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Spijt: The reality of bullying and the importance of peer support

 

Blog 2: Tirza Scheffer


Spijt: The reality of bullying and the importance of peer support

 

Spijt (which means Regret) is a Dutch movie that shows how serious bullying can be. The film is directed by Dave Schram and is based on Carry Slee's book. It tells the story of a teenager called Jochem who is bullied by his classmates. The film shows how bullying can have a really bad effect on someone's mental health and how important it is to have support to stop bad things from happening.

This movie is about how Jochem is bullied at school and nobody helps him. Some teachers even bullied him for being fat and ugly. His only support here was his classmate David. Even though David tries to help and is nice, the bullying doesn't stop and Jochem's mental health keeps getting worse. A girl Jochem liked seeing realised the impact of the bullying, but she realised this too late and she could not help him anymore. The film has a sad ending. This shows that bullying can get worse if people ignore it.

When I was younger, I watched Spijt several times. It made me feel sick because I couldn't understand how the bullies could be so cruel to Jochem. The ending felt especially real, showing how bullying can have tragic consequences. I remember one quote from the end, where David yells at the bullies: "What do you want me to say then?" "You'll regret it!" This moment was important because the bullies only felt sorry for what they had done after it was too late, after Jochem had taken his own life. This film shows how important support is. If Jochem had received more support from his colleagues, perhaps things could have turned out differently.

Spijt shows how important it is for people to support each other in dealing with bullying. Things got worse for Jochem because his classmates did not support him and his teachers did not get involved. Cowie and Smith (2010) say that it is very important for students to support each other to stop bullying and make school safer. Their research shows that students who have strong friendships with their classmates are less likely to bully others and more likely to report bullying when it occurs.

 

References:

Cowie, H. (2011). Peer Support as an Intervention to Counteract School Bullying: Listen to the

Children. Children & Society, 25(4), 287–292. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1099-0860.2011.00375.x

 

 

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