Building COmpassion

Building compassion will help everyone involved in the bullying to better understand and stop it.

Compassion is the emotion that one feels in response to someone being hurt that motivates us to help.

Bullies can build there sense of compassion to forgive themselves, understand the hurt they have caused and be motivated to help the targeted child by engaging in a restorative process and showing the child kindness while making things right.

The Target can build compassion and be kind and forgiving because they understand the bully is a person who made a mistake or bad choice. We are not our behaviours.

The world is a hard and lonely place with out compassion. Showing compassion lets us feel connected and makes hard times much easier because others understand and care.

Compassion for the bully

If it was your child who was hurt by the bully...this could be hard for you...But may help you understand the Bully.

Most times when Bullies are identified and have to face the hurt they have caused they feel bad and very much alone. Feeling alone can make things even worse. The truth is the loneliness could have caused the bully to start being hurtful to begin with. However, when they feel they are in trouble the bully may believe that no one understands or cares about them at all enhancing the loneliness.

Being compassionate tells the bully that they are not alone. It helps the bully see there are people who care. Building compassion gives us a good feeling and makes us useful at the same time. It helps us to understand other people and our selves.

We can show compassion by:

1) Understanding and forgiving him for trying to meet his needs in a an inapropriate way.

2) Doing what we can to help-

providing support and guidance as he goes through the restorative discipline process,
Listening,
Getting supports into place to have needs met in a less hurtful way like empathy training, learning how to make friends

Compassion for the bullied child

Compassion begins by paying attention to ourselves and to others. It is important for witnesses, teachers, and parents to notice the warning signs of bullying when the target withdraws, looks sad or is having some trouble with a bully.

We can show compassion by:

1) Sitting close by and letting him know we are there and he is not alone
2) Listening if he wants to talk
3) Sharing your own bullying experience if you had one
4) Doing what we can to help-

it just might be that listening is enough
Guide him through a problem solving process
Put supports in place to reassure her safety
Get counselling if necessary
Build up supports to prevent further bullying like learning to make friends, or personal hygiene or whatever is required so the child can move forward free of bullying.

Building compassion

Bullying provides an exceptional opportunity for building compassion in our children.

We are practicing compassion when we:

Notice when someone is hurting or needs a friend
Care enough about someone to stop what we are doing and let them know we care
Listen to them and try to understand
Forgive them when they hurt us and create a relationship instead of hurting back
Avoid judging or criticizing others...We are all doing the best we can.
Avoid trying to get revenge and hurt others because we have been hurt. Violence only gets more violence.
Help the bully, the witnesses and the target

Building compassion allows us to help both the target and the bully so we can move forward bully free.

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