireless energy and efforts to keep them healthy and safe.