Too often I hear news that concerns me, that a decent society seems to become harder to achieve year after year.

Too often I hear about the behaviour of parents and leaders which provide the wrong example for the next generations.

Today it’s the assaults and physical violence that school principals and teachers are experiencing and it’s how its getting worse.

The findings of the New Zealand Primary School Leaders' Occupational Health and Wellbeing Survey were released this morning. Over 1400 principals have contributed to it.

It found principals, deputies and associates were almost 12 times more likely to be subjected to physical violence compared to the rest of the general population last year – up from seven times in 2016.

Most of the assaults were from challenged students and that’s a legacy of mainstreaming, which is not something that worries me, but it is representative of the extra societal responsibilities that have been laid on teachers' laps over the past 30 years. But the NZEI is already saying this shows that our schools need more resources to deal with a tide of challenged students that appears to grow.

But it’s also notable to see that threats and violence against school leaders by parents are increasing. It’s part of the general disregard for authority that has grown through the years. And how bad is the example being set when parents are attacking or threatening principals and teachers. It’s very hard to get kids to respect and obey their teachers when their parents are prepared to unleash on educators.

It joins a long list of atrociously inappropriate behaviour, most notably the violence statistics that emerged out of our emergency departments at hospitals. People charged with saving life are getting clobbered by fools. Just a week ago a report came out that showed that lives have been lost as ambulance officers wait for safe conditions to enter a scene. Again the very people there to help are being hindered for no good reason.

And it’s all strata of society. Concerns have been raised at the outflux of civil servants at parliament. Allegations of bullying have been levelled at managers, senior secretaries and even MPs.

When the bullying of our kids makes a headline, we get all outraged and hissy but to be honest the kids are just doing what they learnt. New Zealand has a forthright, hierarchical and assertive culture and it means bullying is endemic. To all of us. If we’re worried about bullying sometimes you just need to look at the man in the mirror and make that change.