–> Well, I really wish you can represent me. I’ve told the principal I’ve been verbally abused. I have evidence of it. But she doesn’t wish to do anything. The teacher called me pathetic, hopeless, unsuccessful and said I deserved to be yelled at. I got suspended for sticking up for myself. Procedures don’t really count. The only rule that counts is the one that doesn’t exist; the student is always wrong. It’s very depressing. I’ve lost all faith in society now. My father agrees with them. He doesn’t know about the verbal abuse. I don’t think he’ll care. What’s funny, is that a student would get hammered for saying those things to a teacher; because the teachers don’t come here to be abused. Likwise for me, but…no. Oh well, at least a parent here cares enough to write about it. Makes me feel a bit better, because you confirmed to me it is wrong, thank you.

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I wrote back to her and I hope my response was useful to her in some way. You can read my reply here.

I am of the opinion that verbal abuse should be dealt with seriously, because it can be very hurtful to the abused and cause a lot of harm, even if it was meant as a joke. In fact, lots of children and probably also adults, use the excuse “it was just a joke” to cover up what they said, which is even worse, because on top of the hurtful remark, the abuser hurts the person one more time by saying she/he is too sensitive and can’t take a joke. A simple rule is, if no one or the abused doesn’t laugh, it’s not a joke. A much better way would be to apologise.

I urge parents and teachers to teach children to think before they speak and to ask themselves before they speak “if I say this, how would the other person react” or “if someone said this to me, how would I feel” and if a voice inside them tells them that it’s probably not a good idea to say it, then they shouldn’t say it.

I also urge parents and teachers to teach children to apologise immediately, if they say something that has hurt someone, because empathy, which would automatically stop them from saying hurtful things to others, takes time to learn, especially if children have not been taught from home to be considerate of other people’s feelings and to be careful not to hurt others, and it will take time to learn how to control outbursts and start thinking before speaking and to manage anger effectively, but it is worth the efforts.

I recently bought a book that teachers children to stand up for themselves and their friends in an assertive way that don’t keep the fighting going but teaches how to speak up in a respectful way, while still feeling empowered by being able to say something back to the bully/abuser, so it can stop.

From my own experience as the verbally abused/bullied child in school, I learned that the passive or submissive approach by ignoring and waiting it out don’t work, and can actually make it worse. Unfortunately I never learned to stand up for myself during my school days, but tried to ignore it and the bullying continued. It was heartbreaking, and I cried many times and dreaded going to school every day, because I didn’t know how to handle it. I told my parents, but they just told me to ignore it, which didn’t work. Had they known what parents know today, they would have addressed the issue with the school directly to stop it or even better they would have taught me how to stand up for myself, but of course at that time, even parents found it hard to address such issues with the school and didn’t have the knowledge and techniques that we have today to deal with verbal abuse and bullying effectively.

It is because of my own experience as a victim of bullying that I take this issue very seriously as it happens every single day in all schools around the world and inflicts a lot of pain to the involved children. In teaching my own children to stand up for themselves and learn to speak up assertively, they can stop and prevent the fighting/bullying from continuing and gain the respect they deserve as individuals, which is the objective. My hope is that all parents would teach their children assertive communication, because it’s useful in all areas of life, as verbal abuse doesn’t only happen in schools, but in workplaces between colleagues, bosses and subordinates and in homes between husbands and wives and families. I believe that if more people learned to speak assertively and accepted other people’s feelings, boundaries and point of view, even opinions that are different from their own and learned to agree to disagree, there would be more peace and harmony in our relationships with other people, improve our well-being and mental state, and it may even prevent divorce and fighting among people.

Such great possibilities exist in learning how to communicate assertively. So what does it mean to communicate assertively?

There are several definitions such as:

1. Assertive communication is the straightforward and open expression of your needs, desires, thoughts and feelings. Assertive communication involves advocating for your own needs while still considering and respecting the needs of others.

2. As a communication style and strategy, assertiveness is distinguished from aggression and passivity. How people deal with personal boundaries, their own and those of other people, helps to distinguish between these three concepts. Passive communicators do not defend their own personal boundaries and thus allow aggressive people to abuse or manipulate them. Passive communicators are also typically not likely to risk trying to influence anyone else. Aggressive people do not respect the personal boundaries of others and thus are liable to harm others while trying to influence them. A person communicates assertively by overcoming fear to speak his or her mind or trying to influence others, but doing so in a way that respects the personal boundaries of others. Assertive people are also willing to defend themselves against aggressive incursions.

3. Assertive communication is the ability to express positive and negative ideas and feelings in an open, honest and direct way. It recognises our rights whilst still respecting the rights of others. It allows us to take responsibility for ourselves and our actions without judging or blaming other people. And it allows us to constructively confront and find a mutually satisfying solution where conflict exists.

4. Assertiveness is a form of communication in which needs or wishes are stated clearly with respect for oneself and the other person in the interaction. Assertive communication is distinguished from passive communication (in which needs or wishes go unstated) and aggressive communication (in which needs or wishes are stated in a hostile or demanding manner).

There are many advantages of assertive communication, most notably these:

• It helps us feel good about ourselves and others
• It leads to the development of mutual respect with others
• It increases our self-esteem
• It helps us achieve our goals
• It minimises hurting and alienating other people
• It reduces anxiety
• It protects us from being taken advantage of by others
• It enables us to make decisions and free choices in life
• It enables us to express, both verbally and non-verbally, a wide range of feelings and thoughts, both positive and negative

From the help of the book I bought and talking with my daughter about responses and ways of communicating assertively, I am teaching her slowly how to stand up for herself and her friends. And she is slowly beginning to use it and the other day she managed to stop a friend from saying something that would have hurt another friend. What she did was, upon realising what her friend was about to say, she walked over to her and firmly said ”Don’t say it (name), she is going to be hurt if you do”. And that’s it, she not only helped her friend understand that what she was about to say was wrong and could hurt someone else, but she also prevented the other friend from being hurt and she quickly thought of something harmless to divert the attention from the situation. My daughter felt good about herself for being brave enough to speak up and prevent a hurtful situation, as she knows how much it would have hurt, as she has empathy enough to be able to put herself in her friend’s shoes and feel what she would have felt if she had heard it.

While it’s good to teach children the techniques of assertive communication, parents also have a responsibility to teach their children to treat other people nicely and what’s right and what’s wrong to say and do. Parents can’t just leave that up to children to figure out, as values and manners need to be talked about and passed down the generations to ensure that children behave properly and treat others with kindness, respect and consideration.

I will continue to write about assertive communication another day and will also give tips about what to say in different situations.

Yesterday I received a comment from a reader, a teacher and parent, who raise a very important issue with the national schools, which is the number of students in each class. My reply was quite long, so I decided to post her comment here and my reply below.

By Nur Aida:

As a parent born and raised in Malaysia, I agree with you that extra tuition is not truly needed, on condition that the child’s home environment, as well as the school, allows the child to gain whatever knowledge he needs.  Sadly, this is not necessarily the case.  Being a teacher in a national school, I keep on hoping that someday soon, the classroom enrollment of every class is reduced to the ideal number of 25. If this is not possible, then I do wish we teachers get teacher assistants to help us teach better in class.

My reply:

Thank you very much for your comment. You are absolutely right, the class size should be max. 25, which was the case back in my school days and still is and is currently the case with Tenby International School and most other private schools. Or as you mention, there should be an assistant teacher for every class to help out, as it’s impossible and unfair for one teacher to cope with 40+ students and I understand the difficultly both teachers, students and parents are facing with the current situation in national schools.

I am sure there are parents and teachers who have been lobbying for this, but if not, perhaps it’s time to unite on this issue and request the Ministry of Education to look into it with the aim of making the necessary changes required. Coincidentally I just saw a quotation from Albert Einstein, which says “Nothing happens until something moves.”, which holds true in most things. If we need and want something to be done, we have to take the initiative and get the ball rolling to make progress. I know and have heard of many wonderful and caring teachers, and I think that if these teachers and parents get together and believe in your power to make a change for the better, you can make that change come true, if you stand together and never give up before you have reached your goal. We always wish someone else could do it, as it’s time-consuming and challenging, but unfortunately this is the reason why there is a lack of progress, because as Einstein said; nothing happens until something moves, and may I add, or until someone moves, and the more people who unite and convince the Government with strong arguments and valid reasons, the stronger your case.

And I believe you do have the right to speak up and request changes, because there is a Convention on the rights of the child, signed by the international community. Among many other rights, the Convention has four core principles, which are non-discrimination; devotion to the best interests of the child; the right to life, survival and development; and respect for the views of the child. Every right spelled out in the Convention is inherent to the human dignity and harmonious development of every child. The Convention protects children’s rights by setting standards in health care; education; and legal, civil and social services.

I think there should be a limit to how many hours children are expected to spent on their schooling per day, so they have adequate time to relax and indulge in other positive activities for all-round and healthy development both physically and mentally.

For more information about the Convention, go to www.unicef.org/crc/.