Zero Tolerance Policies: Bullying

There is no more cynical and politically correct use of 'zero tolerance' than when the phrase is applied to bullying.

Since many studies have established that children who are bullied can have lifelong scars, and are unhappy and less healthy and have a higher rate of all sorts of bad things, schools have decided that they needed to do something about the problem. The things they had been doing for the previous, oh, centuries just haven't been working. Since they had no idea actually how to stop bullying, they have decided to apply a zero tolerance policy. They would not tolerate bullying, not even a little bit.
Unless they actually see some, that is.

A kind and sensitive 7-year-old patient of mine was brought in by his mother.  She said that he’s been having a lot of stomach aches.  She hadn’t noticed any pattern, but with my questioning, it became clear that they were mostly in the mornings on school days.  I examined him, and asked his mom if I could speak to him privately.  As soon as the door closed behind her, he started to cry.  I found out the names of the 5th-grade boys that had been bullying him.  I asked him if it was OK for me to tell his mom.  He nodded.

I asked her to return and told her the names of the boys, and the nature of his illness.

She told me that she hadn’t known the names, but she had found out about the bullying a month ago.  She talked to the teacher, who said these children weren’t in her class, so she couldn’t do anything about it.  The mother talked to the principal.  The principal said that they have a zero tolerance policy for bullying, so it just doesn’t happen in that school.  Perhaps, she suggested, this was just a typical schoolyard conflict typical of, you know, boys.

The tiny kernel of truth in this shocking, offensive, ignorant bias is that this is nothing new.  There have always been bullies and there always will be.  It’s human nature.  There are at least as many girl bullies and victims as boys.  They might not threaten physical violence as often, but what mean girls do to other girls is often sadistic and awful.

He was being bullied mercilessly at school by some boys in an older grade. They threated to hurt him.  They would hurt him if he told anybody.  They made fun of him and laughed when they made him cry.

After our visit, the mother told the principal the names of these boys.  It should go without saying that the principal knew who these boys were immediately.  This child wasn’t their first victim.  The principal said she’d take care of it.  A week later, the mother was called to pick him up from school.  He was sitting in the office complaining of a stomach ache.

The mother asked the teacher what she had done about these bullies.  She said that she had ‘talked to the boys.’  He refused to go to school for several days.  The mother was missing work.  the principal suggested that maybe the problem would be solved if the child simply stayed home.  The mother suggested that maybe it would be more consistent with the zero tolerance policy for the bullies to be kept at home. Ultimately, the principal said she would again 'talk to the boys.' What would she say? That if they do it again she will consider applying a tolerance policy less than the 100% tolerance the school is now using?

The child starting having anxiety attacks, depression, stomach aches, headaches.   After a couple of months of inaction by the school to protect this child, I wrote a letter that simply alerted the principal to several facts.

1. I knew about this.
2. I was keeping a written and official record of it in his medical chart.
3. The inaction by the school was having severe medical effects on the child.
4. These have a great deal of potential to get worse.
5. Medical care is very expensive.
6. Preventable medical problems that were not prevented can unfortunately often result in expensive litigation with terrible surrounding publicity.
7. I am sending a copy of this letter to the head of the school board.
8. I am sending a copy to the District Superintendent
9. I am sending a copy to the State of California Board of Education President

I don’t know the ultimate outcome yet.  But this is part of my job.