Denial and trivialising

China has just begun this process of discussion. I asked some young people about the topic, hoping to get some opinion of how common it is. But they all told me it doesn't happen. Their notion of bullying is still like the extreme examples they've read on line rather than "repeated harassment or intimidation" as it's defined in the UK. The common response to name calling and habitual teasing is still to grin and bear it, to keep their heads down and be part of the crowd. That it's an unavoidable or essential part of growing up. Possibly for many parents and teachers, being a child in China during the 1980s and 90s presented other concerns, name calling may seem comparatively trivial.

Likewise, nuisance calls and more recently on-line bullying, provoked the same dismissive response by those brought up without telephones or social networking. The early advice was blow a whistle into the receiver, ignore the messages, leave the social group, delete or un-friend someone. The initial reaction to bullying is to expect the victim to deal with the problem themselves.

Actions and reactions

At present, most of the action against bullying is coming from the family members of the victims. For Lizhu's son, it was his angry cousin who took to social media, posting graphic images of the injuries. The result received much public attention, prompting other cases to come forward and sparked heated discussions about the lack of legal protection for victims. Schools responded to most of these incidents by penalizing perpetrators with a mark on their school records. The most serious, including Lizhu's son, have been settled by compensation to the family of the bullied child. The apparent lack of punishment of the bully has caused the Chinese public to demand the government reform Child Protection Laws because under the age of 14 a child cannot be charged with a crime.

In the west, although bullying is a crime, the police aren't contacted where children are concerned, unless it involves physical assault. Typically, the school is involved because they are required by law to have in place policies that includes measures to prevent bullying among pupils. Schools are legally responsible to do all they reasonably can to stop and prevent bullying it knows (or should have known) about. Policies include training teachers to identify signs of bullying and producing procedures for dealing with it. Punishment such as detention and exclusion from activities and classes are possible, but the primary interventions are counselling and education. The approach is less about punishment and more about understanding and addressing the reasons behind the bully’s behaviour.