Teen Bullying, Assaults
There are issues among young people today that speak to a degraded society. One where the parents have seemed to excuse themselves of the responsibility to teach ethics and values and obligations toward society. It's hard to believe the extent to which people can be cruel to one another. On the other hand, it's well enough recognized that children can be unthinking, cruel and exclusionary.
It is up to parents to guide their children to become decent, compassionate people.
If not by direct example, then by any means possible. Direct example upon which their children can model themselves after the respect and consideration they see their parents extending toward others in the community being the best possible modelling.
Perhaps we live in a too-busy world. Everyone has to deal with a multitude of tasks and problems, needing to make financial ends meet, to pay attention to everything that distracts and motivates their interest. On the other hand, raising responsible integral members of society is without doubt the most important task that any parent has.
Failing to meet that fundamental obligation by guiding a young person toward social maturity represents an intolerable waste of opportunity and obligation. Parents should know how their children behave in society and in public and they should be concerned that they behave acceptably.
Yet bullying has become a group sport among young people. It's no longer the instance that was a traditional problem of a young lout whom manners were bypassed and whose anti-social outlook on life led him to bully others because he felt awkward in his own persona, and resented those around him who did not.
A case in point is six teen-age girls from Grey Highlands Secondary School in Flesherton, Ontario.
The girls, in the parking lot behind their school attacked and beat a fifteen year old student. They were surrounded by dozens of other students from the school. No one initially came to the aid of the girl who was being attacked. The attack was caught on video. Onlookers were heard on the video to encourage the girls in their attack.
Another girl eventually did try to aid the attacked girl, only to become the object of another attack herself.
The crowd gathered, they watched what was happening and did nothing to stop the violence. If there was any compassion for the teen-age girl who was targeted it wasn't visible in the video that was placed on YouTube, as though it was something to be proud of. The video has since become an investigative tool, leading to the identification of the six students, age 15 to 17, who took part in the attack.
They were charged under the Criminal Code with assault, counselling an indictable offence and causing a disturbance. The individual who was responsible for the video has also been charged. What is profoundly disturbing is that such a violent attack could take place, to begin with, and that onlookers would not trouble themselves to make an effort to stop it, but gathered as though to witness an entertaining spectacle.
What is also concerning here is not only the memory that the targeted girl will carry for the rest of her life of the trauma and humiliation she was subjected to, but how to get through to the girls who took part in the attack how dreadful their act of violence against another girl was. How, in fact, it succeeded in diminishing their humanity.
It is up to parents to guide their children to become decent, compassionate people.
If not by direct example, then by any means possible. Direct example upon which their children can model themselves after the respect and consideration they see their parents extending toward others in the community being the best possible modelling.
Perhaps we live in a too-busy world. Everyone has to deal with a multitude of tasks and problems, needing to make financial ends meet, to pay attention to everything that distracts and motivates their interest. On the other hand, raising responsible integral members of society is without doubt the most important task that any parent has.
Failing to meet that fundamental obligation by guiding a young person toward social maturity represents an intolerable waste of opportunity and obligation. Parents should know how their children behave in society and in public and they should be concerned that they behave acceptably.
Yet bullying has become a group sport among young people. It's no longer the instance that was a traditional problem of a young lout whom manners were bypassed and whose anti-social outlook on life led him to bully others because he felt awkward in his own persona, and resented those around him who did not.
A case in point is six teen-age girls from Grey Highlands Secondary School in Flesherton, Ontario.
The girls, in the parking lot behind their school attacked and beat a fifteen year old student. They were surrounded by dozens of other students from the school. No one initially came to the aid of the girl who was being attacked. The attack was caught on video. Onlookers were heard on the video to encourage the girls in their attack.
Another girl eventually did try to aid the attacked girl, only to become the object of another attack herself.
The crowd gathered, they watched what was happening and did nothing to stop the violence. If there was any compassion for the teen-age girl who was targeted it wasn't visible in the video that was placed on YouTube, as though it was something to be proud of. The video has since become an investigative tool, leading to the identification of the six students, age 15 to 17, who took part in the attack.
They were charged under the Criminal Code with assault, counselling an indictable offence and causing a disturbance. The individual who was responsible for the video has also been charged. What is profoundly disturbing is that such a violent attack could take place, to begin with, and that onlookers would not trouble themselves to make an effort to stop it, but gathered as though to witness an entertaining spectacle.
What is also concerning here is not only the memory that the targeted girl will carry for the rest of her life of the trauma and humiliation she was subjected to, but how to get through to the girls who took part in the attack how dreadful their act of violence against another girl was. How, in fact, it succeeded in diminishing their humanity.
Labels: societal failures
posted by Pieface @ 7:54 PM
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