Challenging "be kind"

[TeaHagTeaBag]

Our primary school is reviewing the anti bullying policy and in the parent consultation phase The policy is overall good but I've a couple of suggestions on it. I've a real problem with them regrading it as a "be kind" policy instead of "anti bullying". I'm sure there is research on the toxic use of the be kind phenomenon having a negative impact (especially on girls) but my Google skills are lacking. Could anyone point me to any leads to get me started?

You could look at any writing by Victoria Smith. Her most recent book is called “Unkind” and it’s all about weaponising the kindness culture against women (and girls).

https://neurolaunch.com/psychology-behind-being-too-nice/

Somewhat related, there are also a number of psychologists coming out and saying that they don’t believe that the series “Adolescence” should be shown in schools, because it reinforces the “she was asking for it” narrative. I don’t know if you’ll find anything useful there, but if you google something like “arguments against showing adolescence in schools” you should get plenty of hits.

I think you don’t challenge “be kind” you interrogate what kindness is.

It is not a superficial, short term, narrow thing it is rather taking a holistic, long term view with compromise, healthy boundaries and a long term view about behaviours that benefits interpersonal relationships in the longer term. In other words what feels kind in the short term may ultimately be unkind in the longer term, like validation of a denial of reality might see kind in the short term but ultimately it harms relationships in the long term so it is ultimately unkind.

A bully who wants a child to play with them and only them can not be solved with "be kind" as it suggests the bullied child has an obligation to accept the treatment. And we will see examples on MN of this being used against children when they dont want to be involved with another child.

I would go with "treat others as you would like them to treat you". Its easier for a child to work out the moral and ethical issues.
They can decide if they would be acting in a fair way if the roles were reversed. So the idea that consent is given not assumed, and the right to refuse, and be kind, and dont bully are all rolled up

Thank you all so much. I can't believe I blanked on the incredible Glosswitch, she was exactly who I was trying to think of. And you've given me lots of useful phrasing for challenging the new philosophy in a constructive way. 🙏

What does 'being kind' look like? How do the children know?

What's wrong with calling it an anti-bullying policy? Label the behaviour you are targeting. Again, clarity. Do children know what bullying looks like?

Are kindness and bullying different for girls and for boys? The automatic response will always be 'No!', but gender stereotypes are insidious, and girls are often expected to show kindness through service and self-sacrifice.

And your suggested way might encourage empathy and consideration for others.

Bullying is persistent unwanted behaviour. Being unkind is not necessarily bullying. The policy change proposal is ridiculous.

You could call it the Golden Rule, as an alternative.

That means teachers can say ‘Remember the Golden Rule’ rather than ‘Be Kind’.

They could ask, ‘Does the Golden Rule help you work out what to do?’.

Much more useful than ‘Be Kind’.

You’re right, ‘Be Kind’ is too wishy washy. Some great suggestions here about clarifying how children should treat each other; I would stress that mutual respect is the number one. I’d have lots of worksheets showing children in different situations, and ask the students to imagine how each child must feel and how each issue could be resolved. (Bullying, disturbing the class in lessons, leaving someone out, etc).

Be Kind is just a sound bite, kids need more guidance than a mere sound bite, ask them if they could change it to something more meaningful, like say No to Bullying, or If You Wouldn't Like It Done To You Then Don't Do It Too Others, or something much better. I'm rubbish at words.

Does the policy aim to stamp out active bullying or is it going further and trying to foster an environment where the children actively seek to support, include and befriend others? Because they're two different things. A more appropriate sound bite for anti bullying is 'don't be unkind', alongside examples of behaviour that would fit this description. Telling children to 'be kind' suggests a more active behaviour and it would be helpful to understand what they believed that looked like and what might be expected of your daughter to comply.

Be kind has coercive undertones.

How is it different from the old policy, apart from the title?

This seems like a bad headline issue rather than the substance of it being bad. In which case I'd just let it be.

If there is more problematic stuff about what being kind looks like in the actual policy, I'd address that.

Just like in newspapers, the headline is usually written by someone else

'Be kind' is appropriate when talking to tiny children, who obviously can't understand anything but the simplest concepts of behaviour and who are naturally self-orientated in their thinking.

For school-age children, there's nothing wrong with it, BUT it must be made clear that kindness is freely choosing to go above and beyond the normal acceptable standards of behaviour in a positive way and is not a way of making unacceptable behaviour slightly less unacceptable.

Kindness is offering to fetch somebody's coat for them, giving them a birthday card or congratulating/praising them when they've done something well.

Stopping ganging up on, name-calling, hitting or otherwise upsetting, victimising or bullying another person is absolutely NOT kindness - any more than, in an adult scenario, paying your council tax or turning up for your paid employment is 'kindness'.

Coming back on to say:

When my DS was tiny, there was a “mommy blogger” with 4 kids (two older boys and a set of girl twins) who had some very interesting house rules. The main one was the following triplet:

Safe, respectful, kind - in that order

And that set of rules covered all eventualities - so they didn’t need a whole list of “don’t hit your brother, don’t throw food on the floor, don’t splash the bath water,” they just needed “safe, respectful, kind” in that order.

The illustrative example she gave was this. Small child runs onto the road. First thing you, the adult, do is run and grab the child and pull them off the road. Safe first. Technically it was disrespectful to the wishes of the child, who wanted to run onto the road, but safe always comes first. Technically it was also possibly unkind - you probably scared the child with your response, you might have hurt their arm a bit. But safe always comes first.

Once you have a safe situation, then you deal with respectful. Respectful, she described (knowing her audience was her young children) as being safe towards other people’s feelings and belongings. So just because you’re not being unsafe by drawing all over your brother’s new trainers, you’re not being respectful - they’re his, and it’s his decision what happens to them. And just because you aren’t being unsafe and physically hurting your sister by calling her names, you are not being respectful - you are hurting her feelings.

And then once you have a safe and respectful situation, then you can think about being kind. And kind is when you go above and beyond - when you offer someone some of your snack, or you help them tie their shoelaces when they’re struggling, or you tell them that you like their drawing. It’s doing something extra to make someone happy. But kind is useless unless you are first safe and respectful - it would be kind for me to let my DS have ice cream for breakfast every day, but it wouldn’t be safe to his health. Same with respectful - it might be respectful for a child to obey an adult who tells them to break the law, but it isn’t safe.

I don’t know if that helps at all, but I had forgotten how much that helped me get my head around why “be kind” was just much too simplistic.

I really like that @TwoLoonsAndASprout

And with that in mind - the anti bullying policy is about respecting others - it's very little to do with kindness at all.

Do as you would be done by - 'The Water Babies'.

An interesting post TwoLoons, I can see how 'Safe, respectful, kind' works as a simple guide. It's such a shame that the word 'kind' has been tainted by the shut up and do as I say crowd.

"Be kind and go get my coat slave."

"Stop hitting your little brother, you bully."

Kindness is not always the correct response to a situation. Sometimes what's needed is to be truthful, brave, fierce, etc.

Do unto others is a good approach, there is a reason it's stood up over thousands of years in many cultures. Respect others is also very good, especially if it's paired with , respect yourself.

I'd add to this from the pov of younger kids, I prefer "fair". Small kids have a strong sense of fairness and equity. It's impossible to bully someone and be fair at the same time.

Being kind often isn't the same as being fair, it means giving someone else something at the expense of yourself. We shouldn't routinely expect that.

For example, if a sister gives some of her pudding to her brother at his request, that's kind but not strictly fair.

If the brother really wants extra, but refrains from stealing some from his sister, he is being fair.

It's often better to require fairness than kindness.

But as I said above, the headline is less important than the substance of the policy imo

I also wince at the phrase "Be Kind", for all the reasons already alluded to. But I do see how it could be useful here, if done well. The word "bullying" calls to mind a bully deliberately pushing around a victim, and I think that
A) Many kids displaying bullying behaviour won't see it that way (rightly or wrongly) and
B) Sometimes it's not as clear-cut, and the same kids can play both roles, if there's a culture of meanness and dog-eat-dog, and/or a lack of emotional and social maturity.

I think by expanding the focus from simply "bullying is wrong" to "this is how we should treat each other, and this is how certain behaviour can be perceived and can affect others", i.e. more reflective and about building respectful relationships, it hopefully gives kids better tools and language, and makes bullying less likely to occur. It's also easier for a kid to say "That's not kind, like we talked about in RSE/assembly" rather than "You are bullying me" ("No I'm not, you're bullying me!" etc etc).

That's not to say there shouldn't be a policy which defines bullying and is firm about how it should be dealt with. There absolutely should! Without reading your school's policy, it's impossible to say whether I think it strikes the right balance.

Disclaimer, I don't work in a school, but I am a primary school parent. And I was a kid who got teased a lot, but also lashed out in ways I didn't really understand, because I was a socially clueless smart-aleck. There was no policy in my day about how to deal with kids teasing and lashing out due to general immaturity and awkwardness... Might have been nice, with hindsight, if there had been.

Totally agree with this, I try to model this with mine by saying e.g. "No, you can't have my snack, because you had yours and this is mine, and I want you to know that people can't just walk over and demand your stuff and throw a tantrum if you say no". Win-win - I get to eat my snack, they get to learn how to function in society 🤣

The policy seems to be ok (draft and taking input, so we'll see what the end result becomes) but it proposed to retitle it from "anti bullying" to "be kind". Knowing the principal, it's coming directly from her and the sentiment has the potential to become all encompassing in the school's life.

I really like the golden rule or safe, respectful, kind as alternatives. They are clear in their meaning but don't pave the way for kids to put themselves in vulnerable positions to meet the be kind brief.