Nuttiness From Down Under

The story from the Daily Telegraph opens:

A WEEK after student Jai Morcom was fatally bashed over a lunch table at Mullumbimby High School, 13-year-old Jade Reardon was begging her mum not to send her back to school.

She had spent two weeks at home terrified of a bully at Gorokan High, on the state’s Central Coast, who had been making her physically sick with stress.

The following Monday, Jade caved in to her mother’s pleading and returned to classes. Just a few hours later her mother was called to take Jade to hospital after a vicious assault by her tormentor, a bigger girl from the same year.

Jade was treated for a black eye, cuts and bruising to her face and had a patch of hair pulled from the back of her head.

The article goes on to explain how the police strongly dissuaded this mother from swearing out an AVO (the equivalent of an order of protection), and how the school’s solution was to offer to ship the victim off to another school.

*Now get ready to hold your jaw so it doesn’t drop.* The paper got their ‘expert opinion’ from a man with some impressive credentials ( Cambridge-educated scholar, child psychologist and author) John Stewart.

Stewart’s sage wisdom? Just talk it out. Quote:

“About 95 per cent of bullying can be resolved through mediation, and many times these kids go on to become friends.”

I’ve got to wonder… If one of Stewart’s co-workers had been harassing him for months, and finally beat him bloody, would he follow his own advice?

If his wife were raped, would he advise her to sit in mediation with her attacker and try to ‘work things out’?