An Australian mother has set an important conversation on bullying in motion today, after a frustrating incident involving her nine-year-old son occurred at school this week.
Jessie Reid has shared her anger with online publication Kidspot, after son Jamieson was suspended from school for trying to defend himself against a bully.
Recounting the incident to the website, Jessie said that she and her husband witnessed the entire scenario take place, as they swung by the school to collected Jamieson after the end of class.
Quiet Jamieson was standing there, waiting for his lift home, when he was ‘attacked by a much larger child’. He tried to get away, eventually striking the child in a bid to escape, and ended up being punched three times before a member of staff reached them and broke up the scuffle.
As you can imagine, Jamieson and his parents were deeply upset after the incident, but it was a case of adding insult to injury for Jessie when she received a phone call shortly after informing her that Jamieson – along with the child who attacked him – had been suspended from school for two days.
Jessie is understandably frustrated by the decision as she feels her son, the victim, should not be punished. A representative from the Department of Education, however, said that both children were punished in full accordance with the school’s behavioural code.
An outraged Jessie told Kidspot: “When this ‘zero tolerance’ approach is applied as a blanket police, it is no longer a useful deterrent or a tool against bullying. It has crossed the line in victim-blaming. It’s gone too far, and our children are suffering because of school policy.”
Her story has now made national headlines, as she insists that this brand of victim-blaming is sending out the wrong message to children.
How do you feel about how this incident was handled?
