Uh Oh! (A 12 Sentence Story)

When my siblings and I were growing up we climbed on everything, the bars and beams at gymnastics, the trees and rocks outside, and the counters and walls at home. My sister and I were both tiny kids; my brother, on the other hand, was pretty hefty. Our house back then, a rent house, had to put up with many of our crazy shenanigans. One time me and my sister decided to climb inside the house by putting our hands and feet on opposite walls, climb up the walls, to the ceiling, down the walls, to the floor. My brother thought he should join in on the fun. Uh oh. I warned him that he would get hurt or that he would fall or that he would break something. Ignoring my protests, he tried to climb. On the wall, a gaping hole I saw. What did we do? We ran and hid and cried. An extra painting in the house, an absentee landlord, the thrill of keeping a secret means we covered it up and never told a soul.

Cure for Bullying?

Bullying is a tricky subject. No one really knows why people bully, because every bully bullies for a different reason. Bullying has gotten out of control, is there any way to stop it? How can we stop bullying if we do not know the cause?

This article suggests that babies might be the solution to our bullying problems. A program called "Roots of Empathy" lets school age kids bond with a baby and its mother over a series of visits. Eventually, all of the kids started becoming more compassionate, more empathetic, more understanding, less hateful.

This article covers the theory more thoroughly. Being with the babies helps the kids "understand their own feelings and the feelings of others." The idea behind the program is "perspective taking." It makes the kids think about how the baby is feeling and not only think about themselves. That is the problem with bullying; people think about only themselves. They do not stop to think about how bad they are making other people feel, they just think about how good, or bad, they feel.

Bullying obviously needs to be stopped. I know it sounds cliche, but it warms my heart to think that sweet, innocent, lovable babies could very well be the solution to the problem.