Bring Back Bullying

Now, before you reach for the comments.

I don’t actually want to bring back bullying.

The title is obviously a little tongue-in-cheek.

But it’s a phrase I’ve heard thrown about more than once, and it’s one that sparked a conversation I was having with a few friends.

We were talking about our own children growing up.

We were talking about how different childhood feels now compared to when we were young.

Back then, most of us either witnessed bullying, experienced it ourselves, or knew someone who did.

It was uncomfortable.

Sometimes cruel.

Sometimes unforgettable.

And that’s not something I’d ever want to return.

But it did leave us asking a bigger question.

In trying to remove every uncomfortable experience from childhood, have we also removed some of the experiences that helped build resilience?

Have we confused protecting children from genuine harm with protecting them from disappointment, failure and discomfort?

Maybe we’ve forgotten the value of being uncomfortable.

When did the world become so soft?

Or maybe that’s the wrong question.

When did we become so afraid of letting people struggle?

I remember school sports days.

Running races.

Football tournaments.

The egg and spoon race.

The sack race.

I wasn’t the fastest.

I wasn’t the strongest.

I certainly wasn’t winning everything.

Most of the time I was somewhere in the middle.

Sometimes near the back.

And do you know what?

That was fine.

Because when I did win something, it meant something.

It wasn’t handed to me.

It wasn’t guaranteed.

It was earned.

There was a finish line.

There was a winner.

There were plenty of losers.

And strangely enough, the losers came back the following year and tried again.

Somewhere along the way, we’ve become obsessed with making sure nobody feels disappointed.

Participation medals.

Everybody’s a winner.

Nobody should feel left out.

I understand the intention.

It comes from kindness.

But life doesn’t work like that.

Life doesn’t hand out medals simply because you turned up.

Sometimes you don’t get the job.

Sometimes your business fails.

Sometimes someone is simply better than you.

That’s not cruelty.

That’s reality.

And reality is one of life’s greatest teachers.

Children don’t need to be protected from every disappointment.

They need to learn how to recover from it.

Resilience isn’t something you’re born with.

It’s something you build.

One setback at a time.

One failure at a time.

One disappointment at a time.

Now let me be absolutely clear.

Bullying isn’t character building.

It’s harmful.

Real bullying leaves scars that can last a lifetime.

Nobody should excuse it.

Nobody should celebrate it.

But neither should we remove every obstacle from someone’s path.

There’s a difference between being bullied and being challenged.

There’s a difference between being humiliated and being told you didn’t win this time.

There’s a difference between cruelty and learning that the world won’t always bend to your feelings.

The people I admire most aren’t the ones who’ve had an easy life.

They’re the ones who kept getting back up.

Who took the criticism.

Who accepted defeat.

Who learned from it.

Who came back stronger.

History has always shown us something.

Comfort rarely creates remarkable people.

Pressure often does.

Strength is built through resistance.

Muscle grows because it’s torn apart before it rebuilds.

The mind isn’t much different.

Kindness matters.

Empathy matters.

Compassion matters.

They’re some of the greatest qualities we possess.

But so are courage.

Resolve.

Stoicism.

The ability to hear no.

The ability to fail.

The ability to dust yourself off and keep walking.

Maybe we don’t need to bring back bullying.

Maybe we just need to stop trying to remove every hardship from life.

Because one day our children will step into a world that won’t care how many participation medals they collected.

It will care whether they can cope when things don’t go their way.

That’s my Abstract Take.