“There was a girl in my class who had on dirty clothes. The other kids laughed at her but I played with her during recess.”
That’s an everyday act of kindness toward a child who is being ostracized. It was reported by an elementary school student who took part in a new, nationally-representative survey of children ages 9 to 11. The purpose was to capture not only the bad, but also the good of how children treat each other, and even a little bit of the why.
Here are some of the key findings:
- A large majority, 77 percent, reported witnessing bullying at some point.
- 1 in 5 kids admitted to being a bully.
- Only 14 percent strongly agreed that our nation’s leaders model how to treat people with kindness.
Vicky Rideout, an experienced youth researcher, conducted the survey in September, 2017, of 1,054 children. It was commissioned by the Cartoon Network.
A nationally representative bullying survey is important now, in the post-Trump era, because many observers have been watching for any possible impact…