Are You Mad Yet?

Bullying — an ugly word that calls up images of pushing and shoving on the school grounds or a child being harassed by older and bigger children on his way home from school.
All of us have seen it happen, many have experienced one or more types of this aggressive behavior, but until recently, we perhaps thought it was simply an unfortunate part of growing up and one simply had to learn to cope. The old lie “sticks and stones my break my bones but words will never hurt me” was never useful or true but perhaps was applied out of helpless frustration.
The days that parents could ell a child to “be brave” or “stay away” from bullies and expect the behavior to go away are long since over. We only have to say the world Columbine to remember the fatal consequences of children reacting to being bullied. Despair drove those two upper-middle-class boys to such violence that it is still unimaginable. Those shootings were followed by a string of similar horrors in other schools.
In more recent news we have he horrific case of the lovely young Irish immigrant named Phoebe who was not only tortured in the old “traditional” ways, but a newer ugly wrinkle was added to her misery, cyber bullying. She is not the only child in the news who has been victimized by the computer, which is only a tool of the ruthless person who employs it. One only has to look around on the Internet a little while to read stories that make me sick at heart. The question I, and most of us, ask is what can we do about this epidemic of cruelty?
Please don’t look around for someone else to carry this battle. The schools are already overburdened with acting where parents should be responsible. Most every school in our county already has some program in effect to deal with bullying. The Prosecutor’s Office a few weeks ago held a conference on dealing with the issues of bullying. We can’t say we are not aware and that public officials aren’t acting on this problem.
My concern is with the home, where I believe the influence should be and is often the greatest teacher. We have to get our act together at home. That is the primary school for our children but beyond that (and whole libraries just to help us get it right); we must examine what influences outside our homes that we will encourage and permit. What are the movies your children watch? Are they full of violence? How about their favorite video games?
Listen to the songs on their iPods or playing on their radios. Are they glorifying violence? Don‘t forget the large flat screen in your home. Do all these wonderful new technologies support what you as a parent are trying to teach or are they doing the opposite? Will they contribute to your child’s level of compassion or aggression?
After examining these “teachers” in your child’s life, I only ask: Are you mad yet? Well then, what are you going to do? It is your home — don’t invite the thugs into your living room or even worse, your children’s bedrooms. Throw the varmints out.
PATRICIA HALL