There has been a lot of bullying behaviour on Twitter et al
recently and it made me think of a story from a New York Teacher:
A teacher in New York was teaching her class about bullying and
gave them the following exercise to perform. She had the children take a piece
of paper and told them to crumple it up, stamp on it and really mess it up but
do not rip it. Then she had them unfold the paper, smooth it out and look at
how scarred and dirty it was. She then told them to tell it they’re sorry. Now
even though they said they were sorry and tried to fix the paper, she pointed
out all the scars they left behind. And that those scars will never go away no
matter how hard they tried to fix it. That is what happens when a child bully’s
another child, they may say they’re sorry but the scars are there forever. The
looks on the faces of the children in the classroom told her the message hit
home.
Please take time to pause for thought when getting caught in
heated debate online or teach your children this valuable lesson.
Reminds me of that saying, "Forgiven, but never forgotten" Unfortunately, these sort of scars are not just left in your childhood, they can also be carried through to adulthood, to define who you are by the things that have affected you- though of course this could go either way. Very effective analogy though!
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