April 18, 2013
A few weeks ago, Anne Atchison (Fifth and Sixth Grade Dean of Students) and I collaborated on an e-comm for our Middle School community about the changes in our culture’s perception of bullying that we read about in Susan Porter’s new book, Bully Nation: Why America’s Approach to Childhood Aggression is Bad for Everyone. Since that time, we have received many positive comments about that post and its content; therefore, we are sharing a Lower School version with you, the Lower School community. Should you have any questions or comments, please feel free to give me a call or send me a note.
In her recently released book, Bully Nation: Why America’s Approach to Childhood Aggression is Bad for Everyone, Susan Porter set out to uncover why bullying has increased among children, but her findings were not what she expected. What has changed, Porter discovered, was how our culture thinks and talks about aggressive childhood behavior. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services at their stopbullying.gov site defines bullying as aggressive and repeated behavior that involves an imbalance of power. “Kids who bully use their power–such as physical strength, access to embarrassing information, or popularity–to control or harm others.”
There is a distinct difference between being a bully and being mean. Bullying is an act of violence; being mean is an act of humanity. We can’t and do not expect lower school children in their normal healthy development to be consistently kind, nor should we hold them to unrealistic adult standards. What we should do is avoid fixed mindsets and labels like “bully” and “victim” and focus on growth mindsets that include learning, accountability, and forgiveness.
Porter writes, “Using the term ‘bully’ is an easy way out, and it allows adults to avoid the very hard work of helping children change their behavior. This is not just an issue of semantics, as any parent of an accused child can attest. It’s about believing in growth or not.” She states, “We must admit that our approach to childhood aggression is flawed. Our children are not worse than they used to be, nor are they less resilient. But we adults seem to be. Instead of being so quick to label them, we must teach them how to deal with their aggression and pain appropriately and to develop compassion, impulse control, and resilience in their relationships. And we must learn to do the same.”
At Mounds Park Academy, we would like to work together as a community and to invest our time and effort into teaching our children to develop compassion and empathy and to learn how to face adversity and develop resilience. In this endeavor, we must take care to distinguish between what is true bullying, which is relatively rare, and what is typical, albeit still unacceptable, inappropriate social interactions between children. We need to be committed to teaching our children about social growth and strength of character. There is great value in learning to cope with and conquer adversity, conflict, and failure, along with celebrating successes. And, as a number one goal, we must demand a growth mindset and commit to doing the hard work of helping children grow emotionally and socially. This is our commitment to your child while at Mounds Park Academy and we ask that you join us in that commitment beyond these walls.
Tony Reimers
PreK-8 Director
