Vigilante parents patrol school playgrounds

Schools complain of parents taking matters into their own hands and making them worse

A mother who had to be threatened with a restraining order against getting near Hyltebjerg Skole in Vanløse is just one among many cases of vigilante parents that insist on dealing with schoolyard bullies themselves.

Kristeligt Dagblad reports of a growing tendency of parents trying to take their children's social problems into their own hands.

Father threatened son's bully
Another example is a dad who sneaked into the playground and threatened his son's bully, telling him that if he ever laid a hand upon his son, he would get beaten up so badly that he would never forget it.

These cases are not rare, according to Claus Hjortdal, the head of the head teachers' assocation Skolelederforeningen.

"It's a development that we have seen more of in the past couple of years. It derives from a certain lack of trust in the school from the parents' side, but also in an unconditional trust in what their kids tell them," he told Kristeligt Dagblad.

The scale of the problem with vigilantism among parents is not officially registrered, but Skolelederforeningen encourages schools and parents to take it seriously.




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