Part 5 of the 10 part series: Leader-friendly gardening practices to end bullying.
 
Do not enable – Suspending judgment by separating the behavior from the person, allows loving thoughts and communication, without labeling people, being self-righteous, and enabling undesirable behavior.

Desired outcome: Safe and healthy communities 
 
In Part 1, I discussed the need for social change to help end bullying and it begins with adults. In Part 2, I made an appeal for adults to step up to end bullying, and in Part 3, I discussed how adults can empower children to take the lead on this issue.
 
The leader-friendly gardening practices began in Part 4 - Being nonjudgmental.

Today our focus is on leader-friendly gardening - Practice Two: do not enable harmful behaviors.
 
It also addresses to the labels we place on people when trying to address harmful behaviors.

Enable means to make possible or easy, to authorize or empower, or endow with ability.
 
Since I am all about empowerment, I do want to make it possible and easy for children to practice positive leader behaviors through our Cultivation Grants.

On the flip side, when you take no action to intervene or ignore a dangerous situation, like bullying, you are making it possible or easy for someone to bully others. You are also enabling bullying behavior when you believe you can do nothing to stop it.

Call it resignation or indifference - either way, someone who bullies does so because they can and do get away with it.

In the CNN AC360 study, a surprising number of the bullying incidences didn’t have to do with the stereotypical bullying behavior.
 
When surveying the students, the researchers were careful to avoid the term “bullying” in order to avoid these stereotypes. Instead, they focused on behavioral descriptions like “picked on” or “were mean” and they instructed the students to disregard playful teasing.

The lines are blurry for how to address negative behavior without branding the person. Labels are short cuts we all use. The starting point to alter this is to consider that deep inside “the person is not their behavior” and they weren’t born that way.

This is a tough concept.
 
Some human behavior is so horrendous and seems so ingrained that one can only assume they are rotten to the core.
 
Yet, an online series called Changing Brains, out of the University of Oregon’s Brain lab, now shows that virtually every aspect of the human brain is shaped by experience.

That is a profound discovery and provides insight into the notion that behaviors are not fixed. What happens to a child at a young age, and the environment in which they grow, plays a major role in shaping their behavior.

A distressing example of this is the CNN Special Report Teen Murder Suspect Carried Backpack of Hatred. The 19 year-old Brandon, Mississippi teen, Deryl Dedmon is facing capital murder charges for running over an innocent black man.
 
Watching the report was enough to make anyone’s blood boil, and not just because of what he did, but the response of the community.

I would be the last to defend or have compassion for this teen’s actions. However, I can’t help wonder what his life was like growing up and what kind of environment would allow such hatred to escalate to this level?  As the report eluded, the environment was breeding ground to accept or ignore such behavior.

Remember, children are not born to be mean or hateful; both are learned behaviors, just like being kind and compassionate. When you are kind to someone, you are expressing in your “way of being” kind behavior.

Practice separating the person from the behavior.
 
When you separate the person from the behavior, you have a place to stand - and can address harmful behavior in a balanced and loving way.

Let’s use a simple example. If I called you a liar, mostly likely you would become defensive, especially if you don’t consider yourself a liar. If instead I asked you, “Why did you lie to me?” the lines of communication are open.

In the above, I am not attacking you personally, rather addressing your behavior. Maybe what appeared to be a lie is actually a misunderstanding. This is why it is important to keep open lines of communication.

Labels ignite the fight, flee, or freeze primal instinct.

Even the discussion of bullying has ramification, when the label is placed on anyone. However, labeling is the most common bullying tactic people who bully use and why it is difficult to address by using labels yourself.

A bully would be better defined as a person who uses bullying behavior. We all use short cut labels to decribe people's behavior without thinking of the ramification.

So let’s look to see if a person really is a bully at their core?

Reading the story about Deryl Dedmon would have one think that way. Remember, he was not born that way, and even if there were a genetic propensity towards hatred innate in him, most likely he suffers from psychological issues stemming from an environment that shaped his beliefs and enabled his behavior. That was also a key part alluded to in the CNN Special Report.

I am also not talking about extreme cases like this. There are experts who say 3-4% of the population is born without conscience; labeled as sociopathic or psychopathic behavior. That leaves 96-97% of the population without such propensity, yet who may exhibit such behavior when in a primal state of behavior. So it is dangerous to label people when you have no expertise to diagnose such a condition.

In the CNN AC360 study, several of the students who were bullied were shocked to learn from their answers on the survey that they too were considered bullies. What the survey was really measuring was the behavior not the person.
 
Name calling thwarts positive communication.

The minute you place a negative label on someone, you create defensive and combative communication. Any name calling triggers that primal instinct to defend who you are, what you believe, and how you behave.

That is the problem with labels and people who bully use this to their advantage. Just remember, labels impede your ability to address harmful behavior in an appropriate and meaningful way that will make a difference.
 
One more solution.

A key to ending bullying is teaching children to know when and how to intervene safely or walk away and report the behavior. As a society, we need to empower children to do both by growing their leader within and not allowing the bullying weed to spread any further. 

Next, I’ll address leader-friendly gardening Practice Three (use empathy) to shed some light on this point.
 
In the meantime, what ways do you see you can stem the growth of bullying?