Parents demand St. Johns schools address elementary age bully

I’m all about taking action against bullying. However, people all spout off like bullies are “one of them.” But these kids have to be someone’s children and clearly their behavior is a sign that they are hurting, too. They are mistreating others for a reason — they are copying parents or television, they are working out insecurity or abuse issues.

They don’t need further alienation. They need confrontation and intervention. They need supervision & training.

The bullies (and the our children who will have to deal with them as adults!) are not served by temporarily removing them from the environment. They need practice in breaking the bullying habit & they can’t get practice sitting at home or roaming the streets without supervision.

Let’s also remember that some kids are real brats as kids, but do end up okay as adults & regret their childhhood behavior.

Last point — We DO need to stop the physical assaults. There are many, many children under the supervision of protective services or in foster or adoptive care who are still exhibiting some bad behaviors. They do get a lot better in their new homes, but it takes time. We need victims to be protected so resentment towards these kids doesn’t grow — yet victim’s parents try not to be too harsh as these improvements do take time & there will be occasional slips. Still, this is better than pretending that expelling a problem child will serve society in the long run. The problem set we are now dealing with today includes problems we ignored yesterday.