Bullying

Those who are bullied are affected deeply. Because it feels like you are alone and that no one likes you. When someone is making fun of you, you kind of look around and hope that your “friends” or anybody can stick up for you, but they don’t. And since bullying commonly occurs during school, you don’t really want to go anymore. Because once you get there, it’s more of the same every day. There is a fear there. A fear of humiliation every day. Even though you really enjoy going to school, that enjoyment isn’t enough anymore to make it worth going. Your grades start to drop because you’re not focused on your classes anymore. You’re more worried about what so and so are going to say about you today. You worry about not making a mistake or saying the wrong thing, because it feels like they are just waiting to pounce you. It gets in your head, you can already hear them laughing or the name-calling before it even happens. The worse part of it all is that it affects one’s self-esteem. You start believing what they say about you. You start feeling like you are nobody and that nobody wants to be your friend. At least that’s how it always felt to me. I had friends to play with at recess, but those same friends were the ones that would laugh at me. It makes you think it's a joke because your friends are laughing too. But it's not. Kids don't realize what kind of impact those situations can cause. It causes individuals to feel out of place.

Loneliness is a killer, a killer of confidence. It doesn’t matter how gifted you are, if you don’t have the confidence, you can never fully reach what you’re worth. And we all are worth a lot.   

Bullying is an issue that we should not take lightly. At least one out of every three kids in grade school go through some sort of bullying. And almost every teen or young adult has experience some sort of cyberbullying. Children and teens, to an extent, are going through their developmental years and bullying can have a negative effect on them for the rest of their lives. I believe one of the biggest issues in our society is apathy. People don’t want to understand or relate to any issue that does not affect them directly. And it’s a shame because if we can just ban together and raise awareness on an issue like bullying, it can have a tremendous impact on the futures of so many kids. These kids would have the confidence to pursue their dreams without having to look over their shoulders. But before we can just go out and take action. We must first become informed with what exactly bullying is.

What is bullying? Stopbullying.gov defines it as “unwanted, aggressive behavior among school aged children that involves a real or perceived power imbalance. The behavior is repeated, or has the potential to be repeated, over time.” So, in other words, it basically means when one individual asserts their power over another individual and continually does so, most commonly occurring with children but also within teens and young adults.

There are three common types of bullying, verbal, social, and physical. Verbal bullying deals with saying or writing mean things about a certain individual, which can be in the form of teasing, name-calling, taunting, or threats. Social bullying deals involves hurting someone’s reputation or relationships. This from is accomplished by excluding an individual from a group, spreading rumors, or just embarrassing the individual in public. Physical bullying involves hurting a person’s body or possessions. This includes hitting, kicking, pinching, spitting, pushing, offensive hand gestures, or breaking an individual’s possessions.

Bullying is most common in schools, whether in the building or in the playground. Unfortunately, almost all kids witness some sort of bullying. 

This graph shows how middle school students and high school students reported some sort of bullying. It shows how almost 1 out of every 2 students in middle school experience this issue. And that’s just what is reported, because not all of them are reported. And for the high school students it can be about 1 out of every 3. And it that span that this graphs of about 8 years, there isn’t really a decrease. Even though there have initiatives to raise awareness and try to prevent it. It hasn’t been enough.  

The rise of technology has allowed users to connect with others very easily. But what it also did was create a new form of bullying, cyberbullying. This form more commonly found with teens and young adults who are users of various social networking sites. An individual can post a picture or some sort of post, and this becomes available to everyone to see. The cyberbully can be anonymous and just write negative things towards that individual. The cyberbully can start rumors, can send unfavorable pictures of an individual, can write mean comments on an individual’s social media account, or can write negative comments on pictures that are shared. There is so much that they can do online and they can continually do it for as long as they want. And because they most likely remain anonymous, it’s hard to find who it is and stop it.

This graph shows different age groups and a percentage of about how many experienced cyberbullying. As you can see, the age group that deals with it more are the 14-17 years old. And it has to do with how pretty much all of them have easy access to a device that connects to the social media outlets. Yes, they are exposed more, but it's not entirely their fault. People who want to be mean or hurtful are going to be negative online. As much as people can be protecting themselves, those "internet trolls" are out there.

It is going to be nearly impossible to stop bullying all over the country. But at least we can raise awareness. We have to talk to the kids from the beginning and tell them that it’s wrong to pick on their fellow classmates. To always speak out if they see or hear anything wrong. To not be afraid to talk to their parents.

It only takes one person to create a chain. And hopefully over time those numbers of kids who are affected can decrease. All parents, siblings, grandparents, aunts, or uncles just want those kids to go to a safe place to learn and be able to dream of accomplishing anything they want without any fear. And hopefully this generation can turn our society’s apathy into empathy. Creating a generation were they don’t accept the social injustices that we have now. 

Below is a community who stand against any sort bullying.

References:

Jacobsen, Kristen E., and Sheri Bauman. “Bullying in Schools: School Counselors' Responses to Three Types of Bullying Incidents.” Professional School Counseling, vol. 11, no. 1, 2007, pp. 1–9.

Swearer, Susan M. et al. “What Can Be Done About School Bullying? Linking Research to Educational Practice.” Educational Researcher, vol. 39, no. 1, 2010, pp. 38–47.

What is Bullying. Stpbullying.gov.