When hurting someone becomes something to laugh about
What are we really teaching our children?
We tell them to be kind.
We tell them to respect other people.
We tell them not to bully.
We tell them that hurting someone is wrong.
But what happens when children grow up watching adults do something very different?
What happens when an adult deliberately humiliates, deceives, embarrasses, undermines or “screws over” another person — and then laughs about it?
What happens when everyone around them joins in?
What lesson does that child actually learn?
It doesn’t matter who the person is
Perhaps it is an ex-wife.
Perhaps it is an ex-husband.
Perhaps it is a girlfriend or boyfriend.
Perhaps it is someone from work.
Perhaps it is an old friend.
Perhaps it is somebody the family has known for years.
The label doesn’t make cruelty acceptable.
An ex-partner is still a human being.
A former colleague is still a human being.
Someone who has made mistakes is still a human being.
Someone we no longer like is still a human being.
And when we deliberately hurt another person and then turn their pain into entertainment, we are demonstrating something to the people watching us.
We are teaching them what we believe is acceptable.
Children learn far more from what we do than what we say
We can tell a child:
“Treat people with respect.”
But if that same child watches us mock someone, manipulate someone, lie about someone or deliberately make their life difficult, our behaviour becomes the lesson.
Children notice.
They notice the laughter.
They notice the comments.
They notice who is excluded.
They notice when somebody is being deliberately humiliated.
They notice when adults celebrate getting one over on someone else.
And eventually they may begin to believe that this is simply how relationships work.
What happens when cruelty becomes entertainment?
There is a difference between telling a story about a difficult relationship and taking pleasure in another person’s suffering.
There is a difference between moving on from someone and deliberately trying to damage them.
There is a difference between setting a boundary and trying to punish someone.
There is a difference between disagreeing with somebody and humiliating them.
And there is a very important difference between having the opportunity to hurt someone and choosing not to.
When adults laugh about deliberately hurting another person, the message can become:
“If you can get away with it, it’s funny.”
“If someone deserves it, anything goes.”
“Winning matters more than kindness.”
“Humiliation is acceptable if we don’t like the person.”
“Other people’s feelings don’t matter when they are no longer useful to us.”
Those are powerful lessons for a child to absorb.
Revenge isn’t a parenting lesson
Children will inevitably experience difficult relationships.
They will fall out with friends.
They will experience rejection.
They will have relationships that end.
They will encounter people who disappoint them.
They will sometimes be angry.
We cannot protect children from every difficult emotion.
But we can teach them what to do with those emotions.
We can teach them that anger doesn’t give us permission to be cruel.
We can teach them that ending a relationship doesn’t require destroying the other person.
We can teach them that boundaries don’t require humiliation.
We can teach them that walking away can sometimes be more powerful than retaliation.
And we can teach them that someone else’s wrongdoing does not give us permission to become hurtful ourselves.
What happens when children see adults “win” through cruelty?
This is where we need to be careful.
A child watching an adult repeatedly manipulate or humiliate another person may not understand the complexity of the adult relationship.
They may simply see:
Cruelty gets rewarded.
Humiliation gets laughter.
Manipulation gets attention.
Getting one over on someone makes you powerful.
That is not the lesson most parents would consciously choose to teach.
But children learn from patterns.
And what about the people laughing along?
There is another lesson here.
Sometimes the most uncomfortable question isn’t:
“Who did this?”
It is:
“Who was laughing?”
Who encouraged it?
Who joined in?
Who knew what was happening and said nothing?
Who treated another person’s humiliation as entertainment?
Because children learn from the audience too.
They learn that sometimes cruelty isn’t performed by one person.
Sometimes it is maintained by a group.
What would we tell our child if they were the target?
Imagine your child comes home devastated because another child has deliberately embarrassed them.
Would we say:
“That’s hilarious.”
Of course not.
We would probably want to know what happened.
We would want our child to feel safe.
We would tell them that being treated badly isn’t acceptable.
We might encourage them to speak to someone, establish boundaries or walk away.
So perhaps we should ask ourselves a difficult question:
Would we accept the same behaviour if our own child were the person on the receiving end?
If the answer is no, why should it become acceptable simply because the target is someone we dislike?
The example we leave behind
Children don’t just inherit our possessions.
They inherit our examples.
They learn how we speak about people.
They learn how we treat people when relationships end.
They learn how we behave when we are angry.
They learn whether apologies matter.
They learn whether humiliation is funny.
They learn whether power means controlling someone else.
They learn whether kindness only applies when it is convenient.
And they learn whether we can disagree with somebody without trying to destroy them.
Perhaps the real lesson is this
We don’t have to like everybody.
We don’t have to remain friends with everyone.
We don’t have to stay in relationships that are unhealthy.
We don’t have to forgive everything.
We don’t have to forget what someone has done.
We don’t even have to have a relationship with someone who has hurt us.
But there is still a choice.
We can walk away without becoming cruel.
We can establish boundaries without humiliating someone.
We can tell the truth without deliberately destroying someone.
We can end relationships without turning another person’s pain into entertainment.
And when children are watching, that choice matters even more.
Because one day they may find themselves on either side of the situation.
They may be the person laughing.
Or they may be the person being laughed at.
And perhaps the greatest lesson we can give them is not simply:
“Don’t hurt people.”
It is:
“When you have the power to hurt someone, choose what kind of person you want to be.”
Because children are always learning.
The question is:
