Bullies Beget Bullies

We are all hypocrites! We are a mainstream culture that celebrates narcissism, egoism and instant self gratification. We are a society that finds humor and pleasure in photographing and video recording unsuspecting people without their consent and posting it to social media outlets for our own humor and the humor of our "friends" without regard to the feelings of the person. We are a society that would much rather use our hands to hold our phones and record a person in danger than extend our hand to help that person, or at the least to call for help. We are a society that finds pleasure in and celebrates our good deeds by filming people at their lowest points in life so that our "Good deeds" are validated by the world.

Yes, we are a society that is full of shit; especially with regards to spotlight that has recently been placed on adolescent bullying. Bullying has existed since the beginning of time and most of us have stories that we could share about being bullied in our adolescent years and how the emotional scars from childhood torment has haunted us and the ways that they manifest in our adulthood. We can all agree that more efforts should be made to put an end to bullying. However we have a major enemy in our fight against adolescent bullying.

That enemy is us, the adults of the world. We expect more from children (who in essence are learning about social relations, respect, kindness and humility from adults) than we expect from ourselves. How can we expect our children to be kind, considerate, and compassionate when we as adults model the exact opposite for them? Is it reasonable to expect a person who has been on this earth for 10 years to know how to use positive problem resolution strategies when he/she is submerged in a culture that celebrates "poppin' off" and using verbally and physically aggressive methods to solve problems? Is it fair to expect a young girl to see the beauty within herself and those around her based on her deeds and character when she is directly and subliminally taught that a woman's value lies in the size of her hips and the labels on her clothing. Children will always be the byproducts of what they see, what they live, and what is celebrated in their culture. Right now we have a culture that celebrates fifth, materialism, false beauty, poor coping skills, reactive behavior, hypersexuality, and ignorance and unfortunately as a result we have children who are not being provided with the tools to develop self love, self respect, kindness, compassion and empathy for others. The absence of the listed results in an increase in children bullying one another and other children taking their own lives because they are directly and indirectly taught that the opinions that others have of them are of far greater importance than the opinions that they have of themselves.

We are all hypocrites in our shallow concern about adolescent bullying. The next time you take a picture of someone and post it without their consent or the next time you videotape a person in danger instead of helping and the next time you feel a need to video tape and post your "Good deeds" in an effort to show the world how good of a person you are, remember that you are modeling the behaviors that lead to the character traits associated with adolescent bullying. Point at an adolescent "bully", then look down at those three fingers pointing back at you. To correct fault in children we must first acknowledge and correct fault in adults