Seeing Beyond Behaviors
Tags: Education, Children, Parenting, Bullying, Stereotypes

Seeing Beyond Behaviors

It’s easy for a story to follow us. The shy boy whose clothes is a crumpled mess. The quiet girl whose hair looks like it hasn’t been done in a while. The angry boy who’s always sent to the office. The nervous girl who always looks on the verge of tears. The kid who’s always in a bad mood. Or who’s easily distracted. Or who can’t sit still. The list goes on and on. As do the speculating stories that swirl about them. The stories that can become gossip or lead to insults and bullying.

I work in a middle school (not to mention I’m raising two teenage boys). So, my days are spent with people telling me (gossiping) about other people, making judgments about other people, using unkind words, hurt feelings from people talking/making assumptions about them, and in general how the stories spread about them make them feel some sort of way about themselves. None of us like it or want it for ourselves. Sometimes it’s tricky talking to kids about this kind of bullying.

Learn to see people.

One of the hardest things for any of us to do for anyone is learning how to see the people in front of us. Be they our classmates, our friends, our family, our colleagues, our neighbors, it’s easy to make assumptions about people. Not investing time in them, profiling them, not bothering to get to know them — is the lazy work that leads to treating people like usual suspects in the first place. Learning to “see” other people requires three things: compassion, curiosity, and courage.

Compassion.

We constantly make the choice whether or not to show compassion and understanding to others. Compassion means caring about another person’s happiness and well-being as if it were your own. It means appreciating our differences, accepting people for who they are, how they are. It’s a willingness to understand others, put yourself in their shoes, recognize their humanity and inherent worth. It’s a willingness to reach out to others with a helping hand.

Curiosity.

It takes a mental shift to learn to see the gifts and talents that the people we encounter have to offer. To learn more about the people around you. It requires the ability to listen to one another. Listening to others seems like a lost skill or something we have lost the patience to do.

We don’t know what people are struggling with inside or out. You know how unfair you think the world is when no one takes the time to listen to your side of things, so listen to theirs. You don’t know what they have going on in their life that may affect mood and performance:

-sleep (or what disrupts it)

-food insecurity (we happen to live in a huge food desert)

-mental health (from anxiety to ADHD to depression to a host of other conditions)

-unstable home life (like parents working multiple jobs or otherwise unable to be a support or even being homeless)

-unstable neighborhood (the stress of running a daily gauntlet of bullies or other threats)

Courage.

To not just delve deeper into other people’s stories, but to withstand the criticism when people talk about you. Practice doing some small act of kindness — sometimes something as simple as not making that joke or spreading that rumor — each and every day to make someone else’s life better. Help make the world a better, kinder place. Then have the courage to withstand the criticism that may come when people talk about you for being kind to “that weird kid” and treating others the way they deserve to be treated.

Our behaviors aren’t an identity.

Behaviors don’t define who you are, though they can shape the story that follows you. You don’t want to contribute to the problem of bullying or belittling others by adding your own poor choices, insensitive comments, or hurtful jokes. Life is hard enough to get through. We’re in it together and it’s important that we learn how best to be there for one another. Because you never know when you will need that compassion, curiosity, and courage from someone to help you through a tough time.

About the author:

Photo by WildStyle Da Producer

Maurice Broaddus, a community organizer and teacher, has written and edited short stories for a number of magazines as well as authoring several novels and novellas for adults. Learn more about him at www.mauricebroaddus.com.

About the book:

Fans of Jason Reynolds and Sharon M. Draper will love this oh-so-honest middle grade novel from writer and educator Maurice Broaddus.

Thelonius Mitchell is tired of being labeled. He’s in special ed, separated from the “normal” kids at school who don’t have any “issues.” That’s enough to make all the teachers and students look at him and his friends with a constant side-eye. (Although his disruptive antics and pranks have given him a rep too.)

When a gun is found at a neighborhood hangout, Thelonius and his pals become instant suspects. Thelonius may be guilty of pulling crazy stunts at school, but a criminal? T isn’t about to let that label stick.