You read about bullying at schools. You watch kids bully each other in movies. You come across social media posts written by miserable parents of bullied children. Yet, this video is something else. It is real, raw, and a painful slap in every parent’s face.
Last week, a video of a bullying incident started circulating amongst Dubai students. The video showed a young girl pulling another student by the hair and threatening her. The other girl was clearly petrified and sadly there were other students around who did nothing to stop her. In fact, the girl recording the video kept calling the bully by her name -Milena- so she knows that her actions were being documented.
The look of entitlement on the girl’s face is revolting. Some reports claim that the girl is an Instagram influencer with over 40,000 followers.
Via Milena Bterrani
A student from another school, Jawaher Wejdan, bravely decided to escalate things and posted the video on Twitter and tagged Dubai’s education regulator, the Knowledge and Human Development Authority (KHDA). The KHDA replied in a tweet, asking if the school had been made aware and requested details about the girls in the clip.
“The video was being shared by a lot of my friends, and although we were shocked, everyone I knew was too afraid to tag the authorities. So I decided to do it myself,” Wejdan told Gulf News.
The school where the incident took place released a statement claiming that appropriate action had already been taken in accordance with their safeguarding policy. The bullying girl and another student were withdrawn from the school and several others were suspended.
Lessons we need to learn from this incident:
- We should teach our children to ALWAYS report bullies.
- The parents’ community should follow Dubai’s lead and force schools to handle bullying cases in a zero-tolerance manner.
- If your child is a bully, there are ways to help him/her and it is not by ignoring or justifying the problem.
- Don’t allow your child to be deluded by fake social media fame. Internet fame is toxic to anyone’s ego, so imagine what it can do to a girl that age.
Further reading: My Child Is a Bully. What Should I Do?
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