Who’s to blame if my child is being bullied? (Where Do I Point The Finger?)
By Antoine G Larosiliere
In a world where pointing the finger is usually the first reaction to any problem, parents want to know who’s to blame if my child is being bullied.
If you’ve ever had a child that was being bullied, and were desperate for answers; I sympathize with you. Like many other parents, the main question I had was who’s to blame if my child is being bullied. I did some research, and the difficult truth is we are; every parent and adult. Whether the adults are in direct connection with the child or not, we are to blame.
“Being different isn’t justification of such aggressive and foul treatment. The truth is, getting bullied can happen to anyone.”
Don’t blame the victim..
When someone is being victimized by bullying, we should never, ever blame the victim. Being different isn’t justification of such aggressive and foul treatment. The truth is, getting bullied can happen to anyone. The real reason someone gets bullied, most of the time if not always has nothing to do with you. Some of the reasons why bullies bully is because of abusive or neglectful homelives, insecurities, and learned aggressive tendencies. It’s true that bullies tend to target specific types of individuals, and you can read about those qualities in the article What Are Most Kids Bullied About? The bottom line is…it’s not an excuse! To keep from blaming the victim, we must stay away from certain expressions that people often misguidedly use. Some of these expressions include…
- “It’s your fault, you deserve it.”
- “You can’t keep being like that, you should change.”
- “You brought this upon yourself.”
- “How come you didn’t fight back?”
- “You’re being too sensitive.”
- “It’s almost like you asked for it.”
- “Stop being you, and it won’t happen anymore.”
Is the school to blame?
Although our children spend most of their day on school grounds, schools should not be blamed for bullying. If there is a bullying incident that has occured in a school, that doesn’t mean the same incident couldn’t have happened elsewhere. Bullying happens in areas where there is a constant interaction of children, with little adult supervision. Those areas are usually playgrounds, malls, parks and yes, schools. The areas in schools with less supervision are the playgrounds, stairwells, bathrooms and locker rooms. There are some occasions where a school can face legal action for the occurence of bullying. A school could find themselves negligent in the prevention of bullying and liable to blame if they…
- Fail to institute anti-bullying rules
- Neglect anti-bullying awareness or education
- Fail to train teachers and staff members to prevent bullying
- Ignore complaints about bullying
- Overlook or allow bullying behaviors
- Break a state law or policy regarding bullying response procedures
- Discriminate against protected classes
Do we blame the bully?
It’s easy to blame the bully. After all, they are the aggressor in a bullying situation. The truth is, they aren’t to blame either. For the most part, bullies were at some point a victim of abuse and neglect. According to stompoutbullying.org, these bullies are “children of divorced parents, or children with parents under the regular influence of drugs/alcohol.” They are merely displaying the behavior they were taught or lashing out from the neglect they received.
Can we blame the siblings?
Sometimes the siblings, usually the older ones can be part of the problem. If the siblings are being bullied by their parents or by others outside the home, they often retaliate. On the other end of this retaliation are often siblings. They will bully their siblings to empower themselves by controlling how someone else feels or behaves. This must not be confused with sibling rivalry or a general disagreement between family; this is bullying. But these sibling bullies I don’t believe should bear the blame either. They are merely reacting; although in an unhealthy manner, to the behaviors that have hurt them. Ultimately the origin of the behaviors come from adults.
Can the parents be blamed?
It’s important for parents to do everything it takes to prevent their children from being bullies. Parents who have not done so, could be found negligent and held legally accountable. The abuse needs to have malicious intent leading to long-term damaging effects to pursue parent culpability. If a parent were to be charged, whether it makes it to the court or not depends on state anti-bullying laws. Neglecting or enabling through indifferences depending on the state, might be enough to make a parent culpable.
Researchers at the University of Warwick found that overprotective parenting can have adverse effects on children. Parents who try too hard to buffer their children from harm, they assessed, can actually hurt them.
What to do?
Imagine if the child being bullied is yours? How would you want the parent of the bully to behave? Whatever you think the other parent should do, is probably what you should do. Try taking these to ensure you are doing just that….
- Take the accusation or the bullying situation seriously.
- Take steps to address the problem with your child and his school.
- Remind your child the seriousness of the bullying problem and the legal consequences it can have.
- Monitor your child’s use of technology.
Is society responsible?
If parents are to blame, it’s safe to say that adults are to blame. And if adults govern every faction of society, blaming society means blaming the adults who create it. The media, politics, education, entertainment are a few of the important aspects of our society. They influence our beliefs and set the guidelines for our actions. So when a child is repeating behaviors learned from a video game, or a youtube video, society can be blamed. When your child is using abusive rhetoric after seeing our politicians use the same rhetoric without consequence; yes, you can blame society.
When bullying occurs, people often will look to place blame. That blame is falsely placed on the victim, the bully, the school and maybe even the siblings. Unfortunately the real blame is on us, the adults who have created the systems that perpetrate abuse. I hope this has been helpful. Also visit my YouTube channel for more insight to these topics.
The Bully Experience "Daniel's Story"
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