This week's new policy document on bullying published by the education ministry, and a parallel initiative by the Office of the Commissioner for Children Malta Union of Teachers on the issue of cyber-bullying, are most welcome news.
Within the space of a week, and as far as children - the country's most precious resource - are concerned, the authorities are seeking to take the bull(ying) by the horns.
Bullying, especially in schools, when the victims are young and in their most formative years, can have negative and sometimes devastating effects on the children involved - lasting, lifelong and mostly intangible effects on both the bullied and the bullies themselves, if the latter's behaviour is not brought in check at the youngest age possible.
Time and time again we have heard the horror stories of teenage suicides driven by relentless bullying, and, sadly, Malta, we are certain, is no different from other countries in this respect. Now the problem has grown exponentially with the relatively new advent of online bullying - far more insidious and hidden from parental or school authority as it is done on a growing plethora of social media platforms on which youngsters engage with each other.
Although such initiatives have been a long time coming, as the adage goes: better late than never.
The education ministry's policy document, for starters, requires educators to report any form of bullying to the Anti Bullying Services unit, after which the parents of the children involved are roped in and procedures are taken accordingly on a case-by-case scenario.
Last year, that unit received a total 254 bullying referrals from state schools, the vast majority of which concerned boys - no small amount at all, and, considering the new policy compelling educators to report cases of bullying, that number is likely to grow and as such the unit will certainly have its work cut out for it.
This is a major step in the right direction but, as with all things, the real gauge of success will be in the implementation.
This initiative was complemented this week by another excellent initiative along similar lines, in the form of an information note on cyber-bullying for educators by the Office of the Commissioner for Children, as part of the BeSmartOnline! Initiative, and the Malta Union of Teachers.
'Traditional' bullying is unfortunately still with us and those of us who are parents and grandparents today undoubtedly all have their own stories to tell from their school days all those decades ago.
But being a kid today is, in so many respects, a completely different reality to what being a teenager was even 20 years ago, when things such as mobile telephony, the internet, social networks and the like were the stuff of science fiction. Today, this kind of instantaneous connectivity and communication is taken as a given - a normal, integral part of life as we know it.
And while these new means of communication have beyond any doubt changed the way in which life is lived, that technological progress also has its pitfalls - pitfalls that today's parents of teenagers may not fully appreciate.
Today, surveys have shown that the vast majority of Maltese minors have internet access at home, many in the privacy of their bedrooms or smartphone. This, on one hand, is positive and all due credit should be given to past initiatives aimed at bringing the country's children into the now vital online world.
But with that growth comes a tandem growth in the online threats potentially faced by children navigating the sometimes murky waters of the internet. This is not to say that the internet is a cesspool of seediness and paedophiles, but the internet does have a more ominous underbelly, and one that is easily accessible at the click of a mouse.
Nor does it mean that parents need to track every keystroke their children make. At the end of the day, however, today's parents of teenagers, children who are so immersed in today's world of social networking, need a wake-up call. They need to be made aware of what their children may be doing or be exposed to in today's multi-faceted, wonderful yet perilous online world, a world rendered even more dangerous given the natural ups and downs of adolescence.
What it means is that parents need to properly educate their children about the potential dangers of the online world. It means that children themselves need to be made wise enough to not tumble into those pitfalls. Parents, and teachers, have a responsibility to children to help them through these new means of communication and to see children using them for instructive, rather than destructive, purposes.