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Anger Management
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Anger Management Classes for Bullying
I am tremendously saddened by the story of Phoebe Prince, the high school girl who hung herself in response to bullying if not out and out torture from her classmates. I've often said that anger or aggressiveness is a protective response to a perceived hurt or threat and, from what I have read, Phoebe represented a threat to her classmates. It makes me again feel the need to raise the issue of having anger management classes or classes in emotional understanding/intelligence mandatory in our schools.
We humans tend to intuitively suspicious of anyone or anything different from us. This is why the religious right and the atheists so virulently disavow one another or, of late, those pro health care reform vs those anti health care reform. Phoebe represented a perfect target for her classmates, a group of people who had grown up together. All of a sudden, here is this bright, beautiful girl with a funny accent who comes along and within her first week at school is dating the football star. She must have represented quite a threat to the established order and that order, once threatened went on the attack. So much so that they even taunted after she died.
Incidents like this happen on a large and small scale every single day in our schools. Kids are picked on, assaulted, raped, and ostracized for being different in some way. More often than not, this comes from a deep seated need for the bully to bolster his or her self esteem. Sad but true, one of the ways we humans tend to feel better about ourselves is through comparing others to ourselves unfavorably.
Anger management classes or emotional intelligence classes in high school and, even better still, in grade school would go a long way to helping kids understand where these feelings come from within themselves and teach them to learn to express them in non-violent or non-destructive ways. Deaths like Phoebe's could easily be avoided.
We humans tend to intuitively suspicious of anyone or anything different from us. This is why the religious right and the atheists so virulently disavow one another or, of late, those pro health care reform vs those anti health care reform. Phoebe represented a perfect target for her classmates, a group of people who had grown up together. All of a sudden, here is this bright, beautiful girl with a funny accent who comes along and within her first week at school is dating the football star. She must have represented quite a threat to the established order and that order, once threatened went on the attack. So much so that they even taunted after she died.
Incidents like this happen on a large and small scale every single day in our schools. Kids are picked on, assaulted, raped, and ostracized for being different in some way. More often than not, this comes from a deep seated need for the bully to bolster his or her self esteem. Sad but true, one of the ways we humans tend to feel better about ourselves is through comparing others to ourselves unfavorably.
Anger management classes or emotional intelligence classes in high school and, even better still, in grade school would go a long way to helping kids understand where these feelings come from within themselves and teach them to learn to express them in non-violent or non-destructive ways. Deaths like Phoebe's could easily be avoided.
Anger management advice by Dr. Joe James at 10:11 AM
