SINGAPORE – There’s a saying, kill them with kindness, a line often traced to Shakespeare’s The Taming Of The Shrew.
The expression has, over time, shed its theatrical origins to mean something more straightforward – meeting hostility with generosity or disarming negativity with excessive kindness.
It came to mind as the authorities announced on April 15 a set of new anti-bullying measures and, more broadly, renewed efforts to shape the moral development of children, as well as the values and character they carry with them as they grow.
The message sent is clear: Schools – and the wider public – are to take bullying more seriously and respond with firmer resolve. Such offences will be handled the same way as other forms of serious misconduct such as truancy and vaping.
Suspension, detention and even caning are among the disciplinary actions that school bullies could face, as part of a broader push for more consistent enforcement across school grounds.
There is also a clearer expectation that schools act promptly and communicate with parents, rather than leaving them in the dark.
Yet, it is also hard not to think about the texture of school life itself – the millions of micro-interactions that unfold each day, most beyond the view of any adult. Many are fleeting, mundane, happening both online and off. The majority of these encounters will not reach the stage of needing formal disciplinary action.
But within these interactions lie the potential for both harm and care. Surveys suggest bullying is not uncommon, even if official figures capture only the more serious, reported cases.
Among the recommendations from the Ministry of Education’s year-long review of bullying and hurtful behaviour was a call to “deepen a culture of kindness and respect in all schools”. It is, perhaps, the most intangible of the proposals – harder to define, let alone execute.
But it may also be the most crucial.
Placing it front and centre acknowledges that rules and punishments can set boundaries and act as deterrents, but it is the school culture that ultimately determines whether children feel safe, and whether relationships formed within those walls are shaped by empathy, trust and mutual regard.
The alternative is unsettling: a school environment shaped instead by contempt, cruelty and the forces of peer approval, exclusion and domination.
This aligns with international research that shows harsh, punitive measures alone are not enough to address the deeper causes of bullying.
The focus, increasingly, is shifting beyond a narrow framing of bullies and victims to the wider peer dynamics that shape behaviour.
