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How & Are you teaching your child to be a "leader"?
So I'm watching this news article about a 13 year old boy who was terrorized for over 30 minutes by teenagers... beat, dragged, hung from a tall fence by his coat before help arrived.
SEVEN kids did this to a younger teen and then posted a video on YouTube of the incident to brag about it. That's a lot of independant minds melding together and then acting in one way....was there not a "leader" amongst them who thought "WE SHOULD NOT DO THIS!". Not one of those seven voices spoke up for the rights of this other teen. Not one had the courage to rebel or at least leave and seek annonoymous help for this tortured teen.
All 7 have been, now, arrested for this crime.
This makes me think....we spend a lot of time telling our kids what NOT to do: "Don't be rude", "Don't throw things", "Don't talk back", etc....but are we teaching them what TO do? Are we effectively giving them a strong leading voice and instilling esteem, pride in doing what's right, and the wherewithall to stand up for justice/peace in this world?
I know most of our kids are under the age of school age but I think these lessons ought to start at birth.
I know for me, my mom didn't do jack to instill ANYTHING in me - I was a massive follower and then a massive rebeller - I wanted to be the 1960's protester type kid but I had ZERO clue what I wanted to stand up against which, in essence, just made me a follower of other people who had ideas (and consequently, because I lacked critical thinking skills, I didn't have the tools to accurately decipher what I was standing up "against" or "for").
How do you teach your child to be a "leader"? How do you instill the virtues of pride in standing up for what's right? How do you teach them to be someone who goes against the herd if that's the right thing to do?
SEVEN kids did this to a younger teen and then posted a video on YouTube of the incident to brag about it. That's a lot of independant minds melding together and then acting in one way....was there not a "leader" amongst them who thought "WE SHOULD NOT DO THIS!". Not one of those seven voices spoke up for the rights of this other teen. Not one had the courage to rebel or at least leave and seek annonoymous help for this tortured teen.
All 7 have been, now, arrested for this crime.
This makes me think....we spend a lot of time telling our kids what NOT to do: "Don't be rude", "Don't throw things", "Don't talk back", etc....but are we teaching them what TO do? Are we effectively giving them a strong leading voice and instilling esteem, pride in doing what's right, and the wherewithall to stand up for justice/peace in this world?
I know most of our kids are under the age of school age but I think these lessons ought to start at birth.
I know for me, my mom didn't do jack to instill ANYTHING in me - I was a massive follower and then a massive rebeller - I wanted to be the 1960's protester type kid but I had ZERO clue what I wanted to stand up against which, in essence, just made me a follower of other people who had ideas (and consequently, because I lacked critical thinking skills, I didn't have the tools to accurately decipher what I was standing up "against" or "for").
How do you teach your child to be a "leader"? How do you instill the virtues of pride in standing up for what's right? How do you teach them to be someone who goes against the herd if that's the right thing to do?
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Re: How & Are you teaching your child to be a "leader"?
wow good qusetion.
Brighton is just over 2, so we aren't anywhere near where I think we can really teach him to be a leader, but we talk A LOT about what it means to speak kindly and treat people lovingly. And that when he sees that isn't happening, he should come and ask mommy or a grown up for help.
It's a small step, but I think a decent one for 2. I have seen him watch injustice*, the unfairness of it is written all over his face, and I see him look at me like he needs help... still waiting for him to walk over to me and say the words, but I can see he recognizes it already.
*injustice meaning one child grabbing a toy from another.. not beatings or anything like that!
Unfortunately, I think the video you're talking about was done in my area. I cant even watch that stuff and this certainly isnt the first video like that to be shown on the news (kids getting beat up in buses or other mob mentality beatings).
I guess the only way to teach our kids is to not shy away from it and talk about it. I dont want to watch it but ignoring it wont make it go away so I need to watch it with my kids and then talk about how the kid who was beat felt, the consequences of the actions of the kids, what could have been done differently and how it could have been prevented. But this isnt something that I can really achieve now with a 2 year old (although it is probably something he will be exposed to/understand sooner than I would like to think).
I think at this point, we can only teach empathy. For example, DS will push his little cart into the dog or sit on the cat. We are working very hard to talk about how this makes them feel so that rather than get in trouble for it after the fact, he will pause before he does it and remember that it hurts the dog when he drives his remote control car into her. The difficult part is that he loves the animals and he isnt trying to hurt them, he is trying to play with them. We are working on more appropriate ways to play with them - throwing a ball for the dog to get, petting the cats gently, etc.
I am very interested in any other ideas that people have.
-----Lisa-----
I don't think I could teach them to be leaders but I want them to follow their own common sense and not to let peer pressure alter their good judgement. I want to teach them right from wrong and hope they use that in their daily lives.
Also, if I find out my children are involved in any bullying, I won't turn a blind eye to it. Katie bullies her sister all the time. She is not a follower. I've asked her teachers to tell me if she does it to other children (she hasn't yet).
I think the only things that might lend themselves to that kind of situation that we're actually teaching right now is fundamental problem solving skills.
We recognize when something's "wrong" and then work together to come up with some possible solutions.
That's as far as we've gotten.
I believe that every one of those kids KNEW what they were doing was wrong but none of them could reason thru or figure out a solution that they had the moral inclination to act on.
The other thing we do now is roll play a LOT to help them learn how to navigate social situations. I even find myself doing that with the 15 yr old from time to time. The more they practice verbalizing standing up to peers and navigating potential social situations the more confident they're likely to be once they're actually facing them.
The little guys really don't know how to interact with other people effectively until I help them think thru things like how their actions impact others and what words they could use to help get their point across or solve a problem. When they're this young our main focus is how to rein in frustration and find a better way to communicate than one that's frustration or anger driven. Even that's a pretty tall order at these ages sometimes!
Not to rub salt in the wounds of the one and done ladies but I believe that the sibling relationship helps us a LOT with this. Their daily lives provide them with plenty of opportunities to be frustrated and angry with someone so we have lots of chances to practice.
We're also lucky that our oldest 2 (15 and 4) are not likely to be followers by nature. The youngest? Text book follower. He's the one I worry about the most as an adolescent.
Total score: 6 pregnancies, 5 losses, 2 amazing blessings that I'm thankful for every single day.