As schools around the country start to think about planning for the 2023-24 school year, I hope that parents and school staff around the nation remain diligently focused on preventing bullying at their schools. We simply cannot afford to allow any young person to have to deal with difficult psychological issues triggered by bullying. Let us allow everyone to enjoy school life in a safe environment.
Ideally every child should look forward to going back to school again at the end of their summer vacation. After a gap of three months, many typically enjoy getting back to the routine, meeting up with old friends, and making new friends. However, there are many for whom this is not at all a positive event – and that is not because they hate the teachers, or they don’t like meeting old friends, or making new ones. In most cases, these children simply do not want to go back to school again because they do not want to face bullying again.
For these children, the school is like a prison – it is not at all a safe environment to go into. I believe that many parents and school staff still do not understand how traumatizing bullying can be for some children. Every child has the right to get an opportunity to learn in a safe environment, and in my opinion, we as adults are failing miserably if even one child has to tolerate bullying when he/she is in school.