Wednesday, April 11, 2018

A Revelation

I had a revelation yesterday.

I was talking with a student. He doesn't have a great home life -- not terrible, but complicated. His "friends" can be great, except when they aren't. He had walked away from them for once and was alone. I told him he didn't have to put up with the way they treat him. His response?

"Then I won't have any friends."

I realized these kids I'm so frustrated with, don't realize what abuse is.  They are willing to sacrifice self esteem and physical well being so the cool kids will like them.

And the kids who are using put downs and "joking" are fueled by the attention they receive from their victims.

As adults we intervene and tell the offender to stop. But that's when we catch them. We often don't let offended know they are worth more than their friends are showing them they are. Our interference doesn't stop the behavior and only emboldens the offender because we don't teach the skills of saying, "Stop making fun of my weight. I don't like when you punch my shoulder so hard." We don't teach that when they go along and go back to being treated badly, they are saying it is OK to be treated that way.

We need to teach skills of inner strength.

And I just had another revelation...
Tomorrow, why PBIS bothers me so much.

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