Bullying case: Bullies serve tea, apologise to victim
By Sebastian Loh, 5/11/2011
Just about everyone was outraged over the recently uploaded Youtube video which depicted the bullying of a female school student. Now the bullies and even their parents have apologised.
Just about everyone was outraged over the recently uploaded Youtube video which depicted the bullying of a female school student. Now the bullies and even their parents have apologised.
The Star, a Malaysian newspaper, reported that parents of three bullies apologised to the victim’s mother in person during a visit to the victim’s house.
Later, the bullies themselves (with their parents present) apologised to the 13-year-old victim at a restaurant. They served her tea as a penitent gesture and shook her hand, vowing not to bully her in the future.
The parents of another bully also intend to deliver their apologies to the victim in person.
In case you weren’t following this story: A Youtube clip showed female school students bullying their classmate. In a horrific scene, they cut her hair and used a tie to choke her.
Four students have been given a 14-day suspension over the incident. Deputy Education Minister Datuk Dr Wee Ka Siong said the penalties were issued following the Education ministry’s guidelines.
HAVE YOUR SAY: Sign in and comment on this issue. Do you think an apology is enough? Are the penalties for the bullies too light, too heavy, or just right? What can be done to prevent incidents like this in the future?
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Source: http://news.malaysia.msn.com/regional/article.aspx?cp-documentid=4833995
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Unacceptable, how can these students have the mind to hurt other people and worse still to their classmate. It is like they do not even have a mind to think that their action will not only hurt but may kill her. It is really scary to think that we as human as become so barbaric and inhumane. Parents should really pay more attention to their children. Bullying behaviour does not just happened over night. Children need to be guided with right values and attitude. In this case, the bullies need to learn their lesson. Serving tea and apologising is not enough. They are responsible for their action and the pain that they brought to the girl.
Bullies are made, not born. Bullies couldn’t exist without victims. As I grow older, in most cases, I think it is wisdom, not weakness, to walk away from a bully. For parents, it is essential to educate and encourage children speak up for themselves.
It’s very sad to hear bully cases again and again around us. This is an illness in our society. This is how a war started. Using power to take control and create sufferings on others and feel good about it. Am I blaming to the bullies? No.. this is society, community, family fault that fail to lead the next generation to the right path.
In this case , not only the bullies needed to be punished but the parents have to be responsible too. The victim that’s being hurt may have a life time anxiety or mental disorder. I do not think an apology or tea can brush off everything.
Bullying is repeated behaviour, done on purpose, to hurt, humiliate or otherwise evoke a negative reaction.
Bullying also often involves a power imbalance, either stated or perceived, where the bullied person feels they can’t address the behaviour directly without negative consequences. For me Apologies are only great if the person who is [or was] being bullied wants it. It depends on the individual.
In these modern day, children education with parents came most importants among all the education. What the parents act will affect their child. Yes, child will make mistake. Parents should take responbility and educate their children when the mistake had done. Apologise can accept only the children learn their lesson. Otherwise , children will repeating their mistake.How sincere apology from parents will not help their children.
Every where we can hear stories about students, wives, workers been bulled in school , colleges, and so forth. Bulling is nowadays common as societies is getting more complicated. Saying and serving tea does not matters at all.
Apologies sincerely that matters and not just saying it . There is nothing quite like a sincere, heartfelt apology to mend a broken relationship and pave the way to a brighter future. One of the hardest things we may ever have to do in life is deliver a sincere apology. We can never go wrong with an apology sayings from our heart. Bullying is a persistent pattern of mistreatment from others that causes either physical or emotional harm.
All these are taught from young, parents got a role to teach their children. Nor matter what anger or any reason to outburst , both sides the bullies and the one been bullied need to control their feelings.
The need of power & control, the desires of human, have ruined & still ruining the world, from bully to war.
If we don’t realize this, we would just watch the earth burning & turn into ashes.
Bullying is not only in schools, colleges, universities. It can be found almost everywhere where there are some people who intimidate others they find are weaker. Bullies are usually physically larger in size but there are some who are smaller and use their intelligence to bully others, causing mental pain to their victims. Bullies seek pleasure from causing physical, verbal and mental harm to their victims and I think with this habit, these bullies may grow up to be aggressive in their adult lives. They get much satisfaction from having control and power over others they bully.
The animal kingdom, with either a male of female domineering over the rest of the pack, may be also considered a form of bullying.
In this case, I will say had the parent and the school learnt. The parent and school should learn that they have major role to play for both bullies and victim. The bullies need to follow up closely because bullying is the behaviour repeats and has potential to be repeated. The parent should know that the apology with tea is not the final solution but it is the parent’s responsibility to find out the cause of his child behaviour, and not to be surprised that part of the reason is the parent. If the case not handle carefully, it would created more hatred in the mind of the bullies. At the same time, the victim also need to follow up closely to ensure that she feel safe all time. I believe that out there have more bullying cases in school but some school may because of to protect the school reputation and did not take a serious action on the bullies and this cause more harm to the victims and encourage the bullies to do more. It is not only the issue of the child but the parent, school and society has the responsibility for what was happening,
Apologies or not even with tea or with the whole banquet, it doesn’t matter. The thing that matters is, whether they were sincerely apologies or not. Plus, the whether the victim really forgive or not, it’s another story. If not, their karma will be continue on and on. Whether the penalties is heavy or light or not also doesn’t matter. It matters if the bulliers sincerely apologies and will never repeat the same mistake, yet they are forgiven, it’s the heaviest penalties, it comes from the guilty heart.
There’s no way to prevent incidents like this in the future. Only through sturdy dharma can overcome these incidents. It’s the karmic connection between the bulliers and the victim. They have to walk through the process. What school side can do is to only tighten the discipline.
I don’t really know how to answer this… apologies if it’s just for the show, will never bring any good as it’s not sincere. Even when one apologises sincerely, it doesnt make the victim forget about what had happened. When harm is done, it has been done. As to how to prevent this from happening, I feel there is no way to prevent this as link it with the karma link and bullying has to be something that was brought forward from previous lives imprints. Unless everyone of us are able to liberate ourselves from samsara, bullying will still be apart of what we had to live by.
The root cause of bullying may come in few reasons. First, I would think from home education. Children that are being pampered, spoiled or lack of care and love from parents is one of the reasons. Therefore, by teasing or making fun of the weak will make them feel powerful and strong. In long run, such activity may become more aggressive due to enjoyment and may turn violent.
In this article, I think offer an apologetic tea would not solve the problem. Both parties the bullies and the victim need take precaution actions. The bullies and their parents should take counselling and need supervision from time to time so that their children attitude are being guided. Apart from them, the victim’s side is the same. Hence more supportive program involved to boost self esteem and confidence such as martial arts.
An apology is really not enough if the person who apologize is not sincere and still thinks he or she is right. I have no comments regarding the penalties as it is a formality from the authorities way of handling issues. By right, the bullies should have counselling sessions to find out the root cause of them bullying others. To prevent this kind of incident to happen in the future, parents play an important part to bring up their child in the correct manner.
Bullying begins when an individual feels the need to dominate and subjugate another into submission to his or her will. It may even begin with a simple case of wanting others to do to his or her will. On getting away once, the habituation of bullying begins.
As during our blog discussion and explained by Pastor Henry, on the spiritual level, it is the carrying forward of our previous lives’ karma and we continue to do so until we find a way out on understanding the Dharma to purify this negative trend of our imprint.
However on the normal way of understanding bullying is like an illness and sometimes understanding the purpose why and on consultations with professional medical personnel can help.
With regard to apologising out of pressure may not help the bullying person to change but with understanding the harm that one can afflict on others, may help.
Let us always try to seek the root cause of these bullies and help with the best we can.
According to survey, “those who bully others are looking to gain a feeling of power, purpose and control over you” and I believe that. Bullying comes in so many forms and most of them leave damaging effects on the victim. I read about victim ending their life because they couldn’t face hurt and humiliation. If one ever feels anger or lost, always talk to someone who can help. Let it out and not be tormented with guilt and pain. Why do you want to let the bullies ‘win’? Instead, pick yourself up and do something to help others in similar situations. Everyone deserves a second chance, be it the bully or the victim. Nobody wants to be in a bad situation and most of the situations make us do stupid things that we regret. Lets help each other understand better. Just reach out and ask for help. There are many out there who care.
I can’t say whether it’s too light, too heavy or just right. I think it has more to do with whether the bullies realize what they were doing is wrong and not to repeat it again – if they don’t, however heavy the punishment is, it won’t help them.
And as a side story, I’m not sure whether people think with Internet they don’t need to be responsible with what they say, or hide behind a fake identity – a lot of people these days tend to jumped into conclusion, setting up hate page and head hunt, and post harsh comments accordingly, like threatening to slap them, beat them up, ask them to suicide, etc. In my 2-cents of opinion, what they did is no different from the bullies – only that it happens in cyberspace; it’s what’s called cyber bullying.
And it’s not the first time people think they’ve found the culprit(s)’ profile(s) and posted confidently saying they’ve found the culprit, and a lot of people start post harsh comments on the supposing-ly culprit(s)’ facebook wall, and quite a lot repeat the same post of “found the culprit(s)”. But in the end, it turns out it’s a mistaken identity (both in the poor poodle Sushi’s case and this one as well).
From newspaper: http://www.guangming.com.my/node/102876?tid=3
(sorry it’s in Chinese, I tried to translate this one line below):
“我可以說，當時欺負我的人是另外兩名同學，而報章上所寫的幾個人，當時根本不在現場，她們是來自隔壁班的學生，而且我們並不認識。” (What I can say is, the two who bullied me at that time is not the same persons reported in the newspaper, they’re another 2 students; the two reported in newspaper were not at the place that time; they’re from another class, we don’t know each other.)
I watch a Hong Kong TV program before (I can’t remember the name as I just happened to turn on the TV at that time, which I rarely do these days) and on that particular episode talks about cyber bullying, especially among the teenagers. Most of the time, the victims are so traumatized that they’re afraid to go to school and in the end they have to change to another school.
So I really think we need to think carefully before we act, whether cyber space or in reality, we need to be responsible for our own action, ’cause no matter how we run and hide, karma will follow us anywhere we go.
I think it’s important that the bullies learn. Applying regret and remedial actions, such as serving the victim tea and giving a humble apology, could work. Or it’s possible they could be doing it to avoid punishment. In that case would punishing them further make it worse? Maybe as a result they will take it out on the victim, or someone else?
Bullying can have a profound impact on the victim’s mind. But IMO kids just simply don’t know better, they’re still learning many things for the first time. The bullying could also stem from problems at home or their own personal issues. Should really try to examine the situation, apply a method like teaching the bullies exactly why it was wrong in a way they can understand, and not go on a witch hunt. There is no solid object to point blame towards.
The victim should receive more attention than the bullies. The bullies will remember the event and receive the karma back in a way, but it is probably much more intense for the victim. Should let the person know how wrong it was and that they don’t deserve it, and not let it grow as a part of “who they are” all the way through adulthood.
I don’t think we can measure the “repentance” in terms of how heavy the penalties are or if an apology is enough, or even if monetary compensation is given.
I think the repentance is enough when it is sincere. Some will wonder how we can measure that, and we can’t, but if there is sincerity in the regret and in the reparative action, then whatever that action is should be enough.
Just my thoughts.