Has Child Safety Gone Too Far?

Posted by Dave
July 31, 2008

A bill passed in Florida called: Jeffrey Johnston Stand Up for All Students Act (Fla. Stat. section 1006.147) which makes a daring attempt to protect your children.

According to the article the following things could be examples of “bullying”:

Teasing;
Social exclusion;
Threat;
Intimidation;
Stalking;
Physical violence;
Theft;
Sexual or racial harassment;
Public humiliation; or
Destruction of property.

Teasing? Social Exclusion? Attempting to “protect” your children from these things, does them no favors. If they don’t learn to stand up for themselves during their childhood, they will be forced to learn it in adulthood, if they are even able by that point. I have a much better idea for protecting your kids in school, boxing lessons. Simple, effective and relatively cheap.

I do feel bad for the children who decided to commit suicide. It is tragic. But it was their choice. Unfortunately in this life, there will always be people who attempt to make themselves feel better, by assaulting/teasing others. No law will change this.

The article goes on to say:

The Florida anti-bullying law also mandates each school district to adopt a code of conduct against bullying and harassment by December 1, 2008.

Great, that will accomplish nothing. The only children who care about a “code of conduct”, are the children who aren’t bullying other children in the first place.

The only thing this law does accomplish, is it gives parents this warm fuzzy feeling like they have done everything required. You should be teaching your child how to deal with bullies, not how to report them to the cops.

Aside from these concerns, what happened to free speech? What constitutes “teasing” as opposed to me exercising my right of free speech? What about public humiliation? Many things could be humiliating to a certain person. Of course, the powers that be shouldn’t have to worry about this too much, since most kids have no idea about their civil rights. Hopefully some adults decide to protect their children in this way as well.

I can understand some of the items on their list, but why have Theft? Theft is already illegal and will carry a larger penalty than “bullying”. Same goes for stalking, threats, and destruction of property. These things are already illegal.

Where does it end?