The Anti-Bully Effect

   These days everyone is talking about bullies. We have bully rallies, bully defense classes in school and the shame of bully blogs.  But I want to share with you an episode of Anti-bully behavior.
   My husband, my kids and myself own a self defense and fitness business where for the last 25 years we have taught children and teens how to protect themselves, and how to look out for others. We don't do competitions, we don't give out trophies. We work on building confidence and respect in the kids we teach. We also work on family or in the secular world it would be called 'team' building. But since my family teaches kids as a 'family' we call it family building.  Each child in our class is encouraged to think of each other as brothers and sisters and we watch out for each other.
  So yesterday in class we had a young boy come in who normally attends class on a different day so he did not recognize any of the kids in the class he walked into.  For most children this is not frightening, but for this young man it was.  My daughter who is a head instructor and myself talked with him, trying to make him feel comfortable. But it wasn't until we convinced him to sit down in the group that a very beautiful thing began to happen. The other children sensed he was upset and immediately came over to sit by him, introducing themselves and smiling and asking him his name. Now, this was not prompted by my daughter or myself, we just sat by his side. Each of these kids were concerned and took the problem upon themselves to solve.  In five minutes he was talking with them, laughing and joining in the class.
  Never was there a snicker at him crying or being upset from any of the students. There was an instant compassion that met him at the door of the workout room.  The instructors never said a word to the rest of the class. We didn't have to. The other students knew what to do.  It was beautiful to experience.
  God gives each of us the capacity for compassion and if we nurture it right it grows and blossoms and gives to so many others.  It was the greatest lesson we all got to take part in that day.