Tragic case of bullying. Thoughts?

[lestatdark]

Mise said:

lestatdark said:
,

I know, I just said that out of frustration since I have a kid sister myself who has been a victim of bullying in the past. 

Probably it's one of the most difficult things to combat in nowadays schools, mainly because kids are rarely held accountable for their own actions. That sentiment of protection allows them to pretty much do whatever they want without thinking of the consequences.  

Yeah, I know. I was also bullied for the better part of my school years, so I know how dealing with that crap can be like.

Kids can be a lot crueler than adults when given the opportunity and tools to do it.

 

As for bullying - IMO one of the essential ways to deal with it is to make these kids realize what they're doing is wrong. Unfortunately, that just spurs some of them on, and many of them just don't realize what kind of damage they can do until they're older, and by then it's too late.

While punishing bullies for infractions is completely fine by me, you can fight bullying just with that, since that won't make them stop - they'll just move it outside of the school etc. to avoid getting caught. The same goes with teacher interference, which, when excessive, can only hurt their chances of curing the disease instead of just treating the symptoms, so to speak.

That's what's happening in here. Recent education laws have supposedly restricted inside-school bullying mainly because of infractions, punishments, fines and ultimately, expulsion from the school in question. 

But instead of solving the problem, it has taken to outside the boundaries of school, which has only aggravated the problem tenfold. Now we see kids who were being bullyed on school, suffering the same agressions on pretty much everywhere, as there are no methods of control outside of the school recint.

The biggest issue is that the common public doesn't care about that, since we still have that mentality of "The weak have to bend over for the strong", hence no one gives a flying damn about bullyed kids, sometimes, not even their own parents. That was what lead to the suicidal 12 year old kid of last month, even his parents wouldn't believe him.

If no one has the consciouness to deal with this problem head on, how can be ever hope that children will ever learn that what they're doing is wrong and destructive, not only for the ones that they are bullying, but also to themselves.