Expectations
Source/Author: Mike Murphy, Headmaster
April 07, 2017
When I read the article, “The Day I Decided My Daughter Will Not Choose Her Own Friends,” I was impressed with the lessons on inclusion and compassion the mother was teaching. Anyone who has ever personally or from a distance observed someone being left out or ignored knows that isolation can be very painful. I applaud the efforts of the mother in the article for having her daughter be a better member of her school community by including the new girl. But any of us who have grown up from childhood, have children, or work with children know that trying to pick our children’s friends ranges somewhere between difficult and impossible. So, what can we learn from this inspirational article?
Let’s start with two of the Core Values at Shorecrest: Respect and Compassion. We could also easily add Responsibility.
Does anyone else find it odd that people can become impassioned about people and causes they have never really met or encountered, yet they can ignore the needs of humans in their own neighborhoods, schools and communities? There seems to be a disconnect between wanting to be kind to people we have never met in distant lands and then not being kind to the person who is in the same class at school. We have all heard the excuses:
“The kid in class is annoying.”
“He is not like me.”
“She wears weird clothes.”
How do we help our young people and maybe even our peers move beyond this kind of thinking?
If we are going to teach our children to be respectful and compassionate people we might want the lessons to start at home. The mother in the article demanded inclusion. I know other parents who will not tolerate negative talk about others. A whole generation of mothers shared the advice, “If you have nothing nice to say, then say nothing at all!”
Parents/guardians and teachers/coaches who create environments where respect for others is an expectation tend to get what they expect. On the other hand, adults who do not make their expectations clear wind up with inconsistent lessons and behavior.
I greatly appreciate that the author of the article noted that ignoring is not bullying, but rather a hurtful social behavior. Some people may say that children benefit from learning skills to deal with people who are not as kind or accepting as one may wish. I am sure there is merit to learning those skills, but I am convinced that people with strong self-esteem are better able to develop those coping skills.
One would hope that in a relatively small community like ours, we would stand united to teach respect and compassion and help our children develop strong self-esteem so if the day ever comes when they need to deal with off-putting behavior, they will have the strength to do so without significant disruption.
