Kids, eh?

First published 2006.

Sometimes I feel like I’m turning into my mother, patronising the “times of today” as though my era were so much better. I’m not that old, but I have to deplore today’s society when 15-year-olds are being stabbed in school.

The school’s principal had this to say: “The school has a very clear, well established anti-bullying policy. It is a shocking and appalling incident and it has shocked the whole college community.” Of course it’s an awful incident! Why don’t you focus on that as opposed to defending something that so evidently happens? The anti-bullying policy is clearly not being implemented very well, is it? Because I doubt the first port of call was to stab this poor girl; the bullies must have been after her for a while.

Every time a child in this country is stabbed or beaten to death by his “schoolmates”, all they can do is a bit of “soul searching” as opposed to confronting the problem. “How it could have happened here?” they ask. Because it’s been going on forever, that’s how. It’s almost as if they have no memory of their own schooldays and are completely blind to the cruelty around them.

Children are no more angels than the rest of us. Like most other human-beings, they’re not even on the same level as animals. An animal will hurt you for survival; a human-being will hurt you for fun. What remarkable role models we all are to the youth of today. I wonder how many children have seen fox hunters parading their silly selves on television, out rightly undermining the authority of the government, thinking that antisocial behaviour is OK in the name of sport.

Many, if not most, British schools (fee-paying, or not) are host to chronic, petty violence. If you are a parent, teacher or guardian with enough time and patience, you can attempt to coax children out of their inherent evil, but it’s much easier to pretend that it isn’t there, or to temporarily suppress its worst manifestations.

I’ve seen generations of bullying in action. I only have to walk up and down my local high street a few times to see the gangs of chavs pick on anybody not dressed as ridiculously as them. I, myself, got rather biblically stoned at primary school, once upon a time. Of course, my wonderfully supportive school imparted only the best of punishments: they put the perpetrators’ names in the infamous “black book”. This cycle of inane bullying and punishment continued for a few months, until my parents eventually conceded and told me I could fight back. Needless to say, after I bit the little fiends, they never touched me again. Typically, I was punished for my actions whilst the bullies continued their reign of terror on the playground.

I still get the feeling that nobody knows how to handle such a senseless crime. Perhaps they don’t know how to handle it because they continuously deny that it happens. In the same vein that parents who will readily believe their child is a gem yet refuse to believe he's capable of stealing, schools want to believe they are the epitome of perfection and bullying isn’t an issue.

Most schools don’t even provide somebody that a child can turn to. Teachers will either refuse to take anything said seriously (“just ignore it” and “stop being so silly” are common deterring, patronising phrases that they come out with), or, if they happen to see bullying in action, fear of being attacked themselves or losing their jobs stops them from intervening. Parents of the victim can only do so much about an environment that they aren’t in on a day to day basis, and parents of the bully refuse to believe their child is flawed. And then, finally, when a child is attacked on school grounds, schools will seek to blame everything but themselves; television, music, parents and Marylin Manson, to name a few.Why is bullying turned into such a non-issue? Is it because it’s conducted by children, the world’s little angels? It’s time to wake up to the fact that kids are growing up much faster these days, taking on both the good and bad points of adulthood. If schools are going to be handing out condoms to 12-year-olds, they shouldn’t need to worry about holding those same 12-year-olds accountable for their actions. They want to grow up faster? Fine, let them grow up and face the rules and laws of the society we live in. If they do something wrong, then they need to be brought to trial and punished for their actions. That’ll teach them to have underage sex and stab people in the eye.

Stop hiding from bullying; face up to it. The more something is taboo, the worse it’ll get behind those annoying closed doors. Bring everything out into the open; children who bully should be named and shamed within the school. Let them face the embarrassment that all other, more grown-up, criminals face. Let them face the same trials and punishments, and give their victims some justice. Give teachers a safe working environment by allowing them to defend themselves and their pupils without fear of prosecution.

If children want to act like adults, by all means, just let them. They’ll soon go back to playing with their toys when they learn the bad isn’t as fun as the good.