What Would You Do?
I was reading about the Parkland school strike when I also started reading about the recent debate of whether or not to ban fighting in the NHL. The debate about fighting in the NHL is kind of silly considering how much of an issue violence is in other aspects of life. This ended up in me wondering about a scenario in dealing with violence in the far future...
Imagine yourself in the future with a nice family, your own home, all that good stuff. You are happily married and a great job. One day you arrive home early from work and wait for the kids to come home from school. When your child finishes the big task of a schoolday in grade 5 and steps through the door you are horrified. Your child is crying and bloodied up. A bully has clearly beaten up your child. As far as you know, your child is pretty much average. Likes the typical kids movies, does well in classes except English, and plays regularily on the soccer team...
What would you do? Should your child fight back? Would you talk to the principal? Talk to the parents of the bully? What would you say in your talk?
And how do other factors such as gender play into this? I tried to keep it relatively gender neutralin this. Or at what point in school? What of their status in the hierchy of school?
I'm not exactly sure what I would do. I lean toward telling my kid to stand up for themselves. But I'm not sure how far, whether it be to tell them off, or to physically fight back. At what point would you get school authority figures involved? How long can you wait? How would you deal with the violence that happens like this?
3 comments:
For some reason I pictured myself talking to the bully's parents and then finding out that the bully's parents don't care and act disrespectful... and then I beat up that whole family. ... which makes me a family beater. /shrug
.. how'd I get to that??
The bully is obviously the instigator, so he/she gets an instigating minor penalty, a major for fighting and a ten minute misconduct. Team Bully will have to play hopscotch with one kid down for two minutes.
Seriously, we live in a violent world. Violence only instills more violence. Hopefully we, as future parents, will teach our children not to take revenge, but only to self-defend. Otherwise, the cycle of violence will never end.
If I ever become a father and found out my kid was severely beaten on school grounds, I'd fucking sue the school for a lack of supervision. Then, I'd move my child to a DECENT school. Fighting is preventable from getting too far if the school actually cares supervise properly. If the event took place off school grounds, I'd find the bully's parents and have a serious talk with them and hopefully find a peaceful solution. If they didn't give a damn, then I'd sue their asses too.
Yeah I agree with Dan's point of view. Too often it becomes about getting revenge and the violence just becomes reciprocated.
On the other side of the argument, I believe you can't act as if nothing happened. It shows a lack of care to your own child, and you be risking the child in becoming emotionally distant from you. I believe you need to handle this in a calm and correct manner so that you may set an example for how the kid should handle situations like this. If your child sees you yelling and screaming at the top of your lungs, it really shows and gives them permission to deal with situations in the same way. You don't need to get forceful and loud in order to show that you care about your own child's safety.
I'd say, enroll your son in karate. Then spread the vicious rumor that he's a blackbelt, and then he'll have no more problems. Worked for me in elementary :)
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