Rosen: Healthy and productive ways to deal with bullying
10:00 PM PDT on Wednesday, April 14, 2010
By MITCHELL ROSEN
Special to The Press-Enterprise
When children are bullied, it is tempting to take them to a boxing gym or martial arts studio and teach them to defend themselves. Fathers are particularly fond of this idea; mothers not as much. What I observe happens when an angry and frustrated child learns to be a capable fighting presence is that the youngster skips the part of learning why they are easily targeted and instead learns that might makes right. We have to ask ourselves as a society: Do we want cadres of bullied and tormented children walking around with black belts in karate?
Although the philosophy of martial arts instructors is to teach their students never to initiate violence or bully others, often this is the consequence of giving young children the means to mete out vigilante justice. It is unrealistic to ask of a 9-, 12- or 14-year-old the next time they are tormented to simply deflect blows when they know they can pulverize their tormentor. It should be the responsibility of the adults, not the children, to be certain all kids are safe where they go to school or in the neighborhood they live.