School Bullying
What never fails to amaze is that parents don't realize, or don't want to know that their children bully other peoples' children. Their focus is on their children, with little regard given to how their children's behaviour may impact deleteriously - to the point of critically - on the mental health; at the very least the emotional stability of other, vulnerable children. When school authorities are cognizant that one of their students is a bully, they have an obligation to ameliorate the situation.
And not by helping the bullied child avoid confrontation by delaying tactics, but by holding the offending child to account. By contacting the bullying child's parents, by informing them that they are responsible for their child's behaviour. By letting them know in no uncertain terms that this behaviour will not be condoned nor countenanced, and it is their intention to deny that child further access to the school, unless and until the intolerable behaviour ceases.
There are alternatives, such as private schools, or schools in the public system which are geared to look after socially-offensive or problem children. There have been well-publicized incidents of young kids, frustrated and frightened by incessant bullying, who have preferred to die rather than continue living under those conditions. No child should have to fear attending school because he or she is the victim of bullies.
At the most emotionally needy, impressionable times of their lives, no child should be exposed to ridicule and shame and violence expressed against them, setting them aside from other children, effectively forcing them to be fearful hermits scuttling from one presumed place of safety to another to avoid verbal or physical violence.
A 14-year-old boy who had been continuously bullied at his elementary school, then at Camille Lavoie High School near Alma, Quebec, deliberately took the step of abandoning his family, running away from his detested condition as a victim, in 2009. And now, a full year later, his grieving parents and younger sister have no idea where their son and brother might possibly be.
He was teased mercilessly because he was taking Ritalin to control his diagnosed condition of ADD, and things escalated to the point where he feared school. His teachers would dismiss him a few minutes earlier than the rest of the class to avoid his being beaten. What kind of absurd solution would that be? In high school kids lay in wait for him in thuggish clusters, during lunch and after school.
He was taunted, kicked, his belongings vandalized or stolen. "I don't know how many times we had to buy new bicycles. They came and stole them from our yard", David Fortin's mother recalled. Before he ran away from home to escape the predators who were his school peers, he told his older cousin "I'm really at the end of my rope. I can't take it anymore."
He couldn't, and could not adequately communicate the extent of his fear, and has been missing from his family for a year. Only when his parents understood their child had abandoned all hope for rescue from his dreaded condition at school did they see something happen that should have occurred much earlier. The school contacted the parents of some of the bullies and two students were reassigned to a special-education class.
In the Ottawa area, a mother of an elementary-school child is now suing the Ottawa Catholic School Board for not taking steps to protect her daughter from a bully. She has launched a $325,000 lawsuit naming the board, the child's grade 3 teacher, and the administration of St. Isidore Catholic School.
"This is a kid who sees the bus and vomits", the child's mother said after filing a statement of claim in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice. Jaclyn Stanton attended St. Isidore school from 2003 to 2008. During the Fall of 2007 the child began to weep in anguished fear when she saw her school bus, saying she was ill, refusing to attend school.
Just forget about it, endure it while it lasts. But these are children, and when other children conspire to make their lives a living hell, a durable solution must be sought and implemented. There is widespread talk about bullying. Psychologists have said that bullied children become desperate and if pushed hard enough, some of them seek revenge. That vengeance, as has been noted, can take the form of school violence using firearms.
It would be the best of all possible outcomes if the suit being brought against the school board succeeds, and if the pain of paying the victim for anguish caused by school neglect made all teachers, school administrators and school boards sit up and take note.
And not by helping the bullied child avoid confrontation by delaying tactics, but by holding the offending child to account. By contacting the bullying child's parents, by informing them that they are responsible for their child's behaviour. By letting them know in no uncertain terms that this behaviour will not be condoned nor countenanced, and it is their intention to deny that child further access to the school, unless and until the intolerable behaviour ceases.
There are alternatives, such as private schools, or schools in the public system which are geared to look after socially-offensive or problem children. There have been well-publicized incidents of young kids, frustrated and frightened by incessant bullying, who have preferred to die rather than continue living under those conditions. No child should have to fear attending school because he or she is the victim of bullies.
At the most emotionally needy, impressionable times of their lives, no child should be exposed to ridicule and shame and violence expressed against them, setting them aside from other children, effectively forcing them to be fearful hermits scuttling from one presumed place of safety to another to avoid verbal or physical violence.
A 14-year-old boy who had been continuously bullied at his elementary school, then at Camille Lavoie High School near Alma, Quebec, deliberately took the step of abandoning his family, running away from his detested condition as a victim, in 2009. And now, a full year later, his grieving parents and younger sister have no idea where their son and brother might possibly be.
He was teased mercilessly because he was taking Ritalin to control his diagnosed condition of ADD, and things escalated to the point where he feared school. His teachers would dismiss him a few minutes earlier than the rest of the class to avoid his being beaten. What kind of absurd solution would that be? In high school kids lay in wait for him in thuggish clusters, during lunch and after school.
He was taunted, kicked, his belongings vandalized or stolen. "I don't know how many times we had to buy new bicycles. They came and stole them from our yard", David Fortin's mother recalled. Before he ran away from home to escape the predators who were his school peers, he told his older cousin "I'm really at the end of my rope. I can't take it anymore."
He couldn't, and could not adequately communicate the extent of his fear, and has been missing from his family for a year. Only when his parents understood their child had abandoned all hope for rescue from his dreaded condition at school did they see something happen that should have occurred much earlier. The school contacted the parents of some of the bullies and two students were reassigned to a special-education class.
In the Ottawa area, a mother of an elementary-school child is now suing the Ottawa Catholic School Board for not taking steps to protect her daughter from a bully. She has launched a $325,000 lawsuit naming the board, the child's grade 3 teacher, and the administration of St. Isidore Catholic School.
"This is a kid who sees the bus and vomits", the child's mother said after filing a statement of claim in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice. Jaclyn Stanton attended St. Isidore school from 2003 to 2008. During the Fall of 2007 the child began to weep in anguished fear when she saw her school bus, saying she was ill, refusing to attend school.
Her mother then became aware that a new child who had entered the class had been tripping her daughter, calling her names in front of others, pulling Jaclyn's hair and making her entirely miserable. Krisha Stanton, Jaclyn's mother, spoke to the child's teacher who agreed to move the children's desks to separate them, without taking any trouble to prevent the ongoing bullying during recess or lunch periods.
Just forget about it, endure it while it lasts. But these are children, and when other children conspire to make their lives a living hell, a durable solution must be sought and implemented. There is widespread talk about bullying. Psychologists have said that bullied children become desperate and if pushed hard enough, some of them seek revenge. That vengeance, as has been noted, can take the form of school violence using firearms.
It would be the best of all possible outcomes if the suit being brought against the school board succeeds, and if the pain of paying the victim for anguish caused by school neglect made all teachers, school administrators and school boards sit up and take note.
posted by Pieface @ 5:36 PM
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