It is now April 2012, I’m rewriting the Stop Bullying Now booklet originally published with my colleague Ray Edler in 2005.
In updating the information, I’m aware of 2 primary changes. First, cyber-bullying in more accessible and frequent and second, the outcomes of bullying such as public humiliation and death have increased.
What has not changed is the need for addressing the problem, not just putting a band-aid on the pain. What is the problem? being in Quadrant One as Stephen Covey so aptly describes – Urgent and Important. As long as we are in Urgent and Important we’ll be running on adrenaline, making expedient decisions and probably reacting rather than responding. We’ll do what we have to do to relieve fear and pain, reduce the outrage and the clamoring for change, but we will not address the long-term cultural changes necessary to substantially reduce bullying. Are we going to eliminate meanness, intimidation, aggressiveness, the need for being right and the need for power over others? Are we going to eliminate what are referred to Ego Needs of being more than, smarter than, prettier than, all other areas better than you? Probably not.
Can we reduce the frequency, the intensity and the human costs of bullying? Yes, we can. But let’s not take the medical model of “where do you hurt, let me make you feel better today” let’s take a longer view and start systemic changes even while bandaging the bruise.
How do we do that? By creating Cultures of Kindness where individuals understand and care about themselves, each other and make the value based behavioral effort to improve understanding, relationships, communication and outcomes. The secondary gain of approaching the problem in this manner is improved educational outcomes. (There is plenty of research supporting this claim) If we don’t do it now, we’ll be in the year 2525 and still be having the same discourse.
The revised booklet, Stop Bullying, Start Kindness, The Basics should be available as a Kindle book during May. This booklet is really just the basics and can be read in 5 minutes. It defines the topics of Bullying: What is Bullying?, Where Does Bullying Occur?, The Target or Victim, Parents of the Target, The Bully, Parents of Bullies, What Can be Done About Bullying?, Becoming a Culture of Kindness. The intention of the Booklet is for Awareness and Insight. Change and Transformation are broader topics to be executed using the STARR Process™ as the system for change and will be addressed at another time.
In the meantime, continue to Spread Smiles!
Leave a Reply