By now, I'm sure most of you have seen my status from last night about the woman in the car next to me. You might have even seen the few seconds of video I posted. What the heck? I can only assume that the lady who jumped out of her car knew the people in the other car and there had been some kind of confrontation prior to the other people driving off in their car. I hope. I really do hope that the very angry lady didn't take such drastic action simply out of road rage. Either way, while it was a little funny and certainly unexpected, that kind of thing is scary.
And it isn't the first time I have seen it THIS WEEK. A few days ago, Sarah and I were coming out of Hobby Lobby, and there was this relatively young chick...I would say early to mid twenties....pacing (almost running) back and forth in the parking lot, screaming at someone on her cell. Her side of the conversation sounded something like this:
"Do you F***ING her me talking?!?!? Who the F**K do you think I am?!? ..."
Sarah and I exchanged glances and giggled a little once we got to the car, but I wouldn't have let the girl see me laughing because she looked like she might cut me....even with her hair in rollers, her fuzzy slippers on, and in her pj's. Oh, and let's not forget the HUGE hoop earrings.
The level of people's anger and their lack of control over it scares me. Too many people seem to just let their anger fly all over everyone around them without any embarrassment or concern for other's feelings. And truly it seems to be escalating; I've seen people go off on cashiers, servers, and sales clerks, even when those people have no control over a situation. It seems to have gotten to a place where people believe that our "freedom of speech" gives us a free pass to be abusive when we feel like it....and that is so not the case.
Conflict resolution is something parents need to be teaching kids from infancy. We aren't born knowing how to negotiate...we are born with only fight or flight. We have to be taught to talk it out. It has to be modeled to us. And it isn't happening. Young people are increasingly going straight to fists; they don't even TRY to talk....they don't even stop to think whether they might have misunderstood/misheard/misconstrued a situation. As a teacher, I bear witness so often to students fighting at the drop of a hat....and increasingly it is GIRLS who are fighting. That is SO trashy. Girls aren't supposed to pound on each other. But girl or boy, it doesn't make the participants look very smart; in my opinion, fighting is for people whose brains and vocabularies are too small to participate in verbal discourse. IN OTHER WORDS, PEOPLE ARE SHOWING UP UNARMED TO A BATTLE OF WITS.
Student: "But Mrs. Henry, he said my momma's a prostitute..."
Me: "And? Is your momma a prostitute?"
Student: "No"
Me: "Does he even KNOW your momma?"
Student: "No"
Me: "And didn't I just hear you tell him that he had so many gaps in his teeth that he looked like a picket fence?"
Student: ......
Me: "That is called being able to dish it out but not take it. What right do you have to be mad when YOU started it?"
I bet you think I'm kidding.
Our society is going to be in trouble (might already be) if we don't do a better job teaching our kids to handle confrontation. Kids that can't deal with negative emotions in some kind of therapeutic way could very easily decide that they need to take that weapon to school/ church/ the mall. And we KNOW that nothing good comes out of adolescents with weapons. It is our job to raise our kids to be good citizens of the world. MODEL IT, PEOPLE!!! :)
No comments:
Post a Comment