When his father lost his job because of a serious illness, John qualified for a free lunch pass at school. The first time John showed the cashier at the school’s lunch line his pass, Fred, a husky boy standing behind John, started to laugh and cry out to others, “Hey guys, get a load of this! John has a free lunch pass. What’s the matter, John,…
On this blog, I have often discussed various reasons why someone might throw insults at you, and, depending on the reason, how to maturely deal with these challenging experiences (see for example, “Insults: A Comic Strip Guide“). If John is throwing an insult at you because he is in a bad mood, just asking in a concern manner, “Is everything OK, John, you sound like…
Teasing is a game sometimes known as bantering, joshing, crackin’, rankin’, playing the dozens, and trash talk. You are judged in part on the quality of your insults and also how well you keep your cool on being insulted. Even the most mature people may like to play the teasing game, for they enjoy the duel of wits and the occasional humorous comeback. MATURE VERSUS…
A couple of weeks ago, I provided readers of this blog a post titled, “How I Met Cool Steve.” There, I told a story from one of my novels about a teenager, Jeff Star. At one point, Jeff is in an angry mood because his teacher gave him so much homework, and perhaps he is also having some jealous feelings about how much respect the…
A while back I saw a YouTube video dealing with insults that made someone cry went viral. It is called, Bus Stop Ignorance. In the video we see 43-year-old William Bailey taunting Hope Knight, a ten-year old girl with cerebral palsy. Hope uses crutches and Mr. Bailey, in the video, mocks the way she walks. He also gets his son to join him in the…
Teasing is a game sometimes known as bantering, joshing, crackin’, rankin’, playing the dozens, trash talk, and infighting. You are judged on the quality of your insults and also how well you keep your cool on being insulted. Even the most mature people may like to play the teasing game, for they enjoy the duel of wits and the occasional humorous comeback. Consider the following…
If you have been following this blog, you know that lately we have been working on becoming masters at dealing with criticism. One important lesson that we have focused in on is that in designing our response to a particular criticism it is crucial that we figure out why the person is criticizing us. Let’s say, for example, that John, upon entering my home and…
Those following this blog have been reading about the five levels of maturity for responding to criticism(see May 13th post and May 27th post). How well did Karen Klein, the 68-year-old grandmother who many of us witnessed in a YouTube video, do? There, during a 10 minute episode, middle school students hurl a barrage of criticism at her. One asks for her address because he says…