Bullying in schools is the parents fault?
Every parent deigns to provide a safe and loving environment for their children where they can be nurtured and cared for until they are ready to leave the nest. There is this endless struggle to earn a living, earn just a little bit extra to be able to meet their expenses. Most of us do it well but there comes a point where we have to let go. The children have to learn from their own mistakes.
Once a kid enters the school gates, our responsibiity ends until the bell rings for dismissal. There our kids get an education. If a parent tries to get too involved, there is this worry he or she would be deemed as interfering with the school’s administration. A parent just has to learn to let go and trust in others to do their job in their absence.
A school is a microcosm of the real society at large. Children of all backgrounds come together to become one big happy learning community. Unfortunately in school, the children are at different stages of physical development. Thus a 12 year old kid would be deemed to be a giant by a standard one pupil just as an example.
Any threats made would be taken seriously by these children. Sometimes money is handed over for fear of reprisals. The traumatized kids keep it all deep inside of them and hide it from their parents. Until they cannot keep up with the demands. Then the kid has no choice but to demand more from the parents on the pretext of buying new books, money not enough to buy enough food etc.
A source commented when he approached the administration of a particular school about the matter, the school dismissed it as a ‘non-relevant’ issue and non-existent. But my friend persisted and went higher and was told it was the fault of the parents for letting the kids live in an artificial environment where the kids are too sheltered. He was told that a child has to be tough to survive.
Perhaps he is right. Perhaps he is not. But it is best not to press the issue lest the case brings unnecessary unwarranted reprisals from certain quarters. Kids just have to learn to be tough and learn to depend on themselves within the school compound or wherever they happen to be.
It is unwise to let children have access to money when it can attract attention from others who need it for extra pocket money for cyber cafes etc or just to buy toys.
Perhaps the school administrator is right from his point of view. Parents will always jump to defend their kids at the first sign of problems and appear to be overprotective. But we can’t ignore the fact that there is a problem. The perpetrators will become bolder if they are ignored and left to their devices.
Maybe to nip the problem in the bud, don’t give the victimised kids any cash for a while. Provide them food, books and other necessary items. When the culprits notice that parents are taking precautions they may get the message and back off.
But if those bullies have outside gangsters as backup, then it’s a different story.
the kid will b beaten up if the school authorities r informed. i believe the threat. sum involved is huge for a primary school bully
Kids should have friends to go around with. Lone kids make easy target. Good thing Beng Hui knows wushu
he is in no position to protect himself. if a wind blows a little too hard, he will fly off into the horizon
I would say both parents and the school play a role in upbringing the child in this cruel rat eat rat world we’re all in.
But sure there are some black sheep parents that tai-ji all fault to the school or vice versa.
We all have to hear both sides of the story.
Have a good weekend Beng
in this particular latest case, the sum involved for the little child is Rm30.00 and a threat to bash up the child if the school authorities r informed
That ‘artificial environ’ point is so accurate.
The idea or rather the expectation of your child being ‘handled’ (or nurtured) to the very high and individualistic expectations of some parents, is quite simply, idealistic.
Take this sentiment, for instance:
“I do wonder why one has to “suffer” during the important growing years.”
I take ’suffer’ here to mean some form of stress associated with hard (meaning amount of) work. Or having to deal with some tedious, dull, unenjoyable or difficult parts of the learning process.
Now, unless we’re talking about all kids being highly intelligent, pray tell how teachers are supposed to ensure our kids can achieve high performance without experiencing some form of ’stress’ i.e difficulty.
Does the simple equation of Input=Output somehow not apply? Isn’t that really just about wanting things to be easy?
From the day we’re born everything requires effort. Remember that common phrase ‘growing pains’? Or how about ‘teething pains?’
The concept of ‘growing’ or ‘developing’ itself implies a process of ‘struggling’ to achieve a certain desired state. The level of difficulty is just gonna get higher, hence more stress-inducing as they grow. Soemwhere along the line, sooner or later, ‘gain’ is accompanied by ‘pain’ of mistakes or lack of effort.
Taking a larger perspective, what sort of characters are we nurturing/raising, should our children be brought up to expect to learn/achieve without some degree of difficulty or challenge to their comfort levels?
Were there such a thing as learning-without-stress-aka-suffer, how does this prepare them for real life? Can they ‘grow’? Are we even letting them do their ‘growing’?
One last time-honored expression: “No pain, no gain”
[Caveat: Cassie is a spinster, not a teacher. She however was brought up a sheltered, protected brat, who later paid tenfold inlife lessons when the apron strings were cut]
This is what I think about what the person in charge of the school says or thinks: TOTALLY BULLSHIT!
What is artificial environment? What is too sheltered? What is be tough to survive?
Do they expect the one being bullied to settle the problem by their own capacity? This is children we are taking about. What do they expect the children to do? To fight back the bullies? Or set up his own gang and revenge on those who goes around bullying? Crazy.
It is the responsibility of the school and the parents to protect the children. When a children is been bullied, the children are to either tell it to their teacher or parents. From there, appropriate action should be taken towards the culprits.
This is the same with adult world. If anyone try to anything to harm us, we will go and report to the police and the police will then take action towards the culprits.
This is the order of the current civilize world. We don’t go around taking matters and justice into our own hand.
This is another case whereby the one we expect to educate own children FAILED to educate!
We will talk more abt this when we meet