Hmm, I obviously do not have any experience with child rearing, so I may have no room to talk, but I do have experience being a child that was in a somewhat similar situation. What I learned from never reacting to people when they were rude and hurtful was to be a people pleaser and that the feelings of others were more important that my own feelings. This carried on to my adult life, where I often had a hard time setting appropriate boundaries, defend myself, etc. Essentially I spent a lot of time being an emotional punching bag for others. Habits kids pick up as kids stick with them longer than you may think, they just often take a new form.
It is great to teach your kids compassion, but I think that kids need to see there is a difference between having compassion for a person and justifying their bad behavior based on "being a bigger person" or showing compassion. I do not even think there is anything particularly compassionate about not addressing inappropriate behavior another person exhinits, because it just reinforces the behavior and gives them no incentive to change.
I think there is a line between defending one's self against a bully and bullying a bully back, that would allow kids to take the high road but still express that their feelings are valuable and other kids should not treat them badly. I mean what would be wrong with saying something like "Hey [insert name] do not call me a loser, I am not a loser." At least that is showing that you are assertive enough to respond, but you are not saying anything to degrade the other person.
I hope no one thinks I am critisizing, because like I said I do not have any kids, it is just that I think the "always ignoring" approach can sometimes have bad effects as well. I think that a child can be both kind and assertive at the same time. |