Every 15 minutes in Australia a child is bullied. More than 100,000 students stay home each day because they don’t feel safe at school.
But, as we all know, it’s not just school where bullying occurs. The growth in the number of kids on social media means that bullying can be relentless.
And it costs lives. Too often we hear stories of Australian teens taking lives after being bullied, like 14-year-old Jessica Tolhurst who took her own life on December last year. Her devastated mum Melinda Graham is now leading efforts to see anti-bullying legislation debated in parliament.
A town in the US state of Wisconsin is trying to curb bullying by fining parents of kids who bully. How this new law in Shawano works is that parents of students under the age of 18 will be given a 90-day warning from police if their child is caught bullying others.
If the child is found to still be bullying and the parent doesn’t do anything to stop it, they will be fined US$366. If the child commits a second offence within a year, the fine jumps to $681.
Shawano’s police chief Mark Kohl has told media they would target serious bullying that takes a clear toll on the victim such as physical, verbal or written intimidation, threats and emotional abuse.
“If it happens on school property, they have their own policies and procedures that we don’t enforce and we don’t get involved with,” Mr Kohl said. “This is basically [for] off the school grounds, outside of school hours.”
It’s a pretty extreme way to manage bullying, which, if you look at the figures above, is becoming something of an epidemic in Australia with kids being bullied to death. According to SBS, which has been running an anti-bullying campaign, up to three suicides across Australia could be linked to bullying.
But are fines the way to go? Opponents claim it is just a punitive response that won’t change behaviour but just hits the hip pockets of parents. It doesn’t arm mums and dads with the necessary skills to help them stop their kids from bullying.
And the big question is if fining parents actually impacts on the kids – will they care that mum and dad just forked out a few hundred bucks because they’ve been nasty to others?
There are other ways to help parents of bullies. Government organisation the Australian Institute of Family Studies has an online guide for parents who find out their child is hurting others.
“Parents need to take strong and immediate action to prevent bullying behaviour getting out of hand. If you find your child has been involved in some type of bullying, (there) are important things you can do,” it says. Here are some of the AIFS’s suggestions for parents:
Help your child to identify exactly what he or she did and to be accountable and responsive by saying sorry and finding a way forward.
Make clear simple, specific rules. Offer encouragement when rules are followed.
Set age-appropriate consequences, such as no television or loss of privileges. Be ready to follow through.
Give your child some goals and reward good behaviour. “If you behave then you will be allowed more pocket money or a treat of some kind.”
Increase supervision. Keep an eye on your child’s activities, whereabouts and friends, including their Internet and mobile phone use (these are fast becoming one of the key tools in bullying behaviour). Talk to the school about options for extra playground or class supervision.
Engage in your child’s digital world (do you know all of the different social media apps your child might be using?). Encourage alterative activities (non-violent games/TV) and friends, if needed.
Focus on teaching pro-social ways to deal with conflict and ways to avoid situations.
