Bullying Is Not A Joke

Bullying is such a difficult topic to grab a hold of. Children may experience bullying and not say it to their parents. Parents may suspect something wrong with their children but don’t know how to pro[per address the issue. I was bullied a lot. I remember being smashed against a locker in 7th grade. My brother was bullied during this middle school and high school years. Yet, my brother learned martial arts as a way to defense. However, I was more of an resorted in listening to music and keep all my emotions to myself. I learned over the years the power of speaking out and having a great support system.

According to the American Psychological Association, “Bullying is a form of aggressive behavior in which someone intentionally and repeatedly causes another person injury or discomfort. Bullying can take the form of physical contact, words or more subtle actions” (Bullying, 2013). People bully each other for several reasons and there are different outcomes that are a result of those reasons. People can be bullied physically, emotionally, or verbally. Bullying can take place at school or online. Bullying should be a considered a crime, but kids get away with it all the time; furthermore prevention can be used in order to keep kids safe from bullying.

Bullying is defined as “verbal, physical, or psychological abuse or teasing accompanied by real or perceived imbalance of power” and is usually targets what children perceive as different (Olweus, 1993). Bullying is prevalent across the nation. It has devastating effects on students each day. Bullying is a problem for all students, regardless of race, gender or class. The National Education Association reports that 160,000 children are absent intentionally from school each day because they fear being bullied whether it is an attack or just intimidation by other students. This accounts for 15% of all school absenteeism (Hunter, 2012). Dan Olweus (1993) from the National School Safety Center tells us that bullying includes three parts: (1)

bullying is a horrible thing that happens to a lot of tenagers, and it’s for for stupid things. Such as, how people dress or how they act. People thinks it’s funny, but it’s not at all.

Bullying is a worldwide issue. Bullying can be expressed when it doesn’t seem like it’s being expressed. A bully is a person of greed, and doesn't care about who or what he is hurting. A good example of this is in the children's book “The Lorax” by Dr. Suess. You wouldn’t think that there is bullying here, but there is. When the Once-ler was cutting down all of the Lorax’s trees, this was considered bullying. The Lorax asked the Once-ler time after time to stop cutting down trees and he said no, this is a type of greed, the Once-ler was doing things that would better himself and not caring about others. The Once-ler was hurting the community. There is also an example in the book “The Kaffir Boy” the little boy, Clyde, was picking on the other little boy about his skin color and how he looks.

Bullying is bound to happen anywhere at any time but occurs mostly within school limits. Kathleen Winkler defines bulling in her book, Bullying, as “...any kind of ongoing physical or verbal mistreatment, done with the intent to harm, where there is an imbalance of power between bully and victim” (Winkler 14). Bullying has an extremely important impact on one’s everyday life and can affect their life negatively getting to the point where they can no longer take the blow. To try and prevent bullying from taking place in schools, one needs to know how bullying effects a person, what the role of each person involved in the situation is, and have knowledge of specific methods on how to prevent it. Bullying in schools is a serious problem and a handful of school do their part to prevent it; others, not as much, which means there is room for improvements.

To bully is to use strength and power to intimidate or harm the ones who are weaker. In the documentary “Bully”, directed by Lee Hirsch, the theme of the film is how many teachers and parents actually do not know what is happening in the lives of the children that they care for. However, there are also so many children who are hesitant to tell anyone that they are being bullied. The film follows the lives of several children who are faced with bullying every day. This film also follows parents whose children have committed suicide. Their lives had become intolerable and no one noticed or someone noticed and they did nothing too late. There are teachers and administrators who are clueless as to what is happening and some just flat out do not want to

Nowadays, schools and private assemblies are working together to talk to students and parents to minimize the instances of bullying by persistently educating them on the effects of bullying and actual instances that have happened around the world. The world is evolving rapidly each and every day through research and there still seem to be many questions unanswered but through each experience of bullying there are new questions

When children are pushed to commit foolish activities or suicide because of bullies, one can tell there is something wrong with the way situations are being handled in our society. The documentary, Bully, presents countless examples of the effects of bullying and how poorly circumstances are managed. Through instances resulting in juvenile detention or taking one’s own life, the documentary displays various ways kids deal with torment. As we follow the lives of five different youths suffering at the hands of their peers, we see just how much these kids go through with little to no support.

Many kids all around the world are abused by their parents, peers or even by complete strangers. One of these types of abuse is bullying. At a first glance, we might think that it is an older kid beating/teasing a younger classmate however; bullying consists of much more than this. The basic definition of bullying is when your behavior hurts or harms another person physically or emotionally. There are many different types of bullying, which may lead to a victim becoming violent later on. There is teasing and name calling, there is also picking and shoving the kid. However, the most extreme one would be beating up the child, hurting them physically and mainly, emotionally.

With school-aged children, bullying more frequently happens while they are at school, or afterward when the students are not being supervised by their teacher in places like the cafeteria, bus, lockers, playground or neighborhood. Now that kids have access to online technology, bullying can also happen on the internet. With this in mind, teachers must now research and understand what bullying is, and develop methods to help fight against bullying. Bullying is the aggressive, unwanted behavior that occurs between kids of all ages. Children that bully are using the power they believe they have over other kids to try to control and harm them. Bullying can happen via verbal, social, or physical abuses, such as name-calling, threats, spreading rumors, isolation, embarrassment, spitting, hitting, destroying personal things, etc. In order to be considered bullying, these bad behaviors are repeated over time.

Have you ever been bullied or witnessed anyone suffering from any form of bullying? If the answer is yes, then you should know the negative feeling that is created from it. The Youth Internet Safety Survey, conducted by the Crimes against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire, found that eight percent of the youth surveyed had experienced and reported some form of harassment.” An old familiar saying is that “Sticks and Stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me”, which is a lie! Simple bullying is defined as repeated verbal, physical, and social behaviors that are hurtful to any individual or group of persons. It can include humiliation, domination, intimidation and all forms of harassment not limited to: race, gender, disability, or sexual orientation (“nsw.gov.au”). All forms of bullying have been proven to leave long-term effects on the victims. Bully victims are between 2 to 9 times more likely to consider suicide than non-victims, according to studies by Yale University (“Bullying Statistics”). It is not just students that encourage the bully who victimized, but the students who watch in silence hurt the victim as well. Bullying leads back to the beginning of time, but in more recent years, it has become more publicly talked about. Although, the government began to nationally address bullying and advanced training is being provided to educators

Many people do not realize how serious bullying has become. If you look at statistics suicides due to bullying have increased over just a few short years. This has become a very big problem for not only the victim but the bully as well as it affect both of them. School bullying is mentally destructive to not only the victims, but bullies because of the harmful words, harassment, and physical violence involved as well as the consequences for the bully.

Some people believe that bullying is only seen on television or in the movies but it is a real life issue that is seen and experienced by many every day. People of all ages, races, cultures and backgrounds are affected. There are some who are embarrassed to report bullying but it occurs every day, everywhere. It is important to learn about and understand what causes people to be bullies, as well as understand the effects that being bullied can have on a person.It is important for people to understand all sides of bullying, from the signs of someone being bullied to what you can do to prevent it.

Thesis: Bullying in its many forms affects all people no matter age, gender, and class, but the effects can be very dangerous and very hurtful.