America is obsessed with bullying. But is bullying a real problem? Bully Nation looks at the culture of fear created by the media, parents, educators, and the legal profession surrounding normal childhood aggression and examines how the conceptual frameworks, and specifically the language we use to describe social dynamics between children, simultaneously contribute to and limit our ability to deal with real problems among children when they arise.
Bully Nation contends that our approach to the issue is creating even more problems for us than it solves, and that in the long run it is harming our children. When we are quick to assign labels like “Bully” and “Victim” to a dynamic between children, we create static terms, and as a result we often inhibit childhood development in the name of keeping kids and schools safe. Bully Nation reviews normal childhood development, the role of aggression in a healthy childhood, and how children develop resilience.
Bully Nation explores how parents and educators fuel this cultural misfire—mostly unwittingly and with good intentions. In their desire to help children according to the prevailing wisdom, parents are often pitted against each other, and against schools, and as a result they lose each other as essential allies in the difficult task of raising children. The proverbial village is being torn apart as parents try to lick their children’s inevitable and predictable wounds.
Bully Nation presents an alternative schema for thinking about, discussing, and responding to childhood aggression beginning with a rethinking of the language around garden-variety meanness and the role of adults in engineering the social lives of children. Bullying is not always what it seems, and Bully Nation helps readers understand this essential truth. Case studies are presented throughout the book to illustrate points and deepen readers’ understanding of concepts.
