The notion of bullying as being some kind of harmless rite of passage is beyond inaccurate. Children can have their self-esteem and sense of safety wrecked by being bullied. Parents need to do everything possible to keep their children from being bullies, as such actions can not only cause harm to the children but also have the parents held legally accountable.
The Role of Parents
Some might scoff at the idea of parents being liable for the actions of their children, but being a guardian means keeping tabs on your children to ensure they’re not doing anything unsavory. A parent can’t monitor their children 24/7, but they can absolutely understand how a lack of involvement can make them blind to their children’s behaviors. A parent might be informed by a teacher that they’re disturbed by their child’s actions, but they respond to this with a shrug or dismissal. Instead of listening and intervening, they’ve opened the door for their child’s bullying even wider.
When Is It a Legal Matter?
A single instance of one child calling another a bad name isn’t going to be enough to get parents involved. There needs to be a more long-term, malicious intention and damaging effects. If a bully’s actions have left your child afraid to go to school, they’ve gone far past the point of this being excused as any sort of typical immaturity. Their parents might not have taught them to be bullies, but their enabling through indifference can make them just as culpable.
Whether a case makes it to court depends on the laws of your state. Although anti-bullying laws and ones holding parents accountable can be found around the country, you need to hold the facts of your case up against your local and state laws. Having plenty of evidence and witnesses matters a lot. You also need to consider whether your case is a civil or criminal matter. Speak with an attorney to go over the case and what kind of options you have. Justin Kimball from Preszler Law says that legal cases have arisen in which a parent can be held responsible for the actions of their children in the case of schoolmate bullying. All parents should know that the consequences of negligent parenting can quickly come back to them. Unless they want to find themselves as a defendant in a lengthy legal battle, they need to make sure they’re doing all they can to stop bullying well in advance.
The Effects of Bullying
One person can hurt another without meaning to. When they realize what they’ve done, they can apologize and both can hopefully move on. There’s no such thing as accidental bullying. It’s done through willful intent and results in all kinds of lasting damage.
Physical Damage
Although bullying is not restricted to physical assault, it definitely includes bodily harm. Those who are stronger or have other physical advantages can use these to torment another. It doesn’t have to go as far broken limbs to raise cause for alarm. Regular infliction of bodily damage is inexcusable, no matter how minor it might seem. Bullying can also lead to physical harm through your child doing damage to their body through things like cutting. No bullying-based injury should be considered acceptable.
Psychological Damage
The saying “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me” is completely wrong. Some of the most powerful weapons in a bully’s arsenal are their words. They’ll find any emotional vulnerabilities in a child and exploit them through insults and slander. Your child can easily take these to heart and become despondent. They might fall into a pit of depression and start to see themselves as being worthless. These scars don’t just heal on their own. The longer you wait to take action, the worse the effects can be on your children.
Fatal Consequences
Parental ignorance of bullying can be deadly. If a bully isn’t caught as soon as possible, their target could end up dead. It could be from the bully themselves or via suicide, caused by bullying. No one ever expects it to reach this point, but there’s no turning back when this happens. The parents of the bully might be devastated that their child’s actions went so far, but there’s no comparison to how the parents of the bullied child feel, a combination of devastation, anger, and disbelief that it was able to reach this point. Even if these instances are relatively rare, even one case is far too many.
Stopping bullying starts with parents. They need to teach their parents what bullying is and how to not be bullies. There should never be any blaming of bullied children for not letting things go or for not fighting back. If a disturbing behavior pattern has been observed, parents are obligated to listen and intervene so that it can be stopped.
