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Some interesting stats out of Auckland University’s Growing up in NZ Study this week.
Six thousand children representing our current diversity have been interviewed and studied to look at well-being and help inform policy around children.
And what you might expect to be happening is happening.. obesity is on the rise, kids lives are busy, families are busy, hardship is real for many.. there are many challenges. But disturbingly, more than a third of 8 year olds in New Zealand have been bullied in the past year.
These children were last studied at the age of 4, so four years on, and that stat has not come down, something Children’s Commissioner Andrew Becroft says is ‘shameful.’
He says it reaffirms New Zealand’s ranking as one of the worst countries in the developed world for bullying.
The Study’s Principal Investigator Susan Morton pointed out that although this is a great country to raise children, there are still challenges for many. One in three is classed as overweight or obese, one in ten face severe hardship, more than a third get bullied.
Andrew Becroft says bullying needs to be taken more seriously by adults, because it’s linked to wider social issues, it has wide ranging detrimental knock on effects in many facets of children’s lives. He says it has a corrosive effect on well-being.
It’s an excellent sign that kids are able to talk freely about it and let adults know they’re being bullied, but Becroft is right in saying adults need to take it more seriously. Many adults I think still have a ‘she’ll be right’ approach, a ‘what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger’ attitude or a ‘it’s just a bit of rough and tumble.’ That approach assumes all kids are the same, that all children will react the same way to bullying or will process it in the same way. It assumes a position of mental robustness that just may not be evident in every child. There will be some children for whom a bit of playground ‘banter’ may be crippling for their self esteem.
There will be others who will carry the burden of bullying for a lifetime.. well beyond the school gate.
In my experience, many of the problems with bullying rest with the schools themselves. Not wanting to take bullying seriously, downplaying the complaints because it may be a ’bad look’ for the school, not wanting to offend parents of the alleged bully. When I encountered all of the above in a bullying situation involving one of my children at primary school, I ended up removing him from the school. If schools won’t take bullying seriously then parents have to. We have to acknowledge bullying is real, it exists, it’s not going anywhere, and it can have lifelong effects. We can’t put our heads in the sand and pretend it will just solve itself, because the real casualty of that unfortunately.. is always the kids.
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