I found some of these articles and links fascinating. Just wish I could remember why I was drawn to them...
Expert Answers on Workplace Bullying
Workplace Bullying: What Can You Do?
The Workplace Bullying Institute, WBI
Thursday, March 13, 2008
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5 comments:
The really distressing thing you don't see in these articles is any indication that the bullies ever reform themselves and change their ways. It's hard enough to nip child bullies in the bud, let alone the child bullies that grew up (or at least grew old) and are now 50-70 years old and just a tad bit set in their ways.
And how many victims grow up with a chip on their shoulder, only to become bullies themselves as adults? I wonder how many bullies grow up to be productive model citizens. This illusion that parents can control their childrens' destinies is enough already. Create a supportive environment, and then let the kids grow up in it. This helicopter, over-controlling "For the children" nonsense is creating a generation of can't dos. Everyone's likely read the e-amil that's gone around, if not, here it is:
TO ALL THE KIDS WHO WERE BORN IN THE
1930's 40's, 50's, 60's and 70's !!
First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they carried us.
They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a can, and didn't get tested for diabetes.
Then after that trauma, our baby cribs were covered with bright colored lead-based paints.
We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets, not to mention, the risks we took hitchhiking.
As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags.
Riding in the back of a pick up on a warm day was always a special treat.
We drank water from the garden hose and NOT from a bottle.
We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE actually died from this.
We ate cupcakes, white bread and real butter and drank soda pop with sugar in it, but we weren't overweight because......
WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING!!
We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on.
No one was able to reach us all day. And we were O.K.
We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem.
We did not have Playstations, Nintendo's, X-boxes, no video games at all, no 99 channels on cable, no video tape movies, no surround sound, no cell phones, no personal computers, no Internet or Internet chat rooms..........WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them!
We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no
lawsuits from these accidents.
We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever.
We were given BB guns for our 10th birthdays, made up games with sticks and tennis balls and although we were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes.
We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just yelled for them!
Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that!!
The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law!
This generation has produced some of the best risk!-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever!
The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas.
We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned
HOW TO DEAL WITH IT ALL!
You might want to share this with others who have had the luck to grow up as kids, before the lawyers and the government regulated our lives for our own good.
and while you are at it, forward it to your kids so they will know how brave their parents were.
Kind of makes you want to run through the house with scissors, doesn't it?!
I was born in the 60's and grew up in the 70's, so I can dig it. But funny how some of the people who grew up during this era eating dirt, drinking from garden hoses, smoking like fiends, and riding bikes without helmets used irrational fear-based arguments against the new school plans. Such as:
1. Getting hit in the kidney by handlebars whilst walking on the planned sidewalk/bikepath;
2. Contracting West Nile virus from, or drowning in, the stormwater basin, despite the nearly 200 year presence of a fairly stagnant canal running through town, and the presence of a swiftly flowing Delware River that's been here for either millions of years or 6,000 years, depending on your point of view;
3. Lethal radon gas seeping from the ground of the basementless sealed-slab building;
4. Epic flooding that would make Noah wince, despite the new school being equipped with modern stormwater management techniques vs. the existing school's bupkis.
The new school's dead. I realize that. But if I've said it once, I've said it a million times, let's cut the crap with the hyperbole!
Oh, by the way, oil's about $110 per barrel now.
Jon, I don't disagree with you re: the school. The crazy arguments against it were made with one thing in mind, money. However, in our politically correct, Think of the children first world, it wouldn't be socially acceptable to be forthright and state clearly that it was all about money, so the deniers needed to manufacture reasons for opposing the school that wouldn't be instantly condemned by everyone. Hence, you get bruised kidneys, West Nile, and yuppiedom (Yes, that's a shout out to asshat extraordinaire, Ms. DelVecchio). However, the point I was trying to make is that we've gone from a nation of doers to a nation of whiners. We are nation that has developed a whole industry around "Something for Dummies." We have parents going with their adult children to job fairs and job interviews, parents cheating for their kids to get them into better colleges, people using the "Think about the children" mantra as if once this card is played, it trumps all others. It's similar to the 9-11 arguments used by our friends in DC for their Constitution breaking acts. Simply invoke 9-11, and all arguments to the contrary are considered irrelevant. This trend needs to reverse.
I'm going out now without a coat to run with scissors, wave a stick around, eat some dirt, ride my bike without a helmet, shoot my Red-Rider BBgun, stick my tongue to a frozen pole, and make all the faces that were supposed to cause my own to get stuck like that.
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