Editor, The Times:
Re: Bullying stops here
Every child, youth and adult will face bullying at some point in his or her life. Bullying is a societal issue that impacts everyone! It doesn't just take place at school nor does it happen to just children and youth. It can happen at the park, in extracurricular activities, in the workplace and even at home.
So where do we start to change this societal issue? Many focus on the school, as they have a responsibility to ensure our children are safe when they are not with a parent. But is the school really the place to focus on? We place too much responsibility on our school system to teach social development skills. Isn't school supposed to be where children go to learn academically and assist parents in addressing the important aspects of social development?
The place to start is in our homes. We are all busy parents but we chose to have children, and that comes with the responsibility of teaching them core values like respect, kindness and empathy.
Permissive parenting is becoming the "parenting style of choice" for many. In turn, this puts a larger responsibility of educating children and youth on core values and social development on the schools, community programs and services, and our community as a whole.
We need to ask parents to take 10- 15 minutes a day to talk with their children about their day, healthy relationships and core values. We need to ask parents to take responsibility for their children and make a commitment to invest in family. How do we do this? By bringing awareness to this topic, writing letters to newspapers, putting blurbs in school newsletters, posting positively on Facebook, etc. For parents who may not know how to talk to their children or how to teach core values, we can bring in professional speakers.
We should work with the schools, school board and PACs to address the issue of bullying and ensure accountability for one's actions is held to an appropriate level. There is no need to re-invent the wheel; there are some amazing school programs around B.C. that we can use as models that will meet the specific needs of our community.
I commend Clearwater for speaking out about this issue and wanting to take a stand against bullying in our community, but ask that we first look at the root causes of bullying and start from there.
Name withheld by request
