Interesting news item I stumbled across while I was thinking about my Middle School and High School bullying programs:
Evidently there is a government program in the UK that involves distributing blue wristbands that say “Beat Bullying” on them. Championed by Bono, David Beckham and other celebrities, the wristbands have been actually making the wearers targets of bullies.
Read the full article here:
Anti Bullying Wristbands Backfire in UK
There is a reason why this kind of top-down program will never work. The focus of so many anti bullying programs is basically trying to educate the kids who are the bullies into not being bullies any more.
But no matter where we go in life we will be exposed to people as well as events that seem intent on crushing or hurting us. The first step in any program or assembly designed to stop bullying is to focus on the person who is being bullied and teach him or her how to change the things going on inside themselves that a. attract bullying b. tolerate bullying and c. internalize and expand the external bullying into something they do to themselves.
In my work as an NLP Master Practitioner and Trainer as well as in my own personal experience as “the kid who everyone picked on, teased and bullied” is that “zero tolerance for bullying” is an inside job.
What happens to the kids who go through school where everyone is nice and supportive all the time and then as adults they come face to face with a bully on the job in the form of their boss or even an abusive customer? Without experience in using what I call “Modern Jedi Mind Mastery” tools, they are even more vulnerable to being bullied.
Do we need to educate children with the aim of keeping our kids from becoming bullies? Absolutely. But focusing only on that approach or instituting some “top-down” program of wearing a wrist band or a button that says: “Bullying is bad” or whatever, isn’t going to stop bullying.
In fact, in the article about the program in the UK the kids interviewed said basically that wearing the wristband identified them as particularly good targets for….bullying.
Read the full article here:
Anti Bullying Wristbands Backfire in UK
Success, Self Esteem, Happiness, Confidence, Courage, Character, Strength, Safety, Well Being… these are internal processes that can be taught. Wearing a wristband doesn’t change the thought processes of either the wearer or the person looking for someone easy to prey on. Please give me a call or drop me an e-mail about sharing my knowledge with your students and staff on this important subject. Thank you
Phone: 888+598+7709 | e-mail: mark [at] MarkShepard.com
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