When you send your child to summer camp, you expect that they will be kept safe and be properly supported by members of staff at the camp. Their job should be to protect your child and look out for any signs of bullying or abuse, stopping it in its tracks.
However, when your child returns from camp and confides in you about the ordeal of bullying that they went through, it is likely that you will feel outraged. It is hard to understand how such abuse toward a child is allowed to happen. Bullying is harmful, especially within an intense social setting such as a summer camp. You may want to look into the possibilities of taking action against staff at the summer camp if you believe that they were negligent in allowing the bullying to happen. You may also have reason to believe that summer camp staff encouraged or took part in the bullying.
How harmful can bullying be when it affects a child?
Bullying can be extremely damaging for children. Serious cases of bullying are enough to affect them for the rest of their lives. Therefore, all staff at summer camps have been trained to spot bullying and to do something to prevent it from happening. If the bullying has been blatantly ignored by summer camp staff when they could have taken effective action, this could be seen as negligence under the law. The staff failed to live up to their responsibility to protect the child.
What are the most common warning signs of bullying?
Your child may not volunteer the fact that they were bullied immediately. This is common because children often feel embarrassed or ashamed at being targeted for abuse. If your child is acting differently after camp, you should be on the lookout for other signs. Red flags include your child having unexplained injuries, damaged property or that they have become more reserved and anxious in social situations. You may want to have an open conversation with them an encourage them to discuss any problems they had at the camp.
If you believe that the camp staff are responsible for provoking the bullying of your child or failing to stop your child from being bullied, you may want to learn more about what actions you can take.
