Excuses, excuses, excuses. Young bullies may be acting out due to their own “need for a sense of significance and belonging“, but they have to accept responsibility for their actions. The children who bullied their school bus monitor acted completely inappropriately and deserve far more than “positive discipline”:
The New York middle school students caught on video taunting and mocking a 68-year-old school bus monitor don’t deserve to be punished, says parenting expert Jane Nelson.
Everyone else in America might be calling for harsh, swift justice to be meted out by both the Greece Central School District and the parents of the kids involved. But not Nelson.
Co-author of two dozen parenting books including the “Positive Discipline” series, Nelson says the traditional means of punishment — yelling, shaming, hitting, grounding, etc. — are counterproductive.
“I think to go after these kids in a punitive way, it just doesn’t help,” she said. Nelson knows that the vast majority of parents will scoff both at that notion — and at her belief that the young bullies are merely acting out due to their own “need for a sense of significance and belonging.”
Topical Teaching 