Every day, I wait to hear about my son's day in school. It's the highlight of my day - to unwind with him and hear him talk about how well/badly his day is. Sometimes, he has good days. There are times when he has bad days because a child in class behaves nastily. I had read somewhere that kids are territorial in nature. Like lions or hunting animals, they can sense fear and act upon it to their advantage. I never believed it then but from the time I've started observing how children behave, I've noticed its true. Kids pick on kids who seem frightened or timid in their presence. In my son's class, the girls are more aggressive and dominating. I remember that it was the same in my school too. Perhaps these are scraps of memories and may have nothing to do with it being girls or boys. I am sure that today's little boys and girls are more influenced by the movies they see than we were. That too has something to do with the aggression in their behavior.
In an English movie that I saw, I recalled the words of a father to his son, "Life is cruel but you have to survive."
The words stay with me when I think of some children who say or do cruel things to other kids. They feel its their right to survive. The weaker kids give in or become dominated by it because they too want to find an easier way to survive. It's no different when we grow up and pass through high school, college and the battleground of life. We learn ways to tackle cruelty and we find the means to survive somehow.
Maybe we know deep within, that there is no choice but to survive.
