Kindness is NOT the answer: The problem of bullying (Part 5)

Do we need to change our approach to bullying?

Part 5

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Isn’t change in humans, instruction on behavior, socialization often built on shame? Psychologically, it is discomfort with maladaptive behaviors, usually shame, that drives psychological change. Any therapist will tell you that any client that does not feel discomfort with their behavior will not change, it is a prerequisite for change. We all instinctively know this. The moment you are a parent and your task is to socialize these little beings who come with no rules, we become agents of shame. When our child is not following the rules, we basically tell them that not following the rules of society is disgraceful and shameful. Not going to the bathroom on the toilet and in your pants is disgraceful now you are this age. Hitting another child because you want what they have is disgraceful and shameful. The mechanism of socialization is discomfort and more often than not it has shame at its core. We must create discomfort to create change, to create a child that is playing by the rules for everyone’s benefit. We know this. It is human nature and works at all levels from children, to adults, to movements within a society, to society on a whole. Discomfort at the level of individuals is the mechanism of change.

When we want change in another, we make them feel uncomfortable with their choices and actions. Is it realistic to simultaneously demand kindness from ourselves and others? I sit alone in my room, exiled by my son, trying to figure out if we can deliver discomfort wrapped in a bow of kindness? I think about how many times kindness is used as an excuse to justify the dismissal of discomfort, even if discomfort is needed. Social movements are often dismissed as spewing unkindness because they are trying to create discomfort. Should we really be prioritizing kindness? What about hypocrisy and kindness? This one punches me hard in the gut, as I see myself in my car, driving my kids to school, a few days before, in a moment of hypocrisy that still makes me flush red days later. I am driving my older kids to school and saying that recently I feel that they are being unkind more frequently to each other. I tell them that I understand that they may be witnessing moments of less than kindness between their dad and I. I tell them that we have a history of sixteen years that they are not aware of, that lurks behind our interactions. I say, “We are working on it but it does not excuse you all. You are not off the hook for being kind to each other.” Even as I am delivering these words, I am burning with shame. In their eyes and bodies, I can see that burn is consuming them too. Hypocrisy burns white hot. This is my clue that I am saying something wrong. My message is wrong. I am demanding kindness from them while I tell them that I am not accountable for delivering it.

All the stories my children tell me of incidents with teachers and other children, tell me that we, all of us, fail at delivering kindness all day. None of us woke up and thought, I don’t need to be kind today, but we all fail at kindness all day. Although I feel aware that demanding kindness is unrealistic, presenting too insurmountable a task, everything in me is fighting this realization, yelling back, fighting back against me throwing up my white flag and acknowledging this defeat and giving up on kindness. I think of the multitudes of stories of children and adults ending their lives because they can no longer take the unkindness. We cannot give up on kindness. There is too much at stake. I think of messages that flood our schools promoting kindness and wonder, if they are the solution why aren’t they working? Why are kids dying from being bullied? Why are teachers modelling unkindness as they demand kindness from our kids? Why are we parents doing the same? If we just admit that kindness is unrealistic, what are we left with? While it is obvious our demanding kindness from each other is not working, what now?

Kindness is an output, a giving output, we demand of others. Often, I feel that I am not kind because I do not feel that the other person has earned it from me in that interaction. It is mine to give and judge if another is worthy. What if we admit that it is too difficult to pull off, too much to ask of people, to be giving to others at all times? What if we admit that there are times that another has not earned a giving act of kindness? What if instead of demanding a giving act, the generous act of kindness from others based on who they are, we change the demand. Instead of each person needing to provide kindness, we need only recognize each other’s inherent value, humanness. We no longer need to give kindness. We just need to make sure our acts do not trample on their value as a human, a value they do not have to earn, one that is inherent.

On December 10, 1948, in Paris, the United Nations General Assembly proclaimed The Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This document sets out the rights of every human being. “Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world.” This document does not declare that kindness is needed. This declaration for all of humanity does not declare that the burden of relationships and acts toward another individual are on one individual, or country, to give/grant, an act of bestowing, originating in the giver, a giving of worth through the voluntary act of another, but shifts the focus. Instead, this document declares that worth is inherent to all beings, inalienable, and that the robbing of this “inherent dignity” is a crime against humanity. The conversation shifts from the burden of kindness to the crime of unkindness, suggesting that robbing one human of their inherent worth and dignity, and their inalienable rights, is the robbing of all people, the betrayal of humanity. The conversation shifts from giving kindness to taking from another. The conversation shifts from a focus on one person giving to a focus on the possessions we all have by virtue of being human. Perhaps this is where our conversation needs to go.

Instead of demanding that children give kindness to each other and doubling down on a directive that is obviously failing, what if we turn the directive on its head and demand that children are not unkind? What if we work to have children redefine bullying not as a failure to give something that is theirs to give, kindness, but as the aggressive crime of trampling on the inherent worth of another human, of robbing the possession of another? What if we help adults to see, embrace and teach this paradigm shift? What if instead of insisting on kindness we demand that each one of us respects the inherent dignity and rights of others? We move the conversation from the worth of the giver to the rights of the receiver. What if?

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