Concerns of Bullying at School?

It is August and in a few short weeks, students return to school.

• There will be new students
• There will be new cliques
• There will be students that don’t fit

There are things as parents that we should teach our children.

Besides respecting the teacher which by the way, is on the decline; we need to teach our children to be polite.  Dear Emily Post, I am sorry you wrote lots of rules on politeness (etiquette), but somewhere along the way we lost.  Most of us don’t even have a clue as to who you are.

We need to explain to them why bullying is wrong.  The problem is most children don’t realize that they are hurting someone’s feelings.  I know the students that called me alphabet or worse because of my long last name did not realize how hurt it made me feel. Or called me greasy because of my Sicilian heritage didn’t realized I washed my hair three times a day.  I know when they asked me what I got for Christmas or my Birthday they were just trying to be polite.  How do you tell someone who you didn’t get anything except maybe a nicer meal?  Or that this year for Thanksgiving dinner we had hot dogs, mac-n-cheese, and baked beans?  Or when the cafeteria is serving liver on Monday and you eat yours and your friends that won’t touch it, everyone is saying eeew.  But it is the first meal you ate since last Friday’s lunch?

But there were those kids that maybe didn’t understand; but they were taught how to be polite and never said a word. Or pulled me away when someone was saying something mean to me.

Today, there are kids whose life is just like mine was all those years ago. If you teach your child to be polite, they won’t say anything. They might even reach out to help. They might pull the person away when someone is being mean.

There is one girl, that I remember, she had one of those friends that was mean, she was always trying to pull her friend away from me.  Her parents must have taught her how to be polite. Oh, sure we can add empathy to the list, of things we should teach our children.  But the truth is if we instruct them on the rules of etiquette all those other things will follow.

All the things that we need to improve the ever-increasing problem of bullying in our school

Empathy

The idea of Sharing

Etiquette

Kindness

The list goes on and on but it can be wrapped up with one tiny skill: Etiquette.