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It is frustrating to see how much money is being spent on anti-bullying resources and how ineffective they are.
Those who do not have children find it great that they are constantly being bombarded with advertisements or statements from celebrities telling how bad they had it in their childhood or adolescence due to suffering the dreaded bullying. You think this works, right? Well, I’m sorry to take the blindfold off and tell you no, none of this works. Do you think that the boy or girl who does bullying is going to recognize that he is doing it? Do you think he’s going to feel bad and apologize? Do you think that the parents of these children really know the damage that their children are doing to other children?
No, no, and no, that’s my answer to all the questions. Parents think that their children are innocent of everything, they believe everything that their children tell them. “My daughter? My son? Impossible… if my son doesn’t talk to anyone… my daughter has given me another version… my daughter hasn’t done anything…” Of all these phrases there is only one with which I agree; indeed, your daughters and sons have not done anything, and if we applied that to the penal code, we could say that they have committed a crime of omission.
If someone is bleeding to death and you pass them by, you wait for them to die or you simply continue on your way, that is included in the Spanish criminal code as a crime; but, nevertheless, if they are seeing how they isolate a girl or a boy, if they are seeing how badly they are going through the words loaded with poison that a colleague who others supported… there are no consequences, just like if these girls or boys ignore the subject, or continue with their lives and ignore the victim. Nothing happens if they look at her badly and, despite being a normal, pretty, educated and intelligent girl, they make her feel like she’s a weirdo, because here, nothing ever happens.
Their mothers know it, but they look the other way, the school knows it, but they look the other way, of course, the signs about bullying on the stairs are very nice and socially correct, the talks about bullying are great for those who listen, and the phrases full of spirituality and solidarity DNA that imply the great and beautiful family that is built there as soon as you put on the uniform, it is beautiful.
Yes, all very nice, but, however, the reality that the victim of bullying suffers is different: while a video about bullying is played to raise awareness, the students review the French exam. For children, activities and talks against bullying go in one ear and out the other, the only thing that is achieved is to make the victim feel identified and have an even worse time, since their peers remain impassive.
On the other hand, the posters represent one more adornment, something decorative, or rather the ridicule of everyone, both the harassers and the harassed, who see nonsense, since their problem is getting worse, and the only solution it is to change classes, to change to those other classes in which she was also bullied in previous years, to go with the children who have continued to speak ill of her or him and have contributed to the current situation.
Do you want solutions? No, you don’t want them, because it would mean confronting too many parents, the victims are a lesser evil, since in the end they end up going to another school, and, once the dog is dead, the rabies is over. But, even if you don’t want them, I’m going to give them to you: Solution would be to punish the harasser and those who hurt by ignoring that boy or girl, because this is like a domino, if one piece pushes another, everyone falls, nobody wants to antagonize or get involved in trouble, no one wants to put themselves in the spotlight by approaching the victim, and therefore everyone ends up being a stalker in the end.
But don’t penalize them with expulsion, penalize them by going more hours to class, penalize them by causing them the same pain that the victim suffers, and, of course, never question the victim’s version. And a little detail, send the stalkers to the psychologist, not the harassed.
