What If You Did Nothing?

 I love to ask questions!

If you know me at all, you will know this to be all too true!

If you are getting to know me, you will come to this realisation very quickly!

I am that person who, in a group of people, will ask someone's name and then ask a whole lot more questions to get to know them better!

I used to think I just asked too many questions but then I realised, I was genuinely interested in getting to know people and I think people feel valued when you show genuine interest in them too.

This trait of asking lots of questions has turned out to be a life-changing aspect for me.

If you live in Australia, you would know that this last Friday was the - 

National Day of Action Against Bullying and Violence

So at schools around the country, there would have been conversations about this topic. 

What bullying is, what it looks like, sounds like, what to do if you are being bullied and if you see it happening. The phrase was: Speak - even if your voice shakes.

Interesting Occurrence

During the day, I had one of my students make a choice about flicking her hat, a few times,  in the face of a boy from another class. Now, this is not what I consider bully behaviour. This is the first time I have ever seen or heard her do anything like this and so we talked about the choice she made when playing with this boy. She was very remorseful and we resolved it with the other student easily.

However...while she was alone in her actions, she had another student from my class standing with her while it happened. This other student did not participate in the hat flicking, nor was there any name calling. The fact of the matter is...she said nothing. She stood and watched it unfold, from the beginning through to the reporting to the teacher.

Now granted, she is 6 years old and granted, this was not bullying behaviour either but the conversation with her was a little different. 

 Even though she was not participating, could she see the wrong choice that was being made by someone else? 

 Was there something happening to another student that was having an impact on them?

The answer was a very clear - yes.

 Instead of standing by and watching it happen and watching the other student feeling unhappy, what do you think you could have done?

Her reply included: tell [my friend] to stop hitting with the hat or tell the teacher. 

Both very valid responses. But she did neither. I suspect her lack of action was not intentional. The most valid reason would be, she may not have known what to say or do or that it was her friend and she didn't know if saying something to her friend was okay.

This interaction got me thinking about this question:

What if you did nothing?

 What if we did nothing when our little humans witness a single interaction that impacts others in a negative way?

 What if we did nothing in the way of teaching problem-solving skills to our young children so they know when to step up and speak out in a meaningful and courageous way?

 What if we did nothing about empowering our little humans NOW with the language they need to become resilient and confident children/friends/adults?

 What if we did nothing about changing their self-talk so that our children knew, without a doubt, that they are ENOUGH, they are LOVED and they are WORTHY?

 What if we did nothing to help heal the pain and fear of the bully, earlier in their life, before it became their defence and default behaviour?

If we do nothing now, we have no chance of stopping the bullying that will continue to happen in the future.

We can all do something and speak out about bullying as adults and we are trying to teach our kids that it is necessary to speak out. 

If we can do that....we can certainly do something earlier. 

If we change the mindsets and self-talk of our little humans, then imagine the kind of teens and adults they could become?!

We can make a difference.

Our kids will be the ones to deal with the consequences if we do nothing. 

Heal the bully earlier and eliminate the bullying.

Until next week...remember to do something.

Clarissa xo