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What children wish adults understood about school bullying
The key challenge lies not in how bad behaviour is punished but in how a broken sense of safety is fixed.
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Addressing bullying is not just about attending to the crisis in that moment or punishing acts of misconduct, but also about mending a child’s psychological sense of safety, says the writer.
PHOTO ILLUSTRATION: PIXABAY
Ang Boon Min
When a child is bullied, the immediate adult instinct is to try to “fix” the situation, usually involving a focus on consequences for the bully.
The Ministry of Education has taken a much-needed step in reviewing schools’ approach to bullying and rolling out a set of nine recommendations after eight months. Much media attention and the public discourse since then have, unfortunately, disproportionately focused on the standardisation of disciplinary measures across schools, including caning, suspension and conduct grade adjustment.
