Daily Lessons from Life 09 June 2009

"Tue, Jun 09, 2009 The New Paper - Look bullies in the eye

MOST parents would pray that their kids do not get picked on in school. Not Madam Janice Tay, a mother of three. Let our children experience bullying, the 44-year-old housewife said. This way, they will learn how to deal with it when they grow up.

Madam Tay told The New Paper on Sunday: 'They cannot turn to their parents for help all the time. Eventually they will have to go on to secondary school and to university...Bullying can happen anywhere.' She has three daughters aged 17, 15 and 9.

Madam Tay's view was echoed by Professor Donna Cross, guest speaker at the Bully-Free Forum 2009 organised by the Singapore Children's Society (SCS) at the Spring Singapore Auditorium yesterday. Prof Cross teaches child and adolescent health at the Edith Cowan University in Western Australia, and is also the director of the university's Child Health Promotion Research Centre.

She said: 'We cannot let children believe that things will always be fixed for them...Instead, we need to empower them.'


Replying to a question from a member of the audience on how parents can help their children if they get bullied, Prof Cross said parents should get feedback from their children, give them the power to take control, and not merely tell them what to do.

'(Bullying) is a peer relationship problem, so children need to deal with it in a peer relationship way,' she added."

Standing up to bully in school. An interesting topic when the kids are young and some of them are unable to look out for themselves. I will be interested in 'bullying in the corporate world' like when bosses expected unrealistic results without giving 'adequate' resources and reasonable timeline to their staffs to accomplish. Many a times the 'victims' just bite his tongue and dig in and try his hardest to achieve the goals until he really could not get them done. Then he resigned or was fired and life goes on!

Lessons for me are:

1. the adult need to learn to fend for themselves too when bullied. This is especially so if the leaders' behaviors are truly beyond reasonableness as perceived by most of the people who work in the corporation. If one mirror shows one is ugly, it may not be true. However, if 9 out of 10 mirrors showed the ugly image of oneself, then it had to be true!;

2. while the adult need to learn to stand up for himself, the macro environment must be supportive as well. Hence, whistle-blower protected must be offered though the whistle-blower must have very accurate and truthful input on any bullying. It has to be a responsible method;

3. the most important and difficult thing to do is to act. Act immediately after confirmation of the 'bullying'. Collect data and facts and document them. What is no written down do not count in this situation. Getting independent 3rd party to be witness to the bullying will be strengthened the defense ever more.

Bullying exist everywhere and once in a while it happened to adults. The approach to repel it is the same from that used by a young school kid really. Do not allowed it to happen in the 1st place. If it did, take immediately action to face it head on and resolve it with help from the authority and peers or superiors. Bully must not be allowed to feel powerful and triumphant!