Bully-Free Future

My knee hurts-a lot. 

As I limped around the city last week-in the rain-I found myself looking for places to sit down, for ramps and elevators instead of stairs.  In short, I was getting a small taste of what it is like to be less than able-bodied.  By the end of the day, I could barely walk, was exhausted and soaking wet!

 It wasn’t pretty.

 But it made me think.

In “The Seven Secrets of Highly Successful People, Steven Covey illustrates the “habit” of seeing the world through the other person’s point of view with a personal story. He recalls a ride on a New York City subway early one Sunday morning.  He was disturbed by two young children wreaking havoc on the near-empty train while their father sat idly by.  Covey, disgusted with the kids’ antics that he spoke to their father about their behavior. 

According to Covey, the father- obviously distraught-apologized to Covey, telling him that the children were coming from the hospital where their mother had died an hour ago.  The father was letting the kids blow off some steam.  Covey was chagrined and embarrassed but learned a vital lesson-you never know what another person is thinking, doing or feeling.  From then on he reminded himself that being mindful of another person’s background listening was a critical factor in success.

 Of the seven ”Habits” this is one of the most powerful for me.

Limping around the city, I finally had a clear and visceral feeling about the challenges that people with limited physical ‘abilities’ must endure on a daily basis simply living their lives.  Granted, with surgery, I will likely be back to my old able-bodied self at some point and my limitations will be short term.  What will remain with me forever is a better understanding of and respect for the challenges that some people face.

It was quite a wake-up call when I realized that I needed to actually experience something to really understand it.  After all, I talk and write about this kind of stuff all the time! Yes, it was an “ah-ha” moment.

It made me realize that to truly level the playing field-and prevent bullying behavior and worse-we have to look for-or create-opportunities for kids to move from an intellectual understanding of others to a more visceral acceptance and respect.  Like Gandhi, they have to “be the change”.  And we to help them get there.

In our next post, we will be looking at some things that you can do immediately to help your kids experience life from another person’s point of view.

Don’t worry-it won’t hurt.

With Respect,

Deb

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