While it is not always a blemish on the way some schools are run, there can be times when faculty and administrators could do more to ease the stress their students are under. With so much violence in our society today, it is a wonder that more kids aren’t being homeschooled than already are. Even so, violence isn’t the only issue our kids are faced with and perhaps it is time to do something about it. In order to understand just what today’s students are facing, let’s look at a few of the most stressful issues that need to be dealt with.
1. Unchecked Bullying
When bullying goes unchecked in schools, it often carries over to life after school. Many times, there are clear indications that one child is the target of “gang mentality” so that if one popular kid targets that kid, all their friends do as well. That leaves parents to question if school personnel turned a blind eye and if so, can they be held accountable? What about the parents of the bullies?
Bullying lawyers at Romanucci and Blandin represent many victims each year.Sadly, bullying doesn’t stop just there. Often the victims are intimidated to do things or act in a way they wouldn’t ordinarily act. The psychological scars can last a lifetime and so, if your child has been victimized, know that you have the legal right to file suit against the responsible adults who had charge of their children when these things happened. It should also be mentioned that other kids who are not being victimized can feel threatened also. It wouldn’t take much to turn attention their way and that can lead to an entire class under an undue amount of stress.
2. School Shootings and Various Threats
There have been so many school shootings in the news in recent years. Although there are far too many to remember, the ones that seem to stick with us are those like the 2006 shooting of ten girls in the small, one-roomed Amish schoolhouse in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Five of the ten girls diedas a result of their wounds.
The point is, that it doesn’t take living in a major metropolitan area like St. Louis where one recent graduate entered the school last fall with an AR-15 type of rifle with more than 600 rounds of ammo that led to the death of two and several being injured. This was a troubled individual who felt like an outcast. Could something have been done to treat his mental illness? No one knows, but these incidents are beyond stressful for our children going to school each day. Could it happen to them?
3. Pandemics, Poverty and World Events
So much is going on in the world around us that kids often feel the same stresses that face their parents. The recent pandemic where over 1.1 million people died in the United States alone and caused students to study for several months from home has also led to an undue amount of stress.While there isn’t always something that can be done about the current state of the economy and poverty, maybe we can do something to ease the concern of our youth.
With that said, there are things we can do more to control like bullying on the school grounds and being more alert to individuals in need of psychiatric help. To the extent that we are aware of issues we can help resolve, we are each, in some way, responsible. Let’s take stress out of the classroom so our kids can learn and grow without an unnecessary burden. The question we leave you with is this:is there something you can do to help ease their stress and if so, what would that be?