Bullying

There's a YouTube video that has recently gone viral about bullying.  It's called what's going on.  In it a boy named Jonah talks about how he's been bullied every day for years, but that he is not giving up.  He tells it better than I can.....

There was, and is, much controversy as to whether this was real.  If it's not, the boy is an amazing actor.  If it is, which I believe it is, then this boy is a very strong young man.  Even if it were a "fake", it still tells an important story.  A story that many children in every school across the world live every day.  Bullying is often a silent torture.  It often isn't seen except by those involved, the bully and the bullied.  Bullying often isn't something big.  Often times it is the small things, the stabbing comments, the jeers, the hard bump every time you pass in the hall.  Things that slowly tear you down. 

Then you run into something like this.  A boy who is ready to stand up to his bullies, to stand up for himself.  It evokes something within us.  Something that makes us feel.  Makes our hearts ache.  Makes us remember that time when we were bullied, how it made us feel.  It makes us want to hug this boy and to hug our own children.  To tell them how amazing they are.  How important they are.  How much they matter.  It doesn't matter what others think of them, but what they think of themselves.  Then you see the response.....

At the end of the day, this response is what matters most.  You are important,  you are an inspiration, you are loved.  May we try every day, no not try, but do every day lift someone up; with a kind word, a smile, a hug, or something bigger.  Bullying is a problem, it will most likely always be a problem.  So today and every day I will work to combat bullying in whatever way I can.  I will do my best to teach my children that they are of infinite worth, that they are the most important thing in the world to me, that they can be a friend to those around them; to help lift them up.