25/04/2024
There is is a video circulating about two girls, both in SS2, at Leads British School, Abuja.
In the video, one of the girls was repeatedly assaulting and slapping the other girl - not a younger girl, but her classmate.
In a second video, the same girl was being assaulted by two different girls. They were taking turns to slap her while she put up no resistance at all. They continued to slap her on both cheeks in the presence of other students - boys and girls - who mocked her.
Now there is a worrisome thing about the video that parents need to be aware of.
I have seen many people talk about the incident while focusing on the school authorities and the bully, but no one has asked the question, "why was the bullied girl so calm, defenseless, and helpless?"
While it would be wrong to assume the exact circumstances surrounding her abuse, I have been involved in cases like this before and usually, there is just one cause: the bullied girl feels that she would lack support - from the authorities and from her parents.
Now, this is what parents need to learn:
If you are as close and connected to your daughter as you should be, it would be easy for her to approach you and talk to you about what is happening in school.
This closeness is not just about smiling and laughing together or sending your daughter money, it is about talking daily, gisting together, and being genuinely interested in her life.
Most parents have reduced the role of parenting to dumping their kids in school, shouting out orders, and paying their expenses. If you are like this, your child will either feel that talking to you about what she is going through in her life is a way of burdening you (if you are the nice type) or she would simply be too scared to approach you (if you are the harsh type).
If you want to avoid this, the solution is to develop keen interest in your child and form a very strong bond. A bond so strong that your child does not see talking to you as a way of burdening you because you are always eager to listen (and you listen the right way.)
Another problem is that even when the kids summon the courage to tell the parents they were bullied, many parents lazily belie the child or fail to take any action. When this happens, it breaks the child so much that they might never ever be able to relate such a thing to the parent again.
One girl that also attended the same school where the bullying happened wrote in a text that has now gone viral on Instagram that "When things like this happen and we tell our parents, our parents think we are being dramatic and stuff that's why we all need you to put back the post and bring awareness cuz it needs to stop.
"When I told my mom she said I was lying it was when I showed her the video that she believed me sef."
You see the problem? Many parents feel their children are seeking attention when they report these things. (I know a parent that dismissed r**e issues as "seeking attention").
But let's face it, if you as a parent give your child attention, you talk every evening she returns from school, you discuss school and discuss life, why would she need to seek extra attention by being dramatic about things that did not happen?
So, even if the kid has to be dramatic to get your attention, it is most likely because there is a problem in your relationship already and you are all about giving money and no attention.
The solution to all this, is to ensure we parents create enough balance and give attention to spending quality time with our kids, even if it means we would slow down a bit in our career paths, and particularly, for the mothers to be very much available for the children.
Sending your child to a 400k per annum school and having time for them is better than working tirelessly day and night to afford a 3M per annum school only for your child to be bullied and r**ed and have no one to talk to.
But of course, this is not just about working-class parents, it is about parents being sensitive to the need to be very very close to their kids.
And again, being close to your kids does not come naturally, you learn it, you build it.
©Naas Educators
