How to Teach Kids about the Mob Mentality

I couldn’t believe my eyes.

It was like stepping into water filled with piranha. Shaking and shivering with disbeleif I stared at my screen.

How on earth did that question unleash the mob?

Looking for materials to share with my little corner of the internet, I asked a group of creators on Facebook if they had any amazing resources on a certain topic.

And then it happened. Someone took a bite at me for asking about that topic and then the mob moved in and attacked me.

I was stunned and it paralyzed me for half the day.

First I deleted the question, because I wanted NOTHING to do with the situation. And then I tried to repair the damage, but posting an apology and a few words about how much I appreciated the group.

The second wave was worse.

By the middle of the day, I went LIVE online to share this.

Related: How Mob Mentality Gets Worse Online

Teaching Kids about Mob Mentality

Identify an incident.

Unfortunately, they are all around us.

1. Talk about the inciting incident. What exactly happened. Be careful to not bias your kids. Just state the facts.

2. TOGETHER: Identify 3-10 ways to handle the situation. How can it have been handled differently? What can you and your kids do to make a difference.

3. Explain about mob mentality.

4. Explain that you are going to look at how some people reacted to the situation and together you’re going to identify why it was good or bad. The goal is to identify wrong behavior.

5. Brainstorm ways to get away/ avoid mob mentality.

Repeat often.

Ways to find examples:
-Text messages gone bad
-Social media comment threads (be careful)
-News feeds
-Real life.

We need to teach our kids how to think through these crazy situations and give them the skills to identify when the mob mentality steps in and how to stay out and stay safe.

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