I found a very interesting article on PsychCentral about the consequences of verbally abusive athletic coaches. The article uses a real-life swim team of 9-and-10 year olds as an example who are essentially being tormented by a 26-year old female coach who singles out slower swimmers out by using abusive words and tones. In the author’s words:
In speaking to the lady in charge of the coaches on this swim team, it quickly became apparent that this type of “incentive” was not only okay with her, it was actually encouraged. She said that 9- and 10-year-old boys were “squirrelly” and “needed to be taken down a notch.” She was in full support of her coaches yelling at, embarrassing and insulting young children to motivate them to swim faster. “That’s just the way swimming is,” she said. Had I not spent 12 years of my childhood swimming competitively, I may have believed her.
I like the article’s definition of bullying: Bullying is aggressive behavior that occurs repeatedly over time in a relationship where there is an imbalance of power or strength.
Obviously, there is a huge imbalance of power between a teacher and a student. Here’s this big, dominating stranger making the smaller one do something they cannot stop them from doing.
But you know, kids have their ways of taking control back through testy behavior.
Ultimately, the way I feel about it is if my mind and attitude is in the right place — a professional place of patience and concern, which is my job — I’m pushing, not bullying. It’s when you fear you don’t have control this kind of behavior becomes bullying.
There’s always two sides to a story, but I find it really hard to talk your way out of using words like “embarrassment” when referring to how a 10-year old kid is progressing with anything. What’s so inspiring about being called embarrassing?
