Every educational institution should be a safe place where our kids learn new things and are taught how to become good people who will be a valuable part of the society.
What these institutions should never be are places where children feel vulnerable. Sadly, bullying is present among children of any age and with the increase of technology and social networking sites, it only increases to the extent that schools are no longer capable to cope with.
The fact is that if someone young is a victim of bullying, their self-esteem decreases and it may lead to severe physical and emotional problems later in life. That is why it has to be prevented on time.
Shawano, Wisconsin Rapids, and Plovin which are all towns in the state of Wisconsin have found a way to stop bullying among school student. The measures they have undertaken may look way too severe to some, but they are determined to create a normal and friendly environment for each student that attends their schools.
Namely, the parents of the kids that will be caught bullying others will face fines as low as $313.
These towns came up with this rule as the result of the uncontrollable trend of bullying that affects many students.
They are convinced that this measure will make parents be more strict and spend more time teaching their kids right from wrong.
When a kid is seen treating others with disrespect, the police department will send his or her parents a warning, and if the bullying continues, they will have to pay the fine. The towns believe that when they are forced to pay that much money, the parents will make sure their kids don’t hurt others in any way again.
However, if paying the fine doesn’t give the expected results, it will increase to $366 for the second time the kid bullies others and will get to $681 every other time. This is a high amount of money that no parent will be willing to pay so they will likely make their children behave properly and treat others with ultimate respect.
The chief of the Shawano Police Department speaks of this rule saying, “This isn’t generated towards the kids being kids, some playground banter. This is the person that is meticulously using social media or saying things that are vulgar in an attempt to hurt, discredit, and really demean a person.”
This measure proved to be very effective as it was reported that the cases of bullying in the town on Plovin decreased significantly even before any fines were issued.
We believe that bullying is very serious and has to be treated as such as it affects the life of many students in the most negative way. When we think of all those cases where victims of bullying took their own life unable to put up with how they were treated by their classmates and peers, we support this rule and we strongly believe it should be implemented in each and every town across the U.S.