Var­i­ous min­is­ters, po­lice of­fi­cers and oth­er such of­fi­cials, in at­tempt­ing to ad­dress the crime sit­u­a­tion in our coun­try, have been prone to say­ing “if you see some­thing, say some­thing”.

I un­der­stand the need for this state­ment.

Of­ten, when crimes are com­mit­ted, the per­sons who have vi­tal in­for­ma­tion which can lead to an ar­rest refuse to come for­ward and the par­tic­u­lar crime goes un­re­solved.

But this par­tic­u­lar state­ment, “See Some­thing, Say Some­thing”, does not ap­ply to crim­i­nal sit­u­a­tions alone.

For sev­er­al years, I have seen the prin­ci­pal of my chil­dren’s pri­ma­ry school stand be­fore par­ents at par­ent-teacher’s meet­ings and prac­ti­cal­ly plead with par­ents to fol­low the school’s prop­er re­port­ing sys­tem.

I can­not count the num­ber of times she has in­di­cat­ed to par­ents that if her of­fice and teach­ers are un­aware of a sit­u­a­tion, then they cer­tain­ly are un­able to ad­dress it.

These state­ments have be­come nec­es­sary, as par­ents would com­plain about sit­u­a­tions of bul­ly­ing or even some dis­com­fort their child was fac­ing and then en­quire about what was be­ing done to ad­dress their con­cerns.

Yet, these con­cerns had not been for­ward­ed to any mem­ber of staff to en­sure that the teach­ers, prin­ci­pal or some­one in au­thor­i­ty was aware of a sit­u­a­tion that need­ed cor­rect­ing.

I thought of the sig­nif­i­cance of this af­ter read­ing an ar­ti­cle where an off-du­ty po­lice­woman at­tend­ed a school in Port-of-Spain and had a phys­i­cal al­ter­ca­tion with the safe­ty of­fi­cer.

Ac­cord­ing to the ar­ti­cle, the po­lice­woman, be­ing a par­ent of a stu­dent at the school, sent a voice mail on a What­sApp chat ad­vis­ing the stu­dents that she would be at­tend­ing the school the next day to ad­dress bul­ly­ing in­ci­dents con­cern­ing her child.

Fur­ther, she asked the chil­dren to play the mes­sage to their par­ents and en­sure their par­ents were at the school.

It ap­pears that a threat to kill one of the stu­dents was al­so is­sued.

There were so many ques­tions that arose af­ter read­ing this ar­ti­cle.

Did the par­ent speak to the school and ad­dress her con­cerns? If yes, did the school at­tempt to in­ter­vene in the bul­ly­ing in­ci­dent? If no, then what chan­nels were fol­lowed to cor­rect be­hav­iour be­fore rush­ing in­to the school and act­ing just as poor­ly as the bul­lies them­selves?

There is ab­solute­ly no doubt that there is a bul­ly­ing pan­dem­ic grip­ping our schools.

De­spite adopt­ing a ze­ro-tol­er­ance ap­proach and po­lice pres­ence in our schools, the bul­ly­ing con­cerns have not been al­le­vi­at­ed.

There have been var­i­ous in­ci­dents of par­ents be­com­ing in­volved and at­tack­ing stu­dents in a bid to pro­tect their child.

So­cial me­dia has had var­i­ous de­bates, with many agree­ing that if their child was be­ing bul­lied, they would al­so in­ter­vene, while a few dis­sent­ing voic­es have rea­soned that adults should not phys­i­cal­ly at­tack stu­dents.

Af­ter read­ing the ar­ti­cle, it was clear that the safe­ty of­fi­cer who suf­fered some phys­i­cal harm was adamant about the par­ent be­ing pun­ished.

Clear­ly, the off-du­ty po­lice­woman, while sure­ly act­ing out of emo­tion, would have been aware that charg­ing in­to the school and con­fronting stu­dents and then phys­i­cal­ly as­sault­ing a mem­ber of staff would lead to some form of crim­i­nal charges.

More­over, her con­duct by send­ing out a record­ed voice mes­sage, threat­en­ing to “kill one of all yuh”, rais­es an alarm.

Par­ents, many times, are quick to rush to the de­fence of their chil­dren or be­lieve their chil­dren’s ver­sion of events.

I won­der how many par­ents ac­tu­al­ly ques­tion the truth of their chil­dren’s ver­sion or even won­der whether their child would have al­so done or said or pro­voked re­spons­es from their class­mates, which they quick­ly rushed home to com­plain about.

The Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion can­not force par­ents to take a more ac­tive in­ter­est in their chil­dren’s school life.

Sad­ly, the num­bers in at­ten­dance at PTA meet­ings have dwin­dled sig­nif­i­cant­ly over the years. Par­ents claim they no longer have the time to at­tend such meet­ings.

Yet, a lit­tle time or in­ter­est in the school life of your child can re­solve or as­sist in re­solv­ing some of the is­sues of bul­ly­ing.

How many par­ents, up­on re­ceiv­ing a com­plaint from their child, ac­tu­al­ly in­ves­ti­gate the mat­ter?

In­ves­ti­gat­ing is sim­ple and does not take much ef­fort or time, a quick email to the school en­quir­ing or for­ward­ing a com­plaint, a meet­ing or tele­phone dis­cus­sion with form or class teach­ers, even a quick look at your child’s so­cial me­dia pres­ence.

Too of­ten, par­ents do lit­tle to ad­dress con­cerns or re­solve is­sues with chil­dren. In­stead, they al­low sit­u­a­tions to fit and fes­ter, re­sult­ing in the sort of re­ac­tions which we read about in the news­pa­per or view as trend­ing videos on so­cial me­dia.

How many par­ents ac­tu­al­ly cul­ti­vate and main­tain open com­mu­ni­ca­tion with their chil­dren’s teach­ers to en­sure that any con­cerns or com­plaints can be eas­i­ly ad­dressed and rec­ti­fied?

In­stead, as par­ents, a step back is tak­en and the school is left all on its own to cor­rect be­hav­iour.

When the be­hav­iour can­not be cor­rect­ed, we read about it on the news­pa­per.

Par­ents and stu­dents alike need to start say­ing some­thing when they see some­thing.

It is time that par­ents take an ac­tive ap­proach in work­ing with the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion and our schools to re­solve the is­sue of bul­ly­ing.

Pavi­t­ra Ramharack is head of cham­bers at Pavi­t­ra Ramharack At­tor­neys at Law and can be reached at ramharack_pavi­t­ra@out­look.com