Can a zebra change its stripes?

Consider a person with an extroverted personality. This person loves social interaction. They are the life of the party, and feel wonderful when surrounded by lots of people. They engage strangers at the grocery store, or in line at the bakery. Now, imagine they tried to “make the decision” to live a reserved, quiet, isolated life. Never again spending time in larger groups, avoiding new interactions with people while walking through their neighborhood. You are correct in thinking that this adjustment would be a monumental sacrifice for a person who, normally, is energized by engaging with people.

Exploring my values…

Values are similar. While we can bend the values we have in order to help us be as successful as possible, we can not simply make up new values for ourselves. What we can do, however, is identify the areas where we would like to be stronger and put effort into building those things up. Here are a couple things to consider when assessing what your values are:

1. Who are the people you admire?
   • Taking a look at the people you admire, and assessing what it is that you admire about them, can help you identify what some of your values might be. This might be people in your life, or even characters in your favorite novels.
2. What moments inspire you to action?
   • It is often the case that our values manifest themselves through our actions. Consider the things that you stand for.
   • What moments in your life cause you to stop what you were doing to intervene? These moments might help you understand your values more deeply.
3. When do you feel most natural?
   • Consider the moments in your life where you feel most connected to yourself. Is that moment one where you are reading a book, exercising, or talking with friends? Maybe you just aced a difficult exam.
   • Feeling “congruent,” like the world inside you is matched up with the world outside of you, is a really good way to identify the moments you may be living out your values. Pay attention next time you are in one of those moments.

What next?

Search Google for a “List of Values” and see what types of words strike you. Consider picking out 3-5 words that really strike you. How would you define those different values? What actions do you believe reinforce that value in your life? What kinds of things could you accomplish if you really tried to live out these values every day? And is there more that you could do to incorporate these values in your daily life?

Check out some of our other posts, as well:

Man’s Search for Meaning

Personality: The heart of diversity

What is Leadership?

The post Exploring our Values appeared first on Stand 4 Kind.

Bully-victims?

What may surprise some is that the youth who are most likely to bully are—themselves—victims of bullying; the so-called “bully-victims.” These young people may believe that bullying others is justified because they have been bullied. Or maybe they are in a social hierarchy where their position in the middle, where they are bullied by those above them, is maintained by bullying others at the bottom of the hierarchy. One thing is clear: it is unlikely that they do not know how harmful bullying is, and unlikely they do not realize what they are doing to others. And ignorance to how their actions make others feel is extremely difficult to believe.

Why do young people bully others?

There are a number of reasons young people bully others. The socially integrated bully will bully less popular students by using relational aggression and rumors in order to simultaneously prop themselves up and put others down. Young people attempting to climb the social ladder can also resort to bullying as a way to navigate the social hierarchy in an integrated way. The socially marginalized bully, in contrast, is a student who has few friends but finds socialization by dominating others. They may find that their power over others is their age, or physical size.

Young people can bully because it makes them feel good about themselves. Putting others down is a way to make someone feel good about themselves, in the short term. Boredom can be another reason to bully others. Bullies may be bored with their day-to-day lives at school. They may resort to bullying in order to add excitement or drama to their lives. Bullying is also a way for young people to get attention from their peers. Their actions against their victims may illicit laughter, or may catalyze others to join in.

Are you either a “bully,” or a “victim”?

There are many reasons for bullying. And the categories of “bully” and “victim” are not fixed. Rather, there are fluid dynamics at play where a person is likely to move back and forth between categories of bully and victim depending on the social circumstances and environment. Maybe we should be encouraging young people to identity the parts of themselves where they are vulnerable to mistreat others. If they can understand where the motivation to bully others is coming from, it may be preventable. If we acknowledge that every one of us is capable of bullying, then maybe we explore the circumstances where we might be capable of behaving in such a way. Only then can we help create communities where young people treat one another with respect and dignity.

Check out some of our other posts on bullying:

Bullying Prevention: Research to Practice

10-Tips to Stop Bullying

Bullying in our schools – Data from the CDC

The post Why do young people bully? appeared first on Stand 4 Kind.

We know that the definition of bullying is intentionally hurtful behaviors that are repeated over time and directed at a person of lesser power. The part of that equation that may be tough to identify is intentionally hurtful. You might be thinking to yourself: ‘maybe my actions arehurtful, but I would never do anything to hurt someone on purpose.’ You might be thinking to yourself: ‘but I don’t look like the bullies that I see on TV,’ ‘the bullies that I see on TV do not have any friends.’ Or even: ‘my friends know that I am just joking,’ ‘the things that I am doing actually get a laugh out of people, so how can they be bullying?’ Let’s think about some of the ways that we can assess our relationships with others to better determine if those relationships are happy and healthy ones, or if they need a re-evaluation.

Am I a bully?

Some signs that my behavior might be bullying

1. Think about the nature of your friend group. Consider each person in that group and their specific contribution to the group. If you think that certain people are really only invited to hang around because they are the butt of everyone’s joke, this person may be the target of this groups bullying. If this is you and your friends, challenge the status quo next time someone decides that fun is going to be had at the expense of one of your “friends.”
2. Think about the topics that you and your friends talk about. If the majority of your conversations are talking about others, spreading rumors, gossip, or laughing at/about other people you might be participating in social/relational bullying. If this is you and your friends, next time the conversation starts to veer toward gossip, just remember the quote from the First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt: Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.
3. Take a moment and consider who the bullies are in your school. What are the kinds of things that they have done to make you identify them in your mind? What are the things that you have heard about their behavior that make you identify them as bullies? If you are struggling to identify anyone, or your first response is: ‘we don’t have bullies at my school,’ you may want to carefully consider what you consider to be bullying.
4. Boys often engage in rough and tumble play. But, consider if your physicality with your friends is mutual and goes-both-ways, or if you might be physically dominating your weaker peers. Do you regularly use pushing, shoving, or taunting when engaging with your friends, or other members of your class? If this is you, think carefully about the role that physical aggression has in your relationships because you may be physically bullying others.
5. Do you play games where you and your friends actively ignore others? Where you purposely exclude someone for a period of time. If this is you, consider how your actions affect others. Specifically, think about how you might feel if your friends did that to you. Maybe your friends havedone this to you and everyone in the group ‘gets a turn’ being excluded; if this is you and your friends, consider new ways to engage with each other where no-one has to feel lousy—including you!

There are all kinds of reasons that people justify their bullying behavior. Bullying is no big deal, everybody laughs and there is no harm in having a little fun. Some kids deserve it, they bring it on themselves with their outlandish behavior. It’s what we doin my friend group, this is the way that we choose to interact with each other. It feels good to dominate others, putting others down makes me feel good. My behavior gets me attention from my peers, and I enjoy the attention I receive.I bully others because I have been bullied; sometimes when we have been bullied or treated poorly we use that as a reason for mistreating others. It takes honesty and bravery to evaluate your own behavior. But the good news is that there are things that you can do if you start to recognize bullying behavior in yourself. Remember, no-one deserves to be bullied. You can change the ways that your friend group interacts with one another, or find a friend group whose values align with you. Dominating others does not lead to lasting or meaningful relationships. The attention bullies get from their peers is not positive. And being the victim of bullying, as unfortunate as it is, is not a reason to justify bullying others.

The things you have done in the past do not necessarily determine what your future will be. If you recognize bullying behavior in yourself, you get to determine if that behavior changes. If the thought comes up in your mind that ‘I am a bully,’ just remember: you get to determine the relationships you have with others.

Get out there and Stand4Kind!

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