When do parents take responsibility for their children’s bullying actions?

There was a bullying incident at Sutherland High School in Pretoria that went viral on social media.

It would seem that while most people seem to be at loggerheads over national issues, our children are all the while taking sides in school fights.

It may not be on the same terms as that of the adults, but it speaks to children who steal the joy of others having decided that they are the unspoken owners of school corridors and gatekeepers of one’s happiness at schools.

When do we as parents own up to the responsibility that our children are far more than the angelic faces that smile at us in our homes?

While they are more than our bundles of joy, to others they are the reason they cannot go to school, or even public spaces.

We want to shout that they be punished but, as parents, why are we not held accountable?

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While my children, and every child, are not a miniature version of those who raise them – they are the products of the homes and environments they grow in.

They are the extensions of homes with either no rules, or rules that guide them.

We may be livid at the children that perpetuate these crimes, but after our anger subsides, do we ask ourselves: where are their parents, how can they be that oblivious to their children’s conduct and misbehaviour?

While I cannot account for my children’s every move and decision, how I perceive their behaviour informs what they think they can get away with.

Children are responsive to our guidelines. It’s not just the bullies we must question, it is also the role of the parents that we have to register, dissect and learn from.

In all my years, my father being my longer surviving parent, he never laid a hand on me.

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My behaviour was not only regulated by his teaching, but fear of his reaction.

I am learning the art. As a parent, I have been anticorporal punishment, in line with the law and because I do not know about corporal punishment, having never being exposed to it.

But I have every intention of instilling discipline without compromise.

I refuse for one of my children to be the reason for the unhappiness and apparent lawlessness where he walks.

Beyond anything, as a parent, I want to be accountable in part for the behaviour of my children.

And my rule of law within my house is to be the reason my son conducts himself in such a manner that other people will never have to recover from his acts.

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