The worst thing I ever did (and I’m not leaving out the Big Ten, this was even worse) was to participate in gratuitous cruelty to a mentally handicapped kid who was one of the first to ever be “mainstreamed” into a regular class.
Fourth or fifth grade, I don’t remember, but I’m still ashamed about it 60+ years later.
You’re courageous to admit you sinned as a child. We’ve all been there. I think this might help in dealing with the shame.
What does the Bible say about forgiving yourself?
https://www.gotquestions.org/forgiving-yourself.html
Good bless you!
There’s a really good anime’ called “A Silent Voice” (can be seen at https://9anime.pe/watch/a-silent-voice-11?ep=50465 ) about a boy who bullies a deaf girl at school and how his life changes when his fellow bullies turn on him. It’s a really neat story of redemption and what it means to walk with somebody who doesn’t love their life, and how it changes everything when you live to put joy in someone else’s life.
My son has always been teased even though he’s a genius. He was beaten on the playground also and the school people wouldn’t do anything about it. When he was a freshman in high school I decided I would never send him to a school again because one particular teacher (teaching them exactly the opposite of how to do real journalism) was literally killing him and after I shared with her how I was having to talk him into living every day, she just didn’t care. No way was she going to let him use actual scientific research for his research paper; he had to use the approved MSM crap with no documentation or substantiation. When you tell a teacher and an administrator that their adherence to lies is literally killing your son and they say, “Who cares?” it changes the way you think about these people. He was nothing to them. He was a sheep and they were bad, bad shepherds who only cared to make sure they were keeping the sheep from ever thinking for themselves.
When my husband got dementia that son had a really, really hard time with it. His own intelligence had been his own mind’s justification for his existence, and when he saw how easily brain function can be lost, through no fault of the victim, he began to see intelligence as a gift that people can’t help if they don’t have it. He also began to see that sometimes there are mental gifts that are even more valuable than being smart. His dad’s ability to stay in relationship with us even when he didn’t know much of what was going on around him, and his steady, gentle care and love for us even as his world was closing in on him... made my son realize that human life is valuable, even when the brain is limited in what it can think and do.
These are things that really deepen a person’s inner being. When the sanctity of all human life is genuinely explained and nurtured, there’s hope for reversing bullying. Without it, nothing the schools do will change the kids or their parents. When my son was in 4th grade he resisted the “Black history month” bulletin boards and I discussed with him to make sure he understands that Gpd DOES create diversity for the benefit of all of us, but it’s not just about skin color. It’s about each one of being unique and God making us that way because we have something that everybody else needs, even if what we have seems to be a weakness. We’re like puzzle pieces with holes and knobs so that we fill in what another person lacks and grow together because of it.
He understood that and could totally get behind that idea - the sanctity of all human life. But when he tried to explain it to his teacher she said no diversity is just about skin color not about valuing all human life. It’s because abortion has to be swallowed whole. We can’t value the “least” among us because if we did we would then see value even where a mother sees no value in her child’s life. That’s not acceptable. So they will tsk, tsk about bullying but will never, EVER do anything about it, because that would require them to affirm the sanctity of ALL human life.
Regarding what you did back in 4th or 5th grade, you’ve grown since then, and that’s probably why you were allowed to go through that. The student you mocked was probably at least partially protected because his mind works differently. We all have things in our past that shame us, but I do think it helps to realize some learning just doesn’t happen without those kinds of experiences. You had to learn to jumprope by failing over and over until you didn’t. That’s the learning process. And the same kind of process happens to teach us empathy. There doesn’t need to be shame from going through that process, any more than there would be shame for having to go through toilet training.
Sorry to talk so much. This subject raises a lot of thoughts for me, because our family has always dealt very closely with so many of these surrounding issues.