Workshops and education. I recently ran a workshop about bullying and friendship for fifth graders in a local yeshiva. Not only did the boys have an opportunity to ask their questions and learn in a supportive environment, they also understood that the school and teacher valued middos and social skills – enough so that they chose to bring in an outside speaker to teach them about the subject.
Listen to our children. Sometimes our children approach us with an issue and we brush them off by saying, “kids will be kids” or “when the going gets tough, the tough gets going.” And sometimes this is the right approach. However, if what they come to us is about bullying, we need to be sure that we listen to what they are saying. If we hear about bullying and tell our children to “tough it out,” we might be ignoring a problem that needs our immediate attention.
Model empathy. Our children can learn to act with empathy through our own actions. In addition, parents can do “empathy training” with their children by role-playing, pointing out commonalities, and smiling and giving lots of hugs. Helping a child gain empathy can avoid that child bullying in the future. After all, if he understands what other people are feeling, he will be less likely to inflict pain.
The bottom line? Bullying is not going away on its own. It’s time we stepped up to get rid of it ourselves.
