Bullying, we are all victims and participants....

When I was a younger man, probably around 25 or 26, I played Church League softball.  The team I played on was terrible; horrible; god-awful.  We routinely lost in huge fashion.  I distinctly remember one game during which I played left field and the opposing team hit so many home-runs into the woods behind me that I eventually stopped going in there to fetch the ball. Play had to be suspended until they could talk somebody's little brother into braving the woods and the mud and mosquitoes and collecting all the balls that were smacked out there.  We were horrible.

So, it was with no small sense of wonder that in a game against Ward Presbyterian, our arch-rival, we were actually within striking distance in the bottom of the final inning with two runners on and me up to bat.  I was never any kind of speed merchant on the base paths.  Rusty Staub like speed probably best describes me.  But, the times we played on fields without fences, I could usually hit the ball hard enough once or twice a game that, even with my diminished foot speed, I could lumber around for a homer.

The game I am remembering, there were runners on second and third with two outs and I was up for my team's last at bat - and we were down by three runs.  I put every ounce of my then 6 foot, 265 pound frame into a long, hard line drive to deep left field that rolled forever and started my journey around the bases.

As I rounded second, I noticed the left fielder searching for the ball in tall grass and recall feeling like I was going to tie the game for sure.  As I rounded third, the third base coach told me the ball was coming and to run harder.  I looked up and saw that the other team's catcher, a child of 12 or 13, was standing in perfect position to block the plate and I said a small prayer for the relay throw to miss him by a mile.  It didn't, it bounced once, hard, on the dry clay in front of the plate and skipped right into his mitt like he was a goalie making a glove save on a hard slap-shot.

"Crap," I thought as I came churning down the base-path.  Either I had to kill the kid, or not.  The kid, to his great credit, looked up with a face ashen with fear and apprehension as I churned down on him, but did not yield his position blocking home plate.

In the end, I dodged lamely  to the left and was tagged out - standing chest to chest with the diminutive catcher.  As he tagged me out, we each smiled as my teammates erupted with alarm and anger.  "You should have creamed him!" screamed the players from the bench.  "You cost us the game!" yelled another.

My face crimson, I turned toward the crowd and found my girlfriend (now my wife) who was the only other smiling face in the crowd.  She understood.  As I deadfooted it back to the bench, a solitary old man - his hands as soft as velvet - took up my hand in both of his and shook it firmly; meeting my gaze as only those from older generations seem to be able to do.

"Mister, that was the finest act of sportsmanship I have ever seen; and I just wanted to say "thank you."  That boy is my grandson, and, well, I just wanted to say "thanks."  His clear blue eyes peered right into mine, and I knew of course he was thanking me for not smooshing his grandson, a kid less than 1/3 my size (who never should have been playing catcher in the first place). He was thanking me for realizing that this was only a game and it wasn't worth anyone getting hurt over.

So, that night, I went from hero, to goat, to hero in the space of about 3 minutes.  But walking back to my car I felt slightly taller; slightly more affirmed.  My team, sensing that a rare opportunity for a win had evaporated into thin air but had also left behind an even more rare opportunity to celebrate the right thing, welcomed me back with open arms and we all had a good laugh about it.

So, what does this story have to do with bullying you might wonder.  Well, we all have choices. We all can decide to smear the little kid playing catcher and win the game, or realize it is just a game and there are far more important things in the overall scheme of things, and then seize upon that knowledge and do the right thing.

A bully thrives on the idea that most people will not do the right thing; most people won't say "well, you invited all of us to the party but excluded this other one - I'm not letting you get away with that."  Maybe more of us should.  Most parents are so happy to have their child included with the "in-crowd" that they never think to confront the "in-crowd" on the very fact that they are guilty of creating an "out-crowd."  Maybe, as a responsible parents, we ought to stop and consider that dynamic before we stand idly by and let the other kids feel heart-broken and alone in a small town.

A bully loves to pick on the little kid, or the disenfranchised, or the different or unpopular kid. And kids, at least kids whose parents don't work to confront and dilute the power of a bully by leading their kids to higher ground than that occupied by the bully, adopt a pack-like mentality just out of a sense of self-preservation. Well, what kind of world would we have if all of us taught our kids to say to the bullies “you're not getting away with that, I won't let you. I see what you're doing and we all know it's wrong.” What kind of world might we live in if we worked harder at inclusion than the petty bullies and deficient parents do at exclusion?

So that's what it has to do with bullying - we all see the choices around us.  What separates the inspirational from the frustrating and ordinary and honestly pathetic is how we choose to confront those hard choices.  We cannot begin to get serious about confronting the bullies of the world; physical and emotional, without also challenging ourselves to say "I will not tolerate this."  Until we do that, it's all just empty talk.

So, thanks for stopping by my blog today. I hope wherever you are, whoever you are with, you look at those you love and see those who will grow into the people who will craft a better world for all of us; and that you move boldly and firmly and in the full light of day to make that happen.

Dennis

smalltowndad@hotmail.com

"The tree long remembers what the axe soon forgets..." What are you teaching your kids?

I saw a bumper sticker the other day that talked about global warming.  Essentially it said “what if we fixed global warming; made the Earth healthier, saved endangered species and cleaned up our atmosphere and it was all a big mistake?”  The sticker ultimately was taking a jab at the consequence of fixing the causes of global warming and then it turned out that global warming wasn’t even really as bad a problem as we thought it once was.

So that, in turn, got me thinking about bullying.  What if we committed ourselves and our schools to raising better kids; creating learning communities that were more supportive, more accepting, and less harsh or cruel – and in the end the bullying problem wasn’t as bad as we feared it once was?

Any of us with kids who aren’t bullies feel like bullying is a danger to the physical and emotional well being of our kids.  Just google the names: Seth Welsh, Phoebe Prince, Bobby Tillman, or any of thousands of others and you will take a small measure of the problem.  Google the phrase “Bullied to Death” and among the 320,000 hits on that phrase you will find in heartbreaking detail descriptions of bullying’s worst case scenarios.

Yet, the problem still exists.  You’d like to point at teachers and ask “what are you doing?  Why can’t you stop this?  How are you protecting my kids?”  But the truth is, it begins with the parents.  The parents of one notorious bully in my parents' old neighborhood said many times “we don’t get involved in these kinds of things; we let the kids work things out for themselves…”  It strikes me as a parent now myself that that kind of thinking is all well and good if your kid is the bully.  But what if your kid is the victim of the bully?  Some surprising and sobering facts on bullies can be found in the 2009 Indicators of School Crime and Safety – a survey which collected statistics from a variety of studies and showed that:

• One third of teens reported being bullied while at school
• About 20 percent of teens had been made fun of by a bully, 18 percent of teens had rumors or gossip spread about them, 11 percent were physically bullied, such as being shoved, tripped, or spit on, 6 percent were threatened, 5 percent were excluded from activities they wanted to participate in, 4 percent were coerced into something they did not want to do, and 4 percent had their personal belongings destroyed by bullies
• 4 percent of teens in this study reported being the victims of cyber bullying
• Most bullying occurred inside the school, with smaller numbers of bullying incidents occurring outside on the school grounds, on the school bus, or on the way to school
• Only about a third of bully victims reported the bullying to someone at school
• About 2 of every 3 bully victims were bullied once or twice during the school year, 1 in 5 were bullied once or twice a month, and about 1 in 10 were bullied daily or several times a week
• In this study, females and white students reported the most incidents of being the victims of bullying
• 44 percent of middle schools reported bullying problems, compared to just over 20 percent of both elementary and high schools

Similarly, the 2009 National Youth Risk Behavior Survey found that about 1 in 5 teens had been bullied at school in the last year. The Federal government's Find Youth Info web site also reports some recent bullying statistics:

• Bullying is most common among middle school children, where almost half of students may be bully victims
• Between 15 and 25 percent of students overall are frequent victims of bullying, and 15 to 20 percent of students bully others often
• About 20 percent of students experience physical bullying at some point in their lives, while almost a third experience some type of bullying
• About 8 percent of students have been the victims of a cyber bully
• Studies have indicated that females may be the victims of bullying more often than males; males are more likely to experience physical or verbal bullying, while females are more likely to experience social or psychological bullying
• Students with disabilities are more likely to be the victims of bullying
• Homosexual and bisexual teens are more likely to report bullying than heterosexual teens

Experts agree that there is a relationship between bullying or being bullied and other types of violence, including fighting, carrying weapons, and suicide.  So why, with that kind of data so readily at hand, do we tolerate bullying?

For parents, it might boil down to toughness, competition, social Darwinsim.  You won’t get ahead in life if you let other people roll right over you, right?  Well that’s what we always thought – and what good did it do us?  Has tolerating that mindset eradicated bullying?  Has peace broken out world wide and no one told me? Was the Civil Rights movement waged by bullies or by peaceful action?

For kids it might be as uncomplicated as “snitches get stitches.”  No one wants to be a tattletale.  We hold tattletales in greater contempt than we do the bullies it seems.  But it’s not that simple, is it?  Are we really expecting a decent country if we teach our kids to readily divorce themselves from the greater good?  We can’t really mean that.

For teachers, it might be the 30 – 40 kids they have in their classrooms and the requirements of all that goes into educating our kids that keep them from solving the problem.  It could be also the state of education in general – I am certain there are teachers in almost every state in the union who wish for more resources and smaller classes. For the teacher contemplating acting toward a bully they must invariably think “well, whose brother, the lawyer, is going to sue me tomorrow if I accuse their child of being the school bully?”  While it may be true that we live in a litigious society and that teachers don’t have enough time or resources, I respond to that truth by saying “So what?”  It’s called leadership. Failure to exercise it is a betrayal of the sacred trust we put in our teachers. 

I don’t know the answer – except to say that we have to force these issues out at least into a open dialogue.  Parents, force your schools to confront it.  Principals, force your teachers to report it, and teachers and staff members be vigilant in creating educational communities that support trust, acceptance, support. What if, in so doing, we cured bullying and it turned out it wasn’t really that big of a problem after all?  What would the benefit be – of having more decent kids; more supportive academic environments, less hate, more tolerance, less division, more acceptance?  What if we started out to change just one little corner of the world and ended up making a real and lasting difference? What else might we cure in the process?

My children are my heroes – they are so good; so decent, so kind.  It pains me to see them, in their decency, to be made the victim by kids whose parents have raised them not to care, to be cruel for sport; to be deliberately unkind.  When we teach effective communication strategies, one of the things I always include is the idea that “the tree long remembers what the axe soon forgets.”  Are you teaching your kids to be axes or trees?  I am a big fan of the gorgeous trees, myself.

So thanks for stopping by my blog today.  Wherever you are, I hope you are well and that you and yours are surrounded by those who love you, who will stand with you unshaken and immoveable by the bully’s unkind agenda. I hope you find yourself in the company of ordinary heroes who will not permit any bully to win the day or take the high ground at the expense of any child’s innocence and joy. Thanks for taking the time to read this note.  It is perhaps my message in a bottle to the world written out of love for my kids.  An artifact of my silent hope for them, and your kids as well, to grow up in a world more gentle, more fun, and less harsh.

Dennis

Smalltowndad@hotmail.com 

Aikido - the way of the harmonious spirit - it just sounds cool

Aikido is a concept I love.  I am not a martial artist, my only experience at that being as a crash test dummy for my brother Pat when he took Judo lessons at the local YMCA.  No, as a professional involved in mediation, and as a dad to two terrific kids who get into all kinds of mischief, it is the philosophy of Aikido that I love.

Literally translated, it means "the way of the harmonious spirit."  Aside from just totally "digging" how that sounds coming out of my mouth, I find that that it is a great philosophy.

The concept of verbal Aikido is one I came across in a class at Central Michigan University.  Essentially it is the art, in conversation, debate, bargaining, mediation, whatever, of using your opponent's aggression and momentum against him or her.  To tap into the natural rhythms of an encounter, seize an opportunity to turn an attack into a defense, and redirect the other person's energy into something more productive, or less hurtful. "The way of the harmonious spirit..." Say it all together - it will make you feel great :-)

Looking back, I suppose my first inclination toward Aikido principles comes to me from my freshman year in High school.  I was a bullied kid - no doubt about it.  The youngest of three boys in my family, everything I did or encountered came on a path that had already been marked by my older brothers.

My brother Pat is four years older than me, so I entered high school the fall after he graduated.  In so doing, I encountered many seniors that Patrick had known as juniors.  Well, you can imagine that as the little brother of a varsity athlete in a small town - I was an easy target for those that were the younger rivals of my oldest brother.

Gym class, as a freshman, was a particular horror.  Punched by bigger, stronger kids while running laps, living under the constant threat of being "pantsed" or the recipient of a gift "swirlie", I learned quickly that I could not win a war of attrition against my larger, faster, meaner rivals.  I had to outsmart them using their own aggression.

The story I remembered the other day was from our archery unit.  I am sure they don't allow kids with bows and arrows in gym class any more, but way back when - when the Earth was still young and gym teachers were retired Drill Instructors - by God you climbed a rope and you by God learned how to shoot a bow and arrow in gym class.

The archery ranges indoors were about what you would expect - range safety was paramount, no goofing off, each "squad" of five boys got six arrows.  Six squads of boys all lined up parallel - shooting across the gym in dedicated lanes.  The kid at the front of the line shot all six, then stopped shooting until all "squads" shot all their arrows.  Then, we went down and plucked all six arrows from the targets together.  Heaven help you, mister, if your target comes up an arrow short or, especially, an arrow over.  Six shots you get and you better hit that target six times. Less than six meant running laps; more than six meant a trip to the office.

So standing in line next to my tormentors, I noticed that the two ring leaders are a) laughing, b) looking my way, and c) holding seven arrows.   I do not know, honestly, how I knew the plan at the moment, but I did.  I knew their plan was to shoot that seventh arrow into my target, blame me, and get me kicked out of gym class for the day.

So I lined up square to the target and fired off the first five arrows in volley form along with the rest of the class.  When it came time to lock and load the sixth arrow, I passed it quietly to the back of the line with instructions to the other freshman to "ditch this."  I then drew back the string on my Fred Bear recurved and let fly the equivalent of a "blank" in archery after which the teacher hollered the signal for all of us to stop, lay down our bow, and to walk forward and retrieve our arrows.

Before I was even 20 feet from the target, Dean, the henchman-follower of my two main bullies, started calling to the teacher that I had seven arrows in my target.  The gym teacher marched double time down to my target and told me to count off arrows.

When I pulled six arrows from my target, the two bullies looked at each other as if they were witnessing some act of black magic. The gym teacher looked at the chief bully, now loudly proclaiming that he saw me shoot seven arrows, and accused him and his pal of smoking "hippie lettuce" in the student smoking lounge.

So, lesson one - brains work, know your enemy, use his aggression against him.

The second thought I had about Aikido comes from later in life, when I had occasion to use the local "Town Suds" laundromat.  My wife and I were newly married and living in an apartment that did not have a washer and dryer.  Thus the ritual, which I still maintain, of emptying all the change in my pockets into a Mason jar at the end of each day was born.

On Saturday mornings I would load up the laundry, detergent, baskets, and jar o'change and head off for a miserable three hours at the coin laundry.

The day I am remembering was one where the laundry was packed before a home football game.  We lived in a University town and on the Saturdays of home football games, if you wanted to go to the game, you had to hit the laundry early and hard.

As it turned out, I found five machines that were all in a line so I hurried all of the laundry into the different washers (whites, darks, jeans, her stuff that I couldn't wreck and one load of all of the stuff that said "wash separately.")  I then inserted my quarters neatly into the slots knowing that, once I added the detergent, I could walk down the line engaging the washers one after the other so my wash would be done at the same time and I could then use fewer dryers to finish the job.

At this point I became aware of a small problem, I left the detergent out in the car.  Owing to the fact that I had about seven dollars in change poised to go into a variety of washing machines, I considered my options.  I could run out to the car and get the detergent while leaving the quarters in position, or I could take the quarters back out and then run out to the car.

I, of course, chose whatever took the least amount of time.  So, quarters in place, I backed out of the laundry and ran across the parking lot to the car, retrieved the detergent and ran back in.

I have not yet described the other male hovering around the "Town Suds" that morning.  Clearly sentenced to both laundry AND kid duty in excange for permission to go to the game later that day was a guy older than me, with 4 kids doing their best imitation of 40 kids, struggling to get his wash done, keep his kids under control and make it to the game.  I did not notice him much as I was loading up.

But, given his extremely guilty look when I came back AND the fact that about five of the seven dollars in change was missing, I concluded immediately that a) I chose unwisely when considering my options, and b) the jerk stole my quarters.

I did not have it in me to accuse him in front of his kids so I dug out the Mason jar, recharged the machines with quarters and got my wash on.

I was disgusted with him.  His every move in the laundromat gave birth to a billowing cloud of contempt growing within me.  Sharing the same aisle, it was easy for me to sit and listen to him as he chastised his children for being unruly and reminded them that it would just be a short time before the wash was done and they could all go home.  I distinctly remember him saying that he had to drop them off at home so he could meet his friends in time for the football game.

I watched as he unloaded the first of his six washing machines and wheeled the contents over to a huge dryer.  I glared as he dropped what were undoubtedly MY quarters into his dryer.  I only stopped staring at him when I noticed that all five of his remaining machines stopped at once - thinking to myself - "well pal, you did this all wrong, you needed to start them all at the same time so you could take all your stuff over to the dryers at the same time. You are going to be wasting a lot of time walking back and forth..."

I suppose it was the phrase "wasting time" that got the wheels turning in my head.  Before I even realized that I had dreamed up a plan, I was already putting it in motion.

Quick as I could, I loaded quarters into his previously still machines and engaged them to begin again their 45 minute cycles.  "You like quarters?" I remember thinking "Well good for you. I got plenty of quarters, how are you fixed for TIME..." I thought as I jammed the last load of quarters into his last machine.

My vengeance complete, I grabbed a newspaper and sat down, hoping the local daily would provide adequate cover for what was sure to be a guilty look on my face.

I made it back to my seat just as the quarter-thief came bustling back with two children hanging from his laundry cart like the plastic pieces from a "Barrel O' Monkeys."  He began barking at them to get off the cart and to watch out because he was in a big hurry and had to get this stuff right into the dry..."

I remember he said "WHAT THE?!" and ran from machine to machine, scrambling to answer the question of how these vexatious machines had managed to start themselves all over again.  With a subtle turning of my left wrist, I allowed the upper left corner of the newspaper to fold in against itself so that my face was exposed to only the quarter-thief.

The movement caught his eye and he turned quickly and then froze mid-pose, like a cartoon jailbird caught escaping by the warden's searchlight.  I gave him a quick nod of my head, and then a wink, and then went back to my paper.

Lesson two - it is best not to have an opponent, but if you have one, try hard to be smarter, and to have more quarters, than him.

So, grasshoppers, that is my lesson for today.  Best to walk the path of the harmonious spirit.  Whatever you are doing today, and wherever you are, I hope that your enemies are few and that your harmony, bountiful.

Have a great Weekend!

Dennis

Suicide at Rutgers; and the essence of hope

So, an aside from the usual fare for these pages today.  We are all reading today that on the evening of September 19, Rutgers University student Dharun Ravi is believed to have sent a message by Twitter about his roommate, Tyler Clementi.

Tyler it seemed wanted some privacy in their dorm room for an intimate encounter.  Not an unheard of circumstance at any college dorm.  Only with Tyler, the intimate encounter was with another man.  So kids being kids, and technology being technology a bad plan was hatched to webcast Tyler's private moments to the world wide web.  That bad plan was made worse when no one thought to say - "this is too much."

News of the broadcast reached Tyler and the supposition is that he killed himself rather than face the scandal of engaging in intimate acts identical to those being engaged in by thousands of college kids on hundreds of college campuses nationwide.

We know that Police pulled his body from the Hudson river yesterday after he left a note, on Facebook, that he was jumping off the George Washington Bridge.  "Sorry" was what it said.  The Middlesex County Coroner identified his body today.  By all accounts he was a terrific kid.

So today. along with the student's family and friends, my thoughts are with the residence life staff at Rutgers.  For eight years I was an RHD (Residence Hall Director) at a university in Michigan.  In those eight years, it was one of the thoughts that scared me most - some student - feeling isolated, alone, would act out in desperation.  You can see it in your mind - if someone had just been there to say "Tyler, are you ok?" maybe things would be different.

As a matter of fact, when I was a hall director most of the kids that came my way were terrific kids. There were loving, adoring, families behind them overflowing with pride at the accomplishments of the child they dropped at my doorstep.  My commitment to the parents, aside from trying to engage their progeny to become more solid citizens, more independent critical thinkers and responsible adults, was that they would be leaving their kid someplace safe.

In training I used to tell the story that my dad told to me about the tanker in WWII who looks down at a paratrooper manning a foxhole and asks "Hey Mack, where's a safe place to park this tank?"  To which the trooper replied "Right behind me, buddy."  The same was true, to a far less dramatic degree, with the  residence life staff at any given university.

The parents show up and, if you were able to strip away all the other worry and posturing, what you would see is that what they ultimately want is a safe place to leave their kid. 

The res life professional's job is to look at them and say "right behind me, buddy."

So when we would meet with kids at the beginning of each school year, I would always include a couple of extra things in my annual speech to them:

1)  There are mistakes you can make here that will follow you around the rest of your lives; try not to make them.  The truth about college is that just about 6 out of every 10 kids who start college will graduate in 6 years.

Tyler's roommate and his friend have made just such a mistake.

2)  Nothing will happen here that will justify suicide.  Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.  If you are feeling like this might be a solution you are considering, then come and find somebody, an RA, me, a professor, a counselor - whoever.  No one on a college campus or in a dorm is ever alone unless they want to be.

Tyler, sadly enough, chose suicide. Let me say it again, suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.  That is the essence of hope. No matter how bleak your present is you cannot determine with any accuracy exactly what your future might be.  But you can hope.

So maybe one of my nieces or nephews will someday read this; or perhaps too soon for my own comfort my son or daughter will be heading off to school and wanting to read dad's blog entries.  To them I would say this:

Nothing can bring this student back.  Nothing can restore his devastated parents.  No miracle will act to reinstate the innocence of the kids involved in this. But I hope all kids contemplating college learn from this story.  Learn that no matter what there is always hope.  And if you are tempted to pull that prank, or victimize another for the "fun of it", then know that there is no right way to do a wrong thing.  There is always the path to sound judgment, critical thinking, and leadership if you look for it.  Learn to try hard to make good choices, whatever you do. ANd learn to avoid the bad choices.

Finally I hope residence life professionals view this story and re-dedicate themselves to creating University communities abundant with tolerance, acceptance, and learning.  Make sure you keep open the doors of out-reach.  Remember the starfish parable.  If your res life program is any good, they taught it to you.  If not, then here it is.

One morning an elderly man was walking on a nearly deserted beach. He came upon a boy surrounded by thousands and thousands of starfish. As eagerly as he could, the youngster was picking them up and throwing them back into the ocean.

Puzzled, the older man looked at the young boy and asked, "Little boy, what are you doing?"

The youth responded without looking up, "I'm trying to save these starfish, sir."

The old man chuckled aloud, and queried, "Son, there are thousands of starfish and only one of you. You really think you can make a difference doing this?"

Holding a starfish in his hand, the boy turned to the man and, gently tossing the starfish back into the water, said, "I can to this one."

So anyhow, thanks for swinging by my soapbox today.  I did not intend on an entry for today, and certainly not on such a topic as this, but even small town dads are not immune.  My mother told me once that when you have kids, you're never the same - everybody's kids are your kids.  Everything that happens to somebody else's kid could some day happen to your kid.

Wherever you are; whatever you are facing - please know this - no person ever walks alone.  We are today reminded that, no matter what, there is always hope.

Dennis