Today I continue blogging about the recent Dateline special that featured segments on issues like teens and technology, allowing strangers into the home and what I am going to talk about today, bullying.
The producers of Dateline staged a casting call for a fake reality television show. The first part of this segment featured a group of five middle school girls, with three of them being actors. The other two girls were being secretly watched by their parents through hidden cameras.
The idea was to see how the two girls would react when the actors pretended to bully one particular girl, again, who was an actor. It was definitely a proud moment for both of the moms. Not only did the girls not join in the bullying but they tried to squash it.
The second part of this segment featured another six children, three of them being actors and the other three being secretly watched by their parents. This time the bullying was done by three boys.
One girl in particular was a pistol. She wouldn’t allow the bully to continue his antics. She stood up to him and befriended the victim. At the end when her dad walked in and she was told about the experiment, she started crying. Even after hearing it was all staged she was overcome with emotion about what the victim was put through. She clearly has a good heart with compassion for others.
I think the lesson to be learned here is that not only should we be talking to our children about bullying, both being a bully and being the victim, but I think we should also be teaching our children to defend those who are being bullied.
I honestly hadn’t really thought about that. I have taught my children what to do if they are bullied and I have warned them of the consequences should I ever find out they have been the bully. Yet I don’t know that they would know what to do if they witnessed someone else being bullied.
These are the types of conversations that we need to be having with our children. We can’t assume they will know what to do. We need to talk to our teens and teach them. Our work as a parent is never done.