Being humane when dealing with a bully can be hard, but it’s the right thing to do.
To be humane is to show compassion. Not just empathy, compassion. What is compassion? Dictionary.com defines compassion as: “a feeling of deep sympathy and sorrow for another who is stricken by misfortune, accompanied by a strong desire to alleviate the suffering.”
Compassion isn’t just about feeling bad – it’s about doing something about it. It’s about action.
Bullies are not humane. By definition, they are acting selfishly. Being compassionate and humane with them doesn’t mean allowing them to continue to hurt people. It means responding to them in a way that gets them to stop, without causing them additional unnecessary harm.
Isn’t that our ideal? Why would we harm someone if we can get them to stop and not harm them. This is what it means to be a good person.
Is this possible? Of course it is. In most cases. And this is what we should be striving for. Whether you are a victim of bullying or whether you are tasked with getting a bully to stop. Approach them humanely with a goal to help them stop.
If you think you need to punish them into stopping you will not only fail to get them to stop, you will also probably make the situation worse, for all parties involved.
The good news is that the behavioral methods to stop unwanted behavior – are also humane.
Learn them, use them and share this information with others.