From the Anash.org Inbox: A mechanech wonders why we are all silent about the dangers of bullying and the horrible effect it had this week.
By A Mechanech Who Cares
Lag Ba’omer 5782. The sun is setting as the excited children are gearing up for the festive celebration and grand bonfires, when suddenly the devasting news starts trickling in.
TRAGEDY IN MIRON! What?! Where?! How?! Who? Was it a terror attack?
As the evening sets in, the details start becoming clear along with horrific and demoralizing videos which no man should ever witness.
Confusion is everywhere, how did this happen? Where did it start? Who is at fault? Many walk around helpless, not knowing what they can do to help this tragic event.
Many concerned mental health professionals and educators warn, we must explain to the children what happened. Give them perspective, help them heal.
Fast forward to 5784.
On Monday afternoon, the shocking news hits: BD”E. The child had a heart condition triggered by bullying, causing the young neshama of 12 to return to its maker.
Shhh… is all around. No discussion. No talking. Protect the mental health of those involved, they say.
As a parent, educator and member of the community, I witness bullying on many different levels – intentional and unintentional – causing minor effects to long term unrepairable damage.
Most of these stories stay quiet, keeping people’s privacy.
Without pointing fingers or blaming anyone, these past couple of days we witnessed the unpleasant, hard and harsh realty we live in and the urgent need of repair. We witnessed the far-reaching effect friendship has on a person and the urgent need to try and beautify it.
However, all is quiet, no talking about or discussing this. On the contrary, it’s being pushed under the rug.
I cannot help but wonder:
Every day, we get updates from Eretz Yisroel, and our minds are flooded with information that besides for saying Tehillim we can do nothing about.
Yet, when it comes to the hard reality that each one of us can improve our own conduct, which each one of us has the ability to affect our soundings, all is quiet.
This should be and must be the headline till we eradicate this poison. This subject must be our top priority till every child will be comfortable in class without fear from classmates, ever!
As we stand in Chodesh Harachamim, with less than ten days to Rosh Hashanah, let us take this episode to heart and see the power our words and friendship mean to others.
Make a change where it hurts most: take upon yourself to make amends with someone you snubbed out of your social circle, invite a person that irks you, and befriend your shy neighbor.
As we adults befriend others, our children will learn from our example and befriend their peers and with this resolve we will walk together to the ultimate Geulah may it speedily in our days amen!
Do this for an aliyah for the pure neshama of Menachem Mendel ben Yisroel a”h.
There is the obvious kind. And there is the kinds that are spoken about in Parshas mishpatim. The kinds that a person stole money from another and wouldnt give it back which caused tremendous agmas nefesh, spreading a false name, ingraining a negative character trait which destroys the soul and others….
All these effect the soul and sometimes like this example even the body.
Murder is not just a gun or knife which only effects the body, the evil is far worse when it ruins the soul.
As the Freierdiker Rebbe said “you can touch my body but never my soul”. For our soul is eternal. But when another touches another’s soul – the evil is inhuman.
Absolutely correct!!
It often takes something as tragic and major as this to Effectuate change
I was bullied in school.
Someone who works in an American Mesivta just called me recently, to tell me how seriously a boy was being bullied verbally and being excluded among colleges in among boys in his class in Mesivta.
Obviously the bullies choose a soft and vulnerable target.
The solution is very simple: A ZERO TOLERANCE POLICY FOR BULLYING;
If a child bullies another child, he is sent out for 3 min. If it happens again, he’s sent out for 5 min.
If the bullying continues, then Billy is experienced from school for a day.
If it still continues, them he’s sent out for a week.
If the bullying still doesn’t stop 🛑 🛑 🛑, the bully is expelled from school for good.
A perpetrator cannot be allowed on school premises.
This is my opinion
Now what is the way forward?
It’s hard to institute a zero tolerance policy because very often children quarrel back and forth, and are friends again the next hour or day. It’s part of social growth. And very often they’re both reacting to something. Say a child ignores another one and the ignoree feels hurt. Is that bullying? When the parent follows up, it turns out their child was begging everyone for snack so that’s why she was getting the cold treatment. It’s usually not a one sided mean thing. If you seriously follow zero tolerance, you may end up expelling half the school or more. Of course if there’sa rare exception the parents should speak to the principal etc. But more effective is teaching children how to resolve conflict peacefully.
Clearly you, or your spouse and children have never been bullied.
I am happy for you.
But if you are confusing “normal” conflict that comes and goes (and is to be expected) with genuine bullying, it’s not something are identifying with.
Thank you for this important article. I’ve been thinking of writing something like this, but this was very well written and made the point very clearly. Bullying is a real issue that many are struggling with. Maybe I am very sensitive to this topic because of what happened to my son last year. He was at a class Bar Mitzva in Crown Heights and a few boys started hurting him and pushed him down and continued hurting him. Somehow he managed to get away from the physical abuse and asked an adult for a phone. He called home in tears and asked that we pick him up right away. I was very bothered both that this happened and that none of the boys standing around had the courage to stop it.
Bystanders enable the bullies to operate.
I beg my kids: even if you don’t bully anyone (BH!), please please never stand by when you see someone being bullied.
The harsh unspoken reality is that usually bullying is learned at home.
Children grow up watching their fathers and mothers bullying everyone they can.
What do you think happens when they get to school?
Unfortunately, there is way too much tolerance for the bullies and not enough discipline.
“oh, bullies are bullying other because they are hurting inside…” and other excuses that educators make for them give them a very fertile ground to operate, destroying our most inoccent souls.
I know because I am one of them.
Please let’s take a lesson from kfar Chabad! Teachers, you can make a real difference in your classroom. Don’t let the bullies abuse anyone. Zero excuses. If the bully needs help, let them get the help they need not abuse innocent children.
I’ve been saying for the longest time.
Pikuach nefesh mamosh!
Bullying is a terrible, terrible thing that can break a child.
Death is a terrible, terrible thing that can break a family.
But do you know what can break an entire class, an entire school, or even an entire community? הוצאת שם רע.
Did the author investigate thoroughly to confirm that this tragic death was indeed caused by bullying and not an unrelated birth defect?
Did the author verify that the child left the bar mitzvah because he was bullied by his peers, and not because he was yelled at by a photographer?
Isn’t it necessary to conduct proper research before publicly accusing an entire class of murder right after they’ve lost a classmate?
This is something to seriously consider.
May the family be comforted, and may we suffer no more pain with the coming of Geula.
The writer is bringing up an vital issue and explicitly writes “without pointing fingers”, and here you are, the one pointing fingers?!
Maybe you can explain to me, what is the difference in blaming the classmates or the photographer, aren’t they both human and have feelings and guilt?
Even if you are right, I think everyone admits that something was wrong with the way things played out at the bar mitzvah in kf”ch.
Regardless, a huge wake up call is needed.
It started with bullying which led to death. Yes there was a heart condition but if the bullying didn’t occur the heart condition wouldn’t have had an effect to arouse and be a problem.
It’s like the Roman’s destroyed Beis Hamikdash.
Was it because we were few amongst the many? Or was it because lack of ahavas yisrael and sinas chinam caused the destruction?
Romans are only shluchim sent by Hashem. If we would have had avahas yisrael till today for that matter we would be in a whole different situation.
Yes, you are right. That would not be the correct way.
What do you say about children (boys and girls) who are repeat offenders and consistently dergai di yuren weaker kids around them.
They are known to their teachers and principals, but is anything being done??
My thoughts exactly.
Of course bullying is destructive and something that needs to be stopped, but we can’t attach that to this tragedy if we’re not actually sure what happened.
Boruch dayan ha’emes.
Clearly you, or your spouse and children have never been bullied.
I am happy for you.
But if you are confusing “normal” conflict that comes and goes (and is to be expected) with genuine bullying, it’s not something are identifying with.
The author wrote: “The child had a heart condition triggered by bullying”
The father stated that the heart condition was completely unrelated.
The child was assisted and comforted by all of his friends before the incident.
We must deal with the horrible affects of bullying without spreading false information that can harm many more people.
Imagine if you are one of those classmates who sat with the boy while he was crying after being yelled at, and tried comforting him. Next thing you know, it’s all over the news that the child’s death was triggered by you and your friends bullying, “without pointing fingers”?
It may be very true that at the Bar Mitzvah the classmates did absolutely nothing, however fact is the boy could not fall asleep a-day-or-two before the incident because of his classmates. and the father send him to therapy for years, to learn how to stand up for himself in the face of his peers.
The incident at the bar Mitzvah was the last straw on the camels back, whoever it was, the boy had a history with his peers.
Don’t get blinded by statements, look at the dry facts, and learn for them without getting cough up with the “children Saviors”.
As a teacher of young elementary age I have seen bullying many times.
I have found that the zero tolerance rule is very important but many times hard to carry out. Because bullying is not usually done in front of staff. And if you do enforce zero tolerance many times it will just cause the bully to get more creative and find a way to do it in a more secretive way and cover their tracks.
As a teacher I have found that empowering the bystanders is one of the most powerful things u can do. I spoke to my class that I can see there is some bullying going on here, and if u watch and don’t say anything u are also guilty. It is our responsibility to show that in this class bullying will not be tolerated. If you see a classmate being bullied stand up for them, show them support!
This is the only thing I have found to help a little bit……
Weaken the bully from amongst their peers.
You also are teaching the classmates an important lesson for life. Don’t stand by idly while someone is getting hurt ….
Please, please send this out to all our schools.
Despite reassurance from my son’s school, the bullying only got worse. So we changed schools.
After the first week of the new school, our son said, “Thank you for sending me to a new school. No one bullies me here.”
No one should bully him anywhere.
There needs to be a zero tolerance policy in our schools. More than that, the parents of the children need to be schooled, or we only can get so far. It’s up to the parents to hammer home the message. BULLYING is the equivalent to K*LLING ch”v.
In the merit of Mendy Bolton, we shouldn’t know of such things in the future.
The issue you mention is vital, as most bullying happens when there is no supervision, as parents we should plead from the schools there should never be a time when children are not supervised.
You guys in Yeshivas think its terrible. Wait till the kid goes to public school. I witnessed a child pleading to the crowd to give back his cruches, for he can’t walk.
I agree, it’s an important and well written article.
The writer does mention however, that this was happened because of bullying.