Bullies and Misbehavior

I saw a segment tonight on the news about a 14 year old pounding on a 10 year old on a school bus. The video was very irritating. After my year of substitute teaching in the 90's in South Florida, I despaired of the American education system. As I've said over and over, "No Child Left Behind" is no solution at all. It just says, "Get education done" but provides no real insight on how to reach that goal.

After the segment on TV, my mind flashed back to the Truth Conference and the opening presentations which I found irritating at best, disturbing at worst. One joke has lingered in my mind. First, the presentations in question had an anti-education edge to them, as if the guy was doing therapy for having trouble getting through his doctoral program (one of his points was basically, "Don't believe anything you hear in grad school).

The joke was about the mother of a bully who witnesses her son punching some other kid in a mall or something. She runs over and asks her son what's bothering him. Then the punchline, the speaker knew at that moment that she must be a university professor.

Ha, ha. The implication was probably that she should have gone over and beat him.

Now I want to make it clear that I am not against corporal punishment or spanking if it is not done violently and the parent is under control. In other words, if it is done constructively. I am no expert on these matters--and I may in fact have some vastly mistaken thoughts on these matters. But I think it is important for children to understand the concept of authority at a young age.

And I really believe that for some children, it will be way too late if you wait till you can try to do this on a conceptual level. I really think some children, particularly some boys, can only learn this on a physical and fear level at the point when they need to learn it. By all means, take things away, give them "time outs" if they work (they do work with most children if enacted with forcefulness), use positive reinforcement. When applied properly, none of these things are appropriate targets for ridicule--only as some parents practice them.

And don't go looking for an opportunity to teach authority. Some parents make a joke of authority by the way they try to teach it (some talk way too much, for example, telling the child about their authority rather than showing them). Some children seem so perfect, a cross look is enough. These are the ones that make us wonder about the Christian doctrine of a fallen nature.

But with most the occasion to teach authority will present itself soon enough. I love the words of Jefferson with regard to government: "that government governs best that governs least." So the home, I think. Have few rules and enforce the ones you have. By the way, there will be no videotape of my children shown at the end of this entry--I am far from a perfect parent and they are far from perfect children.

Back to the bully in the video and the Truth Conference speaker's joke. There is a point where, for whatever reason, physical force doesn't work any more. Perhaps the parents have just failed. I suspect that is often the case. They've let the ship drift into troubled waters. It is deeply ironic that anyone can be a parent. I didn't have to take classes on it. I didn't have to read a single book. Any imbecile can be a parent, and I suppose a good number of us are.

Maybe some children are almost born to be bullies. I have no doubt that some are born with a better than average head start. I don't think it's disputable that some parents who are violent "provoke their children to wrath." Anger can make you an abuser, especially if you're passing on the abuse you've received from someone else. I don't think this is debatable. I really believe that most bullies are probably bullies because they themselves have been bullied by someone--parent, sibling, life, etc... They're passing the buck along.

So the idea, "what that bully on the bus needs is a belt or a switch" probably is quite pointless. If the child is at this point at 14, it's too late for the corporal punishment. Someone somewhere has let a child become a burden on society, and it's time for damage control. And we simply don't have the space or the resources to put all these people in jail. Forget about responsibility or Christian values--we need to rehabilitate these types out of sheer self-interest, so that our world is not out of control.

If a child is a bully because they've been spoiled, then sure, give them some stern consequences. I have no problem with giving a spoiled brat a lesson in "you're not such big stuff after all," are you. But at 14, it needs to be something more sophisticated than a spanking. Once they can think, spankings increasingly become anachronistic.

What am I saying? ...that bullies are our concern, even if they aren't our children ...that there's a point where a child becomes hardened to intimidation and physical punishment. At that point it is pointless to use it; you're going to have to back up and try something else (P.S. most of the kids in our schools are already there). ... that it isn't funny.