The World Needs Bullies

For the last two years or so there has been an active campaign to end bullying amongst adolescents. On the surface it appears like an admirable goal. I believe the end of bullying will be catastrophic on a scale no one anticipated.

There will come a time in the next 15 to 20 years when our society will go right down the crapper and our economy will follow. The children of today have been raised without adversity and as a result, do not have the mental tools to handle it when it appears.

Our children, mine included, don’t know what to do when someone is not nice to them. Names are called, tears are shed, and someone gets in trouble. But not only is this behavior normal for children, it’s healthy and a part of psychological development.

Soon, adults running our country will not know how to deal with a nation that is not friendly to ours. I guess they will cry to the United Nations since they cried to a teacher when they were younger, instead of confronting the bully on their own. One day your child will be at work as someone is going to eat their lunch out of the break room and they will go hungry, instead of dealing with the situation maturely with the tools they learned as a child.

In a similar vein, children today have no idea whether they have completed a task successfully or not, all because many schools have done away with failing grades. Competition will soon suffer when there aren’t any losers in sports. Everyone wins in soccer but that isn’t how it works in real life.

I’ve done an unscientific study of the people I work with. I work with one person and she doesn’t have kids so her opinions don’t count. The findings of my study are as follows:

Kids need to fall down. The need to know that concrete is hard. Metal can be sharp. Corners too. Children have to learn the boundaries of what their little bodies can handle and have respect for the dangers of their environment.

Kids need to have their feelings hurt. They have to be called names and be pushed down. It’s painful to hear about. I’d like to drop kick a kid in the throat when they are mean to my daughter. But there isn’t always someone around to fight their battles for them; eventually they will have to deal with it on their own. If parents really want to help, give the child the tools to mentally deal with bad names and people that don’t like them. Be involved with your child. Teach them. And then get the hell out of the way.

Kids need to get dirty. They need to be exposed to germs and bacteria to build resistance to their environment. They need to eat the cookie they just dropped on the ground. They need to sneeze and then go play on the monkey bars at school. Now is the time of their life where they build their immunities. More exposure now means fewer sick days later. That’s why they are immunized as a baby, so they don’t get measles down the road. The abundance of hand sanitizer is creating more resilient bacteria that normal antibiotics do not cure. So let you kid get dirty. You can do this at home. With dirt.

Kids should believe in a higher power. Church, whether they truly believe or not, is a great place to learn values and about self worth. When children worship they learn that there is something greater than themselves. They learn that it’s not always about them and about service to others. “The last will be first and the first will be last ” Mathew 20:16.

Most of all, kids need their parents. Both a mother and a father if possible. Kids need a parent to show up. Half of anything is showing up. And today a lot of parents unload their kids at the curb and let the school raise their child. Low test scores? The teacher must be doing something wrong (sarcasm). Maybe the kid could read better if mom would get off Facebook and read a book to the child. Maybe Junior could do some math if dad would stop playing video games and running with the ‘bros.

Stop texting, and sharing, and reposting, and tweeting, and pinning and talk with your kids! My god, we are losing the basic form of communication by exploring new technologies to communicate. Billions of dollars are spent every year on the next new way to arrange 1’s and 0’s. More can be said with a smile, a hug, or pat on the back than any ‘like’, tweet, or text message.

What this world will look like in 15 to 20 years isn’t going to be our kid’s fault.