Activities were set up, paper, stickers, toy tracks, the backyard lit up so children could play outside, a garden to explore, trees to climb, balloons to throw around. I'd talked to my children telling them they were to help look after younger guests, make sure they're having fun and not doing anything they're not allowed (i.e. breaking house rules).
At first children were shy and hiding beside parents then gradually they began to move around and explore. For the most part they were lost in crowds and only a few people went around checking on the children; that is, the more studious adults. Including myself, I went and checked on the children outside a couple of times.
One time one of my children was climbing up a tree to get away from everyone. I wondered what was happening to make them feel this way so I stuck around and watched for a while. A younger girl was also trying to climb up the tree and my child was being rude and disrespectful to her, insisting she stay down and not come near him. She wanted to climb the tree like my child and so on up she went. Nothing seem untoward and I head inside to check on guests.
Later I find my child in their room red faced, in tears and hysterical, saying that the little girl is following them everywhere, the others are annoying them and their nemesis (a relative who doesn't get along with my child & vice versa) was harassing them. I have words with another sibling telling them to go to their upset sibling and look after them. Make sure they're ok and no one bothers them. I leave them in bedroom to calm down.
The next morning when it's quiet I take the time to ask my child exactly what happened after I went inside leaving them to climb the tree.
Apparently the nemesis climbed the tree as well and began stabbing him in the butt with a plastic toy knife and there was no escape; my child couldn't go any higher and couldn't get down. My child was telling this child to stop and he didn't, so my child climbs down the tree and decides to run around the dark garden thinking the others won't try to follow him. There was a group of children, including older teens hanging around the base of the tree. They do follow my child and corner them down the side of the house whereby they surround my child and use the knife to keep stabbing him in the butt and back (probably not roughly yet enough to be confronting and not stopping when told to stop). At one point my child's close friend who is at the party comes down the ally way but instead of helping my child, they just stand around watching, wondering what's going on. It was an older sibling approaching that made everyone scatter.
The main three protagonists are older than my child, one by two years (the nemesis), two by several years (who will never be welcome back to my home); yet all three are not very savvy individuals and don't seem to understand or register another person's discomfort. In other words they lack empathy (they certainly did in this situation) thinking it was some hilarious joke even though if done to them they'd hate it. They were completely unable to put themselves in the other person's shoes and got swept up in the mob mentality.
As adults we read books like Lord of The Flies and wonder if it could really happen. Sadly the answer is yes! Just look at bullying, gangs, reality TV, cults; no one is ever saying, as a group, how about we act and be more amazing than anyone else has ever been and show the world mob mentality doesn't have to be the way we do things.
Imagine a world were people strive to NOT doing anything bad or awful or uncaring. Imagine if people set themselves a challenge to be nice or were that way as a general rule, instead of this Lord of The Flies mentally?
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