Bullying doesn't stop at high school graduation

Frontiersman editorial board

Students at Palmer Junior Middle School recently learned about something called the Violence/Kindness Continuum during an anti-harassment awareness program. The idea was to educate students about violence and bullying, and to give them some tools to deal with the problem.

Bullying, in varying degrees, is something we all remember from our school days -- whether we were victims, perpetrators or just bystanders. Adults often think of bullying as a thing of their pasts, and as something their children now have to endure. What we fail to realize is how bullying continues to be present even in adult society, and how adult bullying is often glorified, sending a confusing message to children trying to come to grips with the process of problem resolution.

We tell our children to respond appropriately to stressful situations and confrontations, but adult behavior in public often provides a bad example.

How often does road rage, even in its milder forms, occur in our own automobiles? It happens too many times each day at intersections, in parking lots and on roadways all over the Valley. Frontiersman recently published a Spectrum piece by a local person who followed another motorist into the office at a local school where a confrontation took place over a traffic dispute. At that point, when there are children present in the office, does it even matter who is right and who is wrong? We've all been present for the honking and sign language that are all too common on roads all around the country, even in our little community. Those angry exchanges, even though they're short-lived and often impersonal, tell our children that anger is an appropriate response to petty differences.

We've all been present in local retail stores when angry exchanges are taking place between shoppers or between customers and store employees. The altercations are almost always over some minor issue, an overcharge or a faulty piece of merchandise. Even other people trapped in line behind the incident sometimes become involved, and others simply observe and do nothing. It's not the best message about problem resolution. In 2002 an elderly gentleman in a local restaurant approached a teen-ager because he didn't like a message written on the youth's shirt. He attempted to rip the message off the young man's clothing.

You don't have to be at school to be bullied, it seems. It's great that PJMS is teaching children about conflict resolution. Maybe the kids can come home and give parents a lesson or two.