DeeDoo’s Digital Scrapbooking Blog

Do you have children or grandchildren? The headlines about kids bullying each other in and outside their schools now has spilled over into online bullying via Facebook and other social networks. How do you feel about this chronic, and apparently epidemic problem? How on earth did things get to this point, and what can we, as individuals, do to stop it?

One thing we CAN do. We can limit the opportunities for bullying to occur – bullying BY our own kids or bullying OF our own kids. How?? We can shut down our children’s own Facebook pages. We can monitor their use of the internet and not allow them to be exposed to that particular threat. We can monitor their cell phone use, and limit it to calls to and from family members only, and mandate its use otherwise as ‘for emergency only’ and then define what falls within that description. Here’s a thought – we can take their cell phones AWAY.

We can make it our business to know who our children associate with at school and after school. We don’t have to let them roam the shopping malls in groups for ‘entertainment’. They should EARN any time they get away from home and parental supervision. They don’t have to be with other kids constantly, on one ‘playdate’ after another. We don’t have to allow them privileges they are not responsible or mature enough to enjoy. When we do, we are setting them up for problems. Not just bullying problems, either.

I know we are all ‘busy’. Busy, busy, busy. It’s crazy how busy everyone is. Too busy to take time to check things out. Too tired to make the effort to be responsible for our own children’s behavior. It’s tempting, and, frankly, far easier, to let the kids mingle with their ‘friends’, to use that as a babysitter, so we don’t have to listen to them complain of ‘boredom’ or whatever else it might be.

Too many think ‘the teachers and the schools should be more involved’ or that they are ultimately responsible for our kids. Horsefeathers!! That is such a total cop-out, it’s ridiculous. The teachers simply can’t do it, even if they tried. Ultimately, their hands are tied…how are they supposed to teach kids how to behave when it isn’t supported and reinforced at home. How are they supposed to enforce rules of behavior when laws against such enforcement prevent it? More to the point, how are they supposed to TEACH school subjects PLUS teach kids how to behave? Kids are supposed to come to school already knowing how they should act, and they should be doing it.

So, my conclusion is that if a finger must be pointed, it should be pointed at US. The parents and, yes, the grandparents, who turn a blind eye to the issues because it is easier than confronting it. We who want our kids and grandkids to ‘fit in’ and be a part of things. We who find it easier to stand by and let the kids drive the bus when they are, in fact, too young, too immature, and too irresponsible to be in charge of much more than cleaning their own rooms. (Which many don’t do.)

We need to be the grownups. We need to put rules and limits on the kids. We need to engage and get involved in their lives. Oh, they won’t like it, I’m sure. But who cares? Years from now they will look back, as I certainly have, and be grateful that their parents cared enough to draw a line in the sand and say ‘NO’ when it needed to be said, and then enforce it. Even to let them hate us for awhile, if that’s what it takes. Believe me, they’ll get over it.