Bullying is nothing new in our schools or even in our neighborhoods. I personally observed it many times and was even the victim of some forms of bullying, or what came to be known as bullying, when I attended public schools in my home town of Easton. But the bullying victims among us then didn't' resort to killing ourselves to get away from it.
In order to understand the process of bullying it becomes necessary to understand why someone becomes a bully, and why people become the victims of bullying. I am not proposing we blame the victim. If I dislike someone enough to harass them, the problem isn't with them but with me. If we can understand why the bully does what he does, it will be much easier to head him off before he creates a problem for someone else.
Of course the first thing we have to do is to take allegations of bullying seriously, whether we are the parents of a bully, of a victim, or school personnel. The victim has to know that he or she can tell the adults in authority in their lives and be assured of a sympathetic hearing. Of course we also have to investigate allegations of bullying completely and objectively so as to weed out false accusations if they are made. Zero tolerance for bullying has to include zero tolerance for false accusations too.
The bully's parents have to be enlisted in the effort to prevent bullying. Parents who do nothing about it, or have the attitude that kids-will-be-kids, should be cited for something akin to aiding and abetting juvenile delinquency.
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