Who is ultimately responsible for school bullying – parents, schools, the victims?
CNN’s Rick Sanchez and I had a lengthy on-air discussion yesterday afternoon on bullying, the roles of teachers and parents, who is responsible when a bullied teen commits suicide, and what parents can do to support their children who may be bullied or have other safety concerns at schools.
(* This video is hosted on my Youtube channel, which may be filtered on some school and workplace computers. .)
This story stemmed from the latest school bullying case in Massachusetts resulted in the death of 15-year-old Phoebe Prince and criminal charges against nine teens.
Rick and I discussed a number of issues:
- Should kids just be tough and “suck it up” if they are bullied?
- Can a person be held responsible for another who commits suicide?
- Parent or teacher: Who is responsible for detecting something wrong?
- Should teachers have acted in the Massachusetts case?
I talked about the need for educated parents who are advocates for their children and for school safety. The need for time, training, and prioritizing of school safety, climate, security, and related issues also came up.
Rick and I ended our discussion with a father-to-father exchange which has generated a lot of positive feedback on my end.
Who do you believe is responsible for bullying and for responding to it?
Ken Trump
Visit School Security Blog at: http://www.schoolsecurityblog.com
Rick and Kenneth thank you for tackling a tough issues head on. Yes there has always been bullying but as Kenneth notes the climate today is totally different. Peer pressure is far greater than it has ever been.Anti-bullying is a multifaceted approach. All parties who have a role in the education of our children, teachers, parent’s and yes even law enforcement.
Schools need to take down the wall of “we can do this by ourselves” and do what we are asking the students to do: ask for help. Because we will help.
Having lived through the loss of a son due to an act of bullying, I have dedicated the last seven years to helping in anyway I can to stem this tide of violence and a majority of is education and prevention. If our school had simply put out letters to the community that there was a hazing issues and they needed our help to stop it, my son may never had been assaulted. But they did after his death beacuse I pushed for it. We need to build the PTO’s back up and have parents attend now only for bake sales but to shift the culture in the schools.
Unfortunatly some of the warning signs of teen depression and teen suicide are very close to normal adolescent behavior. In some cases they don’t want to burden the parents, and they want to handle the situation themselves. But we know they cannot.
Thank you again for the conversation and happy to help. We are all to blame for the state of our schools and we all ahve to take some responsibility for the clean up.