Where young men are more likely to receive verbal or physical violence, young women are more likely to receive emotional abuse through the process of “outing.“ One day, a young woman comes to school and all is well. The next day she comes to school and all the people she looked to for validation and counted on as friends refuse to talk to her. Here is where it gets really dangerous for the emotional well being of our children. Both these processes can quickly create a feeling of isolation.

We are talking about the time in a person’s life where they are seeking the most information about the world and themselves and they find themselves with no positive resource to turn to. Not their peers and not their parents, because part of this “peer culture” states that even when you are on the receiving end of the cruelty, you never tell. What a great deal the bullies have. They get to abuse their victims and their victims are forbidden to seek help by confiding in others, especially adults.

Who makes up these rules? The child’s peers. Understand, I am not talking about a scenario of the good guys (victims) and the bad guys (bullies). The fact is that children who commit these acts of terrorism are in as great a need of help as the children who are on the receiving end. Bullies and those who are their victims are on opposite sides of the same coin. Both behaviors are a result of low self esteem and generally very poor communication with their parents. Just by reading the newspaper or watching the news on TV, it becomes obvious the entire paradigm that exists in the youth peer structure in our neighborhoods and in our schools must change.

What is the first step? The gathering of information so we can truly understand the scope of the problem. This is the very thing that our children are least likely to give us as things stand today. So the process is two fold:

1. Create, in the home, a dynamic where children talk openly to their parents. This I have touched on in the last two articles.

2. Develop programs in our neighborhoods and in our schools where children come to a new understanding of the nature of violence and come to agreement on new ways to treat each other. We will get to this later.

Human beings are dynamically stable; we are either feeling better about ourselves or we are feeling worse. Children are either gaining more trust in their parents or they are losing it. Often, children do not reveal their troubles in a direct manner. Sometimes children ask questions by making statements and make a statement by asking questions. It is vital that we train ourselves to hear more than just the words, we must seek the meaning behind the words. As in all things, practice makes perfect and no one is going to catch every underlying message. At the very least, we can wake up every morning and upload our mental computer program that says, “Take the time to talk and listen to my children.” When our children do come to us with a concern, we must act on it. If we don’t, there is a high likelihood that they will not tell us a second time. If warranted, we take it to the wall.

No one has the right to hurt our children; not physically, not emotionally. Anyone who does must be held accountable, including the parents of children who are bullies. Most times, however, what the child is asking for and needs is advice on how to handle the situation themselves, and most of all someone who will listen and validate that they are loved. Earlier, I stated that it should be every parents goal to make the family the peer group a child wants most to be accepted by. It is really quite simple. If you tell your children one thing and their friend tells them something else, who do you want them to believe?

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