It’s that bittersweet time of the year: summer’s over, school’s back.
Hopefully, that’s the way it stays–bittersweet, gentle, optimistic–nothing more than that–energies to help all involved find rhythms and routines they need to navigate the school year.
Still….
Looming over all the usual insecurities (“oof, do I ever hate this guy teaching math…I AM going to make this soccer team…I wonder if that girl REALLY likes me”), hanging over everything, is that primal and tribal scourge of human kind–the bully.
If you have kids, you know who I’m talking about.
If you’re a kid, you know what I’m talking about.
Heck, if you’re a human being, you what I’m talking about.
“Bullying is probably ubiquitous amongst life itself,” Tony Volk, a developmental psychologist at Brock University, told the CBC’s Tai Poole.
The thing about bullying is that hearts get broken and life gets really, really dark.
As for Canada, we may be famed for our good manners, but we know bullying
Take a look at these government stats.
The one from that list that jumps out at me is the that reads 47 per cent of Canadian parents report having a child victim of bullying.
That’s basically one out of two, folks.
The question is what do you do about it.
What does a parent tell their kid? What does a kid tell their parent? What does a kid tell the bully? What does a kid tell himself?
For some answers and perspective I had the pleasure to speak with Dr. Ashley Miller, a child and adolescent psychiatrist at B.C. Children’s Hospital. on Thursday.
Listen
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