WHEN BULLYING COMES INTO PLAY
Innocence, I always thought, is free from any form of bias. It is a pure trait that embraces differences without an iota of judgement or motive. I was wrong. While as a rhetoric the thought might hold some truth, on reading the first-person account on page 26, I realised that when innocence is associated with kids, it has to a large extent become an anomaly. Harsh but true.
The case in point being the phenomenon called bullying. I recently came across a 2015 report that said 1 in 5 teenage kids in the US suffers from some form of bullying in school. However shocking that statistic is, what is even more shocking is that the figure stood at 1 in 3 not too long ago. According to the same report, the drop in numbers has mainly been because of state intervention by way of stringent laws, and awareness campaigns carried out by survivors and some non-profit organisations.
That worries me more than the statistics as I instantly begin to wonder at what stage the parents of that kid who’s a bully bailed out from their role in moral turpitude.
While there are several parents among us who would, I’m sure, question my sweeping accusation, I point my fingers at those who have been incapable of raising an empathetic child. And by failing to do so, they are not just responsible for the menace the child already is but, worse, what he’ll grow up to become eventually.
However difficult or disconcerting it might be to accept that your child is responsible for decimating another child’s personality, it is important that you seek redemption by taking a long hard look at your role – or lack thereof – in the situation; analysing where you went wrong and
I wonder at what stage the parents of that kid who turned out to be a bully bailed out from their role in moral turpitude
finding a solution whereby your child understands his wrongdoings and is able to make amends for his own as well as for the social good. There is no shirking from this responsibility.
Having said that, I also wonder whether parents are responsible for bringing up overly sensitive kids, who are too emotionally fragile to handle criticism. Don’t get me wrong, for I am truly not trying to justify bullying, but there is no denying that it is a jungle out there, and only the strong survive.