If your child encounters bullying, listen carefully to what he says and how he wants to approach the problem. Talk to his homeroom teacher and be sure that the principal is also aware of the issue.
You will need to work closely with the school to overcome the problem. By Kirsty Kawano. What is best for my child? When the topic By Elizabeth Sok. We show you By Chiara Terzuolo.
By Kirsty Kawano May 7, Families. The current definition goes something like this: Ijime is an act by a student, or students, toward another student that inflicts some physical or psychological consequence causing the receiving child mental or physical suffering. Cruel intentions Whether suffering has been caused or not is judged based on the standpoint of the child who has been bullied.
In second place, at Fisticuffs made up just 7. Taking a stand The dynamics of ijime include not only the bully—or bullies—and the victim, but also those nearby: onlookers who fall into two categories, the audience and the bystanders.
What you can do So our children need our support. Here are some options if you want to seek advice from other sources, too: The Tokyo Metropolitan Education Consultation Center holds English phone consultations every second and fourth Friday of the month between 1 p.
Tel: This free service can also arrange an in-person consultation. It is closed on public holidays. Japan Helpline is a non-profit English-speaking service that runs 24 hours a day. The then second-year student had reportedly been a target of chronic bullying by the trio since enrolling in the middle school in After finishing morning activities related to a sports club that the boy and the trio belonged to, the three told the boy to come with them to a city park where they allegedly punched and kicked him repeatedly.
Noticing that the boy had stopped moving, one of the three called for an ambulance. Prefectural authorities arrested the three later that day on suspicion of injurious assault. They were later sent to a juvenile reformatory. Further investigation, however, led to the suspicion that the three likely assaulted the boy in turn while surrounding him.
The school did not acknowledge the boy had been bullied until it conducted a questionnaire-based survey among its students in January after the incident. Up to that point, the school had recognized altercations between the boy and the trio on eight occasions from April to December , including a fight that broke out in class after the boy was teased by the trio.
At that time, the teacher reprimanded both the boy and the trio, possibly unaware the boy had been bullied. Respondents reported they saw the boy frequently beaten by the trio and others immediately after they enrolled in the school in There were also reports of the boy being verbally abused with phrases such as "kimoi" creepy and "Don't come near me. The trio threw a ball into a pond near the school, then ordered the boy to retrieve it. As the boy waded into knee-deep water, the three taunted him and took pictures with a cellular phone.
They later showed the images to their friends for amusement. The board of education also found the trio forced the boy to play a game involving money dubbed "the home run game," in which the boy pitched a ball for the trio to hit.
According to the rules established by the trio, the boy had to pay yen every time they successfully hit the ball. The education board said it could not confirm whether the boy actually paid money. The mother recalled the boy had complained of a stomachache around last April and often missed school. Now she wonders if that might have had to do with bullying. But the boy started going to school again the following month because he "loved the club" he belonged to, according to the mother.
He has suffered cardiac arrest twice--just after the incident and again this spring. He was weaned from ventilatory support, but is still being fed through a tube. His mother goes to the hospital every day after work to take care of her son. After the eight children were killed at a school in Osaka in , schools began locking their gates, organizing parent patrols, stalling cameras, arming teachers with weapons and encouraging them to take martial art classes.
Some schools have installed automated locked gates and biometric palm vein scannersthat can read the prints of relatives and others who have registered their palm printsto keep unwanted intruders out of the schools. The government has proposed suspending bullies from school and easing the definition of what constitutes physical punishment.
There is been an effort to get kids to help each other battle bullying though meetings, mediation, tutoring and befriending,In , the government introduced a plan to crack down on bullying by imposing harsher punishments on bullies and teachers that encouraged bullying or turn a blind eye to it.
Students caught bullying face suspension from school. Some politicians have pushed for a return of corporal punishment, especially for students that repeatedly break the rules, and giving teachers more flexibility in issuing physical punishment. There are supposed to be rules and procedures for suspending students involved in bullyingthe School Education Law, revised in , requires itbut school boards have not established them.
Students who are bullied at one school are allowed to transfer to another school if they cite bullying as a reason. Some students are taking their complaints to the courts.
The plaintiffs claim they were beaten and bullied on a daily basis over the course of several years. One of the victims sustained severe burns when hot 70 degree water was poured on them. The notification also gives specific examples of cyberbullying, which has become conspicuous among young people, that could be subject to criminal charges. Teachers often offer little help, sometimes even ridiculing children who are different.
A year-old in Osaka sued his teacher for standing by and doing nothing while he was bullied by other students. Some homeroom classes have an environment that is conducive to bullying. These homeroom classes have several common features.
It is important to create an atmosphere in the homeroom class that does not condone bullying, through instilling a sense of fairness in the students and encouraging friendships. Unfortunately, few classroom leaders are willing to stop bullying, or can lead the class without bullying.
Most bullying occurs in the presence of bystanders Morita and Kiyonaga Almost 45 percent of all students responded that they did not stop bullying when they saw or heard about such incidents, while only one-fourth of students told their victimizers to stop.
Ten percent of students asked for help from adults when they saw or heard others being bullied. Older students did nothing to stop bullying Morita et al. According to a survey, 33 percent of male students and 23 percent of female students blamed the victims of bullying, while about one-fourth of middle school students blamed the bullies So-mucho- According to a survey of middle school students, bystanders are more likely to come from nuclear family with stay-at-home mothers.
Masataka suspects that the attitudes of bystanders are caused by the childrearing style of stay-at-home mothers who spoil and overprotect their children Masataka Bullying violates the human rights of the victim.
Homeroom teachers can create a homeroom class in which bullying is not tolerated. Teachers need to control their students.
If the teacher is too strict, the students become frustrated and stressed, and accept the necessity of targeting the weak and vulnerable. Teachers need to keep an eye on students who are likely to be bullied, because only one-fourth of those who were bullied spoke to a teacher, in most cases a homeroom teacher. In fact, approximately 40 percent of elementary school students and one-third of middle school students who were bullied wanted a homeroom teacher to intervene. More than half of the victims said that their teachers did not know about the bullying, although It is interesting that bullying occurs even among teachers.
More than half of all elementary and middle schools have reported that bullying occurred among teachers as well Morita et al. Teachers should lead discussions on bullying with their students, help those who bullied express their frustration, and offer emotional and spiritual support to the victims Ho-musho- Teachers need to attend counseling training and workshops, and work closely with school counselors.
Since the school year, school counselors have been assigned to some schools. In the school year, 6. Since , the National Education Center has provided a toll-free hotline for information and counseling about bullying in order to help students, parents, and teachers. Bullying can become a criminal or legal matter if the victim is injured or killed. In , police were called in on bullying cases, and youths were arrested Naikakufu a.
If an offender is younger than 14 years old, the Child Consultation Facilities usually takes the case to the child welfare commissioner and committees Child Welfare Law 26 and If necessary, they can bring the case to the Family Court. With children between the ages of 14 and 19, the Family Court hears the case. If the offender is 14 or older, and the bullying was violent enough to warrant imprisonment, the Family Court decides whether or not the case should be transferred to a criminal court.
Some parents of the victims who took their own lives or were killed because of bullying may sue the school and the parents of the offenders for compensation. The courts can find the school guilty of negligence if the damage could have been prevented if the school had recognized the bullying, and handled it appropriately. Middle school students are old enough to take legal responsibility for their behavior; therefore, parents are not held liable unless their negligence is proven to have caused the bullying Ho-musho- The assault victim, a second-year student at a municipal middle school, had been a target of bullying since September, the board said.
The victim was told to go to a park in the city on the evening of Oct. In a park restroom, he was punched in the face twice by a year-old classmate, sustaining a fractured jaw bone. His parents reported the assault to police, and the classmate was arrested on Nov. Another boy, a third-year student who was allegedly in the restroom with them during the incident, was arrested on Dec. Seven second- and third-year students were reportedly at the park when the assault took place.
According to the investigation, the assault on the victim was carried out at the urging of another classmate, 13, whose relationship with the boy had soured. This boy had been hitting the victim since the previous month, the local education board said.
The victim's parents said the boy had been hit more than 50 times, while the classmate said he was just "playing.
The incident took place on June 4, at a school in Tanba, Hyogo Prefecture. One of the teachers at the school found the year-old boy crying and the school reported the bullying to police.
Three of the four boys have admitted bullying the boy since last year, while fourth denies the charge, police said. One of the bullies said the victim never complained about it before. Meanwhile, the school said that in May, it had warned one of the bullies after a teacher saw him kick the boy in the stomach, NTV reported. The three boys, all aged 15, allegedly burned the hair of a year-old boy and broke his nose, the police said. The Neyagawa Police Station arrested the three boys on charges including assault.
The police also took into protective custody two other boys, both aged 13, who were also said to be involved in the bullying. One of the five went further on May 28, punching the boy in the face in a classroom at their school and at a city shrine, police said. The boy's injuries from this incident took about two weeks to heal.
After the teacher confirmed he had been bullied by the other boys, the school's principal consulted with the police station, and the boy and his guardians filed a damage report with the police. The boy reportedly told the police the other boys had used him to run errands and extorted pocket money from him since he was a first-year student.
If I refused, they'd hurt me by kicking and punching me," the police quoted the boy as saying. The school recognized that bullying was going on and made sure the boy was in a different class from the alleged bullies in his second year, which they believed had solved the problem.
However, the boys began spending time together again in the third year. The police said one of the two year-olds is a second-year student at the same school and the other is a second-year student at Moriguchi municipal middle school in the prefecture. According to the ruling on Wednesday, the man, a restaurant owner in Ishikawa Prefecture, hit the boy in the face at a. The ruling said the man struck the boy because his daughter, 12, asked him to do so out of fear she would be bullied again when she went back to school.
The girl had been unable to attend classes for a certain period due to the bullying, it said. The ruling went on to say, "It is understandable a parent would want to help their child, but barging into a classroom during lessons and assaulting the boy in front of other students is extremely aggressive. A board of education in the municipality where the school is located denied the man's claims, saying no bullying had taken place. The man received a summary order in January to pay a , yen fine for injuring the boy, but requested a formal trial, saying he wanted a public appeal to argue his daughter had been bullied.
In October , a second-year middle school student In Otsu in Shiga Prefecture committed suicide by jumping from the top of the story condominium where his family lived after being bullied. The students suspected of bullying the boy, all classmates, were aged 13 or 14 at the time of the bullying. In Japan, people aged 14 and over can be held criminally responsible. Some students called or sent an e-mail to bullies to inform them he would take his own life just before he did so. The second survey revealed the bullies "held a mock funeral" for the boy and "choked him, saying it was practice for when he killed himself.
Police are trying to confirm whether the vandalization at the boy's family's condominium may have triggered his suicide, as the boy reportedly told the bullies by e-mail the same day that he would kill himself, sources said. At least five other students said in their responses to the survey that they heard the boy had told the bullies of his plan to kill himself. The girl, who was in the same grade as the deceased, The Yomiuri Shimbun she sometimes saw the boy at the window near his classroom, surrounded by the three students believed to be the bullies, who ordered him to practice committing suicide.
The board, however, concluded it could not confirm the event took place because all 16 said they did not directly see the suicide practice but only heard about it.
The female student said she did not complete the board's survey as she "can't trust the school because it overlooked the bullying. The three boys surrounding him laughed, saying, "Practice committing suicide.
But I thought it was dangerous," the girl said. According to a survey at the Otsu school attended by the suicide victim boy some students claimed the teachers were aware the bullying was going on but turned a blind eye. A student who saw the scene reported it to a female teacher. The teacher cautioned the bullies by saying, "Cut it out" from a safe distance. To my mind, she behaved like the wife of a gang boss who chides gang members over quarrels in a yakuza movie.
In another incident, the student was punched by one of the bullies in a school restroom. A student who was aware of the incident reported it to a male homeroom teacher, who continued his activity preparations, saying only, "Wait a second. If we're accused of overlooking the bullying and missing a chance to grasp what was happening, we'll have to accept that," he said at the Otsu municipal office. We didn't notice, rather than didn't suspect," he said.
The principal said he had been told twice the student was bullied before he committed suicide. However, the teachers concluded the incident was only a fight because both sides denied any bullying was going on and said there was no problem, the principal said. Visit an elementary school in Japan and you will most likely witness students attentively focused on their teachers, taking notes, actively discussing, presenting, building and creating.
School assemblies are models of decorum, with neat rows of children sitting with their knees bent and feet in front of them, hands clasped around their legs, and facing front. These behaviors are taught, practiced and internalized starting in preschool, and most Japanese kids adhere to them without thinking twice.
There are cases, however, where these efforts to control the student body fall embarrassingly short. With the abolishment of corporeal punishment, teachers and parents!
The ultimate respect afforded teachers in the past has ebbed somewhat, too, so that parents and students are not as awed of educational authority. Teachers working themselves nearly to death visiting hospitals for a quick IV before work in the morning, chugging energy drinks and supplements during the dinner hour is also a phenomenon that has recently leaked from the business world into the education one.
Though contracted for about forty hours a week, work hours, both at school or at home, can quickly total near sixty. Once one of three pillars with family and community , schools are now expected to take up the slack for the growing number of dysfunctional families and aging communities who spend more on nursing home shuttles than school supplies. This increase in pressure on schools to raise future citizens of the world cannot help but overflow onto the students, and this frustration often plays out in the case of bullying.
In recent years, in response to some tragic situations, the issue has been debated heavily in public and the Ministry of Education has taken official measures to combat it by asking schools to set up specific policies to deal with bullying.
Student surveys filled out at home, anti-bullying banners hung around the school, parenting workshops and the addition of school counselors are some of the ways in which schools are trying to eradicate the problem.
Attitudes towards and efforts to combat bullying, however, are not always synchronized, available, or effective, leaving students who are being bullied with few options for action. Many kids transfer to new schools, some withdraw from school, and some, in extreme cases, hurt themselves.
The covert nature of bullying in Japanese schools, especially, can make it nearly undetectable to the more clueless adult.
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