Bullying By Example

Bullying.  There's a large movement to increase awareness & prevent bullying with kids & adolescents. I agree with it wholeheartedly. Children, however, tend to learn most effectively by example.  Let's face it.  The examples being set by the grownups in society are not exactly stellar in the effort against bullying. Give those tactics a different name, & all of a sudden it's okay & accepted. Not exactly conducive to learning by example.

Many managers & executives in the business arena govern their employees with threats, ultimatums, & constant micromanagement fear of pay cuts or job loss. This is usually known as "management styles" or "business tactics". 
Some lawyers, aka "Ambulance Chasers", make their living seeking out clients for lawsuits of any kind in an effort to exhort money, create mistrust, & dissolve relationships, while divorcing spouses & their lawyers use everything from past settled arguments to threats of withholding property and, at most damaging, the children themselves, in an attempt to achieve each of their outcomes, without thought for the cost to others involved.  This tends to be referred to as "the Justice System". 
The salesman that pressures customers to purchase that which they may not really need or want (Sales Tactics).  The governments that sanction or retaliate against other governments for not operating the same as their own (International Policy).  The religious groups that condone violence against others due to a difference in beliefs or ways of living (Religious Right).  No matter how it's spun, these are examples of bullying at the grownup level.

Now think about how all of the aforementioned appears to a child. If the supposed adults in charge use pressure, coercion, & threats in a variety of forms to achieve their goals daily, what should we really expect them to take away from those examples?  What are they truly learning by example? It would seem, until the grownups figure out how to conduct themselves in a more accepting, empathetic, less subversive manner, the problem of childhood bullying will continue to be an issue across the board.

~ The Girl In The Little Black Dress