Are we suffering from "Bully Burnout"?

It seems over just the last 5 years or so that the issue of bullying has gotten a lot of attention. Especially with the development of technology and social media that allows potential targets less reprieve from the people that would harass them.  Even more so after some teen suicides were being directly linked to bullying and cyber bullying. A lot of organizations (martial arts school especially) have really jumped on the issue. However, I am starting to feel we are now going overboard. It seems we are harping on the issue of bullying so much that people are getting tired of hearing about it. I also wonder if we are focusing on the wrong issue. Or at the very least, promoting our education as “anti-bullying” or “bullyproofing” is causing people to tune us out. I mean, bullying behavior is often times a byproduct of something else going on in the bully’s life right? Do we really have to talk about bullying to stop bullying?

Lets think about what may cause someone to bully. It could be low self-esteem, anger problems, poor role-models at home (siblings or parents)  and/or in the media, peer pressure, and worst case, sociopathy. I think we also tend to treat the victim with pity and the bully with disdain when they are both just people who need guidance. Plus the line between bullier and bullyee is very small. The child who is the bully at school could be getting bullied by others elsewhere.

I remember going into the local high school to sit in on one of the many talks they were giving about bullying over the year. More than a few kids said something to the effect of “Great! (sarcastically) another talk about bullying”. These kids were already tuned out before they walked in. As I sat there I noticed many kids were doing a lot of things, but it wasn’t listening. Maybe if the message was a bit different, say, the value of kindness, more kids would have been open to what the speaker had to say.

I do feel there's value in education about how to recognize and deal with a bullying scenario from all angles. But teaching kindness, emotional control, how to choose and cultivate healthy friendships, how to lead positively by example (some parents need this), and helping to increasing confidence is a way to combat bullying too. It may also just cause people to open their minds a little bit more on what we have to say. And lets face it, it won’t look like you are just trying to jump on the bullying bandwagon.