Ouch, I thought it was already.
In Sweden it is a criminal offense, has been for several years.
It really should be a criminal offense, however, more can be done with the actual school system imo.
I might add the kid who fights back to the bully gets the suspension not the bully. I must say that compounds it. Double punishment. So the message comes through, be a bully your victim will get into trouble and not you. Horrible.
If the bully got into trouble and not the victim I think it would change fast. But how?
Depends what kind of bullying we're talking about. Physical violence? Yeah, thats pretty serious. Inflicting severe pain or injury on someone should be handled with little tolerance. I'm sorry, but noogies and indian burns and such childhood antics don't exactly count as serious threats to safety. Lets be honest, kids from preschool all the way up to eighth grade dont exactly have the judgement or maturity to be expected to be punished for such behavior with anything more than a detention, at most suspension. Punching, kicking, throwing hard oblects or using any kind of weapon is bad though.
Pranks and verbal abuse aren't that horrible, unless swear words or convincing violent threats are used prevalently.
Sorry to double post. I can't quite find an edit button on my posts. If there is one, please someone point it out to me.
Is theft considered a form of bullying? This might be slightly off-topic. My nephew once had his DS stolen from his locker at school and nobody ever found the culprit. I eventually found it in the goodness of my heart to buy him a brand new one for the christmas season (a pain in the wallet to be sure
). I once volunteered at a community center where elementary classroom kids often went for some after school program, and there was child in particular who had a real problem with stealing. Money, gameboy games, trading cards... I dont think anyone ever did much in a means to make him stop or teach him it's wrong, and I'm not sure if he grew out of it...
I came across an article in the newspaper about a parents child is taking another parents child to court to gain a restraining order against the bully.
This action is not supported by the education department in queensland who contends such things should not happen since the teachers take care of it. (yeah sure)
A psychologist has weighed into it to say bullying should be made a criminal offence due to the lifelong effect on a child.
Currently there is no law that prevents bulling in the schools in Queensland.
My opinion is there should be strict antibullying laws with consequences for the parents if not a once off and corrected. Apparently the child doing the bullying has been suspended numerous times but is still there.
Agreed, physical bullying eg. bashing and mental harassment should be made a criminal offence and the police called in.
I agree. No child should have to go through this kind of thing.
Update on this thread. No action by the Queensland Education Department. Swept under the rug.
Ouch, I thought it was already.
In Sweden it is a criminal offense, has been for several years.
It really should be a criminal offense, however, more can be done with the actual school system imo.
Yeah, but then what I can´t understand is that if our Swedish goverment already see bullying in any form as a criminal offense, then why doesn´t the schooldepartment do something about it.. It´s their workplace no.1! I am a proud aspie and have been bullied during my first 9 years at school, again and again I told the head of our school to observe it and somethin about but he just ignored it and pretended it had never happened! Is this the way it should be???
Exactly. Common doesn't mean benign. After all, one in three women will suffer sexual abuse (by one statistic I heard... who knows, may be more), and I defy anyone to say that doesn't hurt anyone.
That can be pretty bad. The closest I have come to being molested was this weird dream where this guy tried to get to second base with me. And I am very thankful for that.
Yes, it should be. I guess I was kind of lucky because I was a born fighter, so anyone who tried to bully me I bullied them back. But it definitely affected me and especially my school work. I'd just obsess over being bullied that day and couldn't concentrate in class or anything.