Watch this video. A young girl aged about 12 is waiting at a bus-stop. Two other girls start verbally bullying her, saying things like: “I know a bunch of people from your dance team and they said they just pretended to be sick so they didn’t have to go to your birthday party.”
“Didn’t you audition for the musical?” (Cue bullies looking at each other, then smirking and laughing.) “People told me that you sounded like a dying pig.”
“You definitely do need makeup.”
The three girls are all actors, but the adults waiting with them (filmed throughout the day at different times) at the bus stop are not aware any of this is an act. The video asks, with one in three kids being bullied at school, who will stop the bullying?
The adult bystanders we see say something. But their reactions differ.
One woman motions for the little girl to come and sit on the seat beside her and then compliments her backpack whispering, "They are nasty."
A man pats his seat, the little girl moves to it and he pulls his harmonica out of his tiny backpack and plays it for her.
It begs the question: what do you do as an adult if you witness children bullying?
When ferrying a load of kids around and the talk in the back seat turns nasty and texts start pinging, do you turn the radio up or say something?
When you see something on social media that doesn't seem quite right, do you ask your kids about it?
When do you get involved?
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