Protecting the Bullies

IMO that is what the public school system in our area is doing. We dealt with bullying when our son was in school from kindergarten until the day he left. What bothers me about this whole issue is that the schools promote this zero tollerance of bullies yet 99% of the time they either get away with it or not much is done to them.

During my son's last year in ps a close friend of his was attacked on the playground by a group of boys. The boys were throwing footballs at the boys face while holding him up against a tree. My son tried to get him away. The result of the situation was that the bullies, and my son and his friend were all punished the same. The teacher seemed to think it an appropriate punishment. I did not. Neither did the other boys parents who took him out to homeschool him.

In kindergarten my son was constantly beat up on by a much larger boy and the teacher would not do anything about it. We met with her several times and all she could say was that she didn't see it happen so she couldn't do anything. After months of dealing with this we finally told our son to protect himself. He did and ended up in suspension. We told the principal that he would serve the time but we were glad he finally stood up to the bully. He and the boy ended up being good friends.

Now my mind returns to these issues because just in the last few months I have had two different groups of parents come to my husband and I wanting to homeschool their children due to constant bullying in school. In both instances nothing was done to the bullies when the children told on their attackers because as the teachers say "I didn't see it happen, so what can I do." That is an easy cop out for the teacher but it causes constant stress for those being bullied.

In one instance the student fought back and was still suspended even thought they were attacked 3 on one. This type of system is failing the students in public schools. I am a former teacher and I detested bullying, but my administration did not want to deal with it.

This leads to my point. In sight of all this I am surprised that there aren't more children taking matters into their own hands. Children, like adults, can only handle so much and they reach the breaking point. I believe that this is one of the reasons for the major outbreak in violence in schools, especially in our area.

And I know that children should be taught at home not to bully, but that leads to a discussion on the lack of morals taught at home. This too has been turned over to the school system. But that is a soap box for another day.

Just my opinion, had to share. (Excuse spelling errors, spellcheck would not work)