Bullying - Are Lawsuits the Answer?

In the town where I teach 2nd grade, we have a specified policy outlining the steps to be taken in the event that a case of habitual bullying is confirmed. Both sets of parents are contacted and every attempt is made to nip it in the bud. Students are also exposed to anti-bullying activities and role-playing where they are encouraged to play both the role of the bully, the bystander and the victim with the hopes that it will give them tools to use in the event that they are in a similar situation. So far, it has had good results, but our hands are constantly tied when it comes to severe behavior problems. No law has clearly defined how well-behaved students' rights to a peaceful, safe learning environment overlap with poorly-behaved students' rights to an education, so students are forced to sit in classes with peers who may need more structured environments, but are tangled in the red tape required to get them properly placed. Not technically one-one bullying, but inappropriate just the same.

As a parent, whenever my daughter has come home with problems at school (all relatively minor to her but heartbreaking to me... so far), I usually try to blame the parents for their child's behavior, saying "Oh her/his parents never taught him not to speak like that/say that/share properly/listen to the teacher/not interrupt|"... whatever the problem has been and so far. It has helped my daughter be able to look past the behavior and see the child. Once, after she had lost her first front tooth, another girl in her class said "You look so weird"... I asked my daughter how she replied and she said to the girl, "You need to go home and ask your mother to teach you how to speak kindly". Very minor, and not bullying but I know that if some other child targeted my child, I would practice role-playing practice strategies at home with her, while documenting events. I would schedule immediate meetings with school officials on her behalf demanding class placement changes to seperate my child from the bully.

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Thanks for this wonderful article.Now a days people take inspiration to bully from various cartoon characters. When one hears the term “bully”, one may begin to think of television characters like “Butch” from The Little Rascals, “Mad Dog” or “Sweet Daddy” from Good Times, or Mafia gangsters like “Scarface”. The aforementioned characters are very indicative of the different kinds of bullies that are in our society. As often stated, art imitates life. Most people, as they watched these characters on television, were able to identify with them whether directly or indirectly. There may have been characters that reminded viewers of themselves or that reminded them of some other person whose path they may have crossed in their life time. It is probably safe to assume that everyone has bullied some other person or has been bullies by another person. There are many reasons that people become bullies or intimidators of others. So many people in this society are not good communicators or do not possess the adequate compassion or concern for the understanding of other people. This lack of compassion and misunderstanding translates into various types of bullying - verbal, emotional and physical.

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