The mind is magnificent - it controls both actions and words. Yet, kind words or great deeds are no stranger to a ruthless heart that rules the mind.
The heart provides the will and the mind is but a servant of the heart, hidden away from the curiosity of prying eyes.
The heart can be a thief or a murderer, a villain or a coward, yet actions and words can provide a pleasing disguise to those unwilling to look beyond the thin veil to the darkness inside.
Schoolyard Bullying
Teasing and bullying and other harassment in the schoolyard is a continuing and growing problem in Australia and mainly due to two things, if I can be simplistic and blunt.
Firstly, inadequate parenting. This is caused by a number of factors including, but not limited to, poor education standards of the parents, time constraints due to longer working hours and busier lifestyles (or single parent families taking on double the workload), lack of discipline in the household, reliance upon the electronic babysitters (TV, video, computers all provide input to the learning of behaviour) etc. If a child does not learn appropriate/inappropriate behaviour in the home then it will learn elsewhere.
Secondly, inadequate social teaching by schools. The fact is, rightly or wrongly, the school has become the next best place to teach children moral and social values and behaviours. This has become more so over the past few decades due to the issues related to point one above.
I'm not promoting that the education system should be the delivery system for the teaching of moral and social values, but inevitably because of the failing of some parents and families to take this responsibility seriously, the onus unfortunately falls upon the education system to act as a safety net. That is a difficult situation when our education system is already so drastically under resourced that it is failing to produce a decent average grade student in many instances.
Bad behaviour and poor values (and I may be unfairly judging them against my own western agnostic values) start within the home environment. They are replicated and enhanced in the school environment and are pretty much cemented by the age of 7 or 8. After that point it takes extra effort to change a child's behaviour.
Bullying, teasing and taunting are learned behaviours. It takes time and a willingness (from the adults and the child) to change those behaviours. Ultimately a child needs positive teaching from their parents and family as well as from their teachers and other adults & children that interact with them in their lives.
We cannot legislate against the poor upbringing of children or the difficulties that lead to those situations, however we can be supportive of social change that will hopefully, one day, mean that families are less stressed, more involved with child-rearing, and ultimately producing respectful and civil-minded children, adolescents and adults.
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