A few months ago, I received a Facebook message from a friend who has been engaged with the RESPONSE ABILITY Project for the past year or so. She found herself confronted by a situation that she didn't quite know how to handle. And, to be honest, it rather floored me, too. Her daughter, an elementary school student, came home and shared with her that her teacher was bullying others. No, not the other teachers — her very own students. Fortunately for my friend Karen, her daughter was the "teacher's pet" so she was the only one in the class of 27 not being bullied. However, of course, Karen's daughter was also impacted by what she was seeing, even though the bullying was not being directly targeted at her.
As any parent would, in this moment, be confronted by this situation, Karen found herself now in the middle of something she didn't quite know how to handle. She certainly had what I call "the urge" — the urge to do something, say something. And, I applaud her for not simply doing what so many parents do when they hear of bullying — nothing. She actually couldn't do nothing. As I mentioned already, she has been engaged in this conversation about bystander behavior through her familiarity with the RESPONSE ABILITY Project. She simply couldn't walk away.
While I will certainly share with you what I said to Karen and what she did, I want to first share a blog post I came across today that actually made me think of Karen and her situation. The post is entitled, "When the teacher is the bully" by Jessica Kelmon. The post appears on a really great website I will be citing from time to time in my posts, GreatSchools.org. I highly recommend you visit this site, especially if you are a parent.
Now, back to Karen. I simply coached her as I have coached thousands of people over the years — to get in touch with what she already knew to do. She really did already know what she had the urge to do. However, she was experiencing a common, raw emotion: fear! Fear was taking over and telling her that she really didn't know what to do. And, yes, fear is a raw, human emotion we all have rather than something we we will one day, someday conquer. We spend our lives resisting and pushing back fear — thinking that one day we will no longer experience this dibilitating phenomenon. Yet, here's the secret: we never will. We will actually go to our graves having fear. Every single one of us.
Rather than taking this fear with us and doing what we know to do, we sell-out on that urge using an arsenal of reasons, justifications, explanations, excuses and rationalizations. We carry these with us to give ourselves permission to do nothing, say nothing. Yet, we know we can't settle for them — we know that we can't be our authentic selves and let these reasons win.
So, I told Karen what I will tell you now: acknowledge the fear along with the reason, explanations, etc. that you are using to let fear win, and take action anyway. Acknowledge fear for what it is — just fear — and then go beyond that fear to take the action you most likely know to take regarding the situation.
If you are familiar with The Three Tools from the RA Project, you know that the first tool is IDENTIFY. The second tool is GO BEYOND. And, the third is TAKE ACTION!
Karen did just that. She identified the problem of bullying by the teacher. She went beyond her fear and all of her reasons. And, she took action by going to talk to the principal of the school and letting him know of the problem. And, as a result, she is a hero for those children, including her own daughter. She took a risk, went beyond the barriers that would have stopped her, and took actions to make the difference. And, I know that Karen would tell you if she was sitting here with us, "It wasn't easy."
No, it's not easy. Yet, it's very simple.
