A New Perspective on How to Deal with Bullying

This post was supposed to be a continuation of the previous one about building teen research skills, but I came across an article in the New York Times that connects to an earlier posting about bullying and the severe problems that have arose nationwide related to this topic.  At the end of my post I did suggest a punishment to fit the crime, but as I read this article I was struck very much by the premise behind it.   Rather than returning violence and negativity with punishment and more negativity this article shares the method being used by a group called Roots of Empathy.  Their idea is to nip aggressive and negative behavior by replacing it with compassion and empathy for something else, in this case, a baby.  A baby is brought into a controlled setting and the children are allowed to interact, hold and learn with this baby.  Medically it has been shown that people of all ages react to babies with nurturing tendencies that foster compassion and kindness.  These kids are routinely exposed to the same baby over a period of time and get to see and be a part of the learning steps (rolling over, sitting, crawling, etc), and it gives them a sense of connection.  Studies have shown that in the schools that employ this method have seen a decrease in the proportion of students who get into fights from 15 to 8 percent.  Also of the kids that show proactive aggressive behavior, or bullying behavior, 88 percent decreased the behavior over the school year.  That is phenomenal! 

“Empathy can’t be taught, but it can be caught.  Programmatically my biggest surprise was that not only did empathy increase in children, but it increased in their teachers…and that, to me, was glorious, because teachers hold such sway over children” states Mary Gordon the founder of Roots of Empathy.  What a unique and effective way to deal with and completely stop bullying at a young age by replacing it with something better.  Teaching children to be better people rather than punishing them is a novel idea and shows a greatness of thought and lack of selfishness because it focuses on helping, bettering and teaching rather than force, violence and punishment. 

Bornstein, D. (2010).  Fighting bullying with babies.  New York Times Opinonator page.  http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/08/fighting-bullying-with-babies/?partner=rss&emc=rss