Bullying

Although, if the children of this generation are taught the right way, not to bully, their future children will not have that characteristic passed down to them when they are enrolled in school.  Parents might argue that their children do not bully, that the other child, or children, is just trying to make their child look bad.  In this case, the parents, if it is an outside of school issue, should sit with however many children are involved in the bullying and talk with them to get to the bottom of the issue.

Traditional bullying used to be more common back when there was no texting or social media. Bullying consistently takes place in person: the common actions often include teasing, taunting, humiliating, and sometimes showing acts of violence. Cyberbullying takes place online making it more humiliating and intolerable for the victim since the information doesn’t go away. They both equally cause the victim emotional distress and significantly lower their confidence while the bully feels more authoritative and quite satisfied. While the fear of getting bullied grows in the victim, they start to feel unsafe and decide not to go to school. All the students deserve to attend school without the fear of getting humiliated, harassed, or bullied, but what are the bystanders and teachers doing about bullying?

As stories like Moniques and other people demonstrates, there are policies out there that just simply do not work.. One is called zero-tolerance policies, and while these succeed at sending the message that bullying is not tolerated, there are several problems with them. Nora M. Findlay believes, “ One of the most serious problems inherent in zero tolerance is that it treats dissimilar problems in a similar way” (6). Secondly, “Students and teachers may be less likely to report and address bullying if suspension or expulsion is the consequence” (United States Department of Health and Human Services). Two other policies that are used but never works is called peer-mediation, and conflict resolution. The United States Department of Health and Human Services stresses, “Conflict involves antagonism among two or more people. Whereas any two people can have a conflict (or a disagreement or a fight) bullying only occurs when there is a power imbalance-where one child has a hard time defending himself or herself” (“Myths about Bullying” sect. 1). This difference is very important to be aware of because these strategies can make the people being bullied feel even worse. Not only that, but it sends the message that all children share equal blame, which is definitely not an appropriate message. The message to the person being bullied should be,

To begin with, bullying happens all around you and yet barely anything is being done about it. No one will stand up or speak up either until its too late or not at all. The laws don’t help enough. The law we have in Florida is the Jeffrey Johnston Stand Up For All Students act. That act states that anyone in the school- students and teachers/ staff member, that is subjected to bullying,

They need to empower teachers and especially students to help enforce policies by teaching them to see what behaviors are not acceptable and how they should react. Schools need to increase adult supervision because bullying happens when adults are not around. Schools should have assemblies and activities that bring the community together to show that bullying is wrong. Teachers can have their students write a set of school or class rules or sign a behavior contract. Making scenarios of bullying and what to do can help students know what they should do.

In a study taken by the American Medical Association it was reported that over 3.2 million students are victims of bullying each year. Out of these 3.2 million they found that approximately 160,000 teens skip school every day and 1 in 10 students drop out to school to escape from repeatedly being bullied. Reading these statistics, you can almost hear them call for someone to step up against this horrid and harassing act known as bullying. However, in a room full of bystanders, not one voice has the courage to stand up and intervene when someone is being bullied. As parents, the main goal to have should be obtaining every bit of information you can on what is happening in the lives of your child and teach them how they are capable of turning things around and stepping up against bullying by becoming an upstander.

The question might ask where the line should be drawn between bullying and being mean. Some people believe that fooling around, or being mean would almost be the same thing as if one were bullying someone else. The concept of bullying and being mean could stand together, but are usually separated into two different categories. Whether it affects the victim a little or a lot, bullying has more effects and consequences that create major pain and torture in the mind of the innocent victim rather than just being mean. Bullying can be incorporated between being mean and fooling around, but at the same time, saying “Just kidding” versus intentionally hurting the victim is a major difference.

Bullying is one of the hardest thing to work on and prevent in today’s world. In school there are about 28 percent of kids that are getting bullied. The ages are between 12-18 year old kids “(According to American society for the positive care of children). The bully’s pick on people that are smaller than them and cannot fight back. Bullying can be hard to prevent in todays would but with the right help and effective intervention and solutions that can be stopped. “Those who bully and harass stand in the way of learning and threaten the safety of our children” (preface to “What laws will best prevent cyber-crime”). The whole point in going to school is to learn not to be fighting with the other kids. Because bullying is caused by todays increased

Phoebe Prince was originally born in Ireland, then moved to America. At her new school Hadley High School. Where she was severely bullied. It started out when she started dating two of the most popular boys at her new school. Which gave her a few enemies. In no time her status dropped. And she started to get bullied. At first the bullying was minor. A bump in the hallway or a glare. Not too bad. But after a couple weeks it escalated to name calling, cyber bullying, and physical abuse. There was about five kids who were convicted for driving Phoebe Prince to commit suicide. Three of the teens received probation and community service, while two others face probation. “She was bullied out of pure jealousy” said a sophomore from Hadley High School according to people.com/celebrity/why-was-phoebe-prince-bullied/. The bullying did not stop, it was everyday. The bullies would often shout “Irish whore” at her in the hallways. The bullying lasted up to three months. A week before her suicide, the torments grew, she was shoved into lockers and was told to kill herself on Facebook. Officials say that she asked for help but told a friend that there was no action going to be taken. Phoebe Prince was viciously tormented over a course of three months that lead to her hanging herself. She felt that killing herself was the only way out. Bullying is a huge problem, but it is something that we can

Understanding the notion of bullying is undermined by an individual’s point of view, life experience, and personality. What some people declare as bullying others shake off as a typical behavior of kids. Whether the bias also has a base in gender or age the issue that needs to be dealt with is the damage done to the victim and the mental health needs of the perpetrator. The question regarding bullying is about norms and responses to violations of the norms. How students and adults interpret the actions, reactions, and feelings are tied to the level of open communications that exist. Adults often believe it when the student says ‘I’m fine’ because they want to believe it. Students are quite skillful about saying what they think adults want to hear. This lack of communication at home and school leaves a student who is being bullied isolated and vulnerable.

Schools, parents, and friends should all work together so children won’t get bullied because of someone else’s actions. When someone bullies a person its more than likely because they have stuff going on at home or with friends or school. Parents need to interfere if their kids are being bullies because then they can cause harm to someone else. Most teens usually bully people because of what they watch at home or what they do at home and parents are responsible of that because they should always be aware of what their children are doing. If parents aren’t responsible for their kids then they should be punished for not being responsible for their child’s actions. In Florida, a 14 and 12-year-old girls have been arrested and charged with aggravated stalking and cyberbullying. These girls were really rude to a little girl and didn’t treat her the way they were supposed to because of this the little girl committed suicide and the girls didn’t even care that she did that. This shows that their parents probably didn’t raise them right because they wouldn’t treat others with respect or the way their supposed to. It can’t be prohibited that if parents make their children become bullies they are not raising them right. Parents are responsible for everything their kids do because they are the ones that teach them what is right from wrong. No matter how long you bully someone there will always be consequences for what you have caused and you will make up for what you did. Around 160,000 people do not attend school because of how they treat them at school or how they do not respect them. Many people think it’s fun to bully other people but it’s one of the worst things to do because you will get yourself in so much trouble if something happens to the person that you would make fun of. When it comes to preventing bullying, parents need to

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.

Individuals belonging to certain populations are at greater risk of being bullied and victimized. Children that are overweight, of color, disabled, or members of the lesbian, gay, transgender, bisexual (LGBT), are all at increased risk of victimization. Students with developmental disabilities are two to three times more likely to be bullied than nondisabled students (National Center for Educational Statistics, 2015). It’s also been noted that disabled students are more worried about their own personal safety and remaining free from injury while attending school than students without disability. 24.7% of African-American students, 17.2% of Hispanic students, and 9% of Asian students reported being bullied at school (National Center for Educational Statistics, 2015). 74.1% of LGBT students were verbally bullied in the past year because of their sexual orientation and 55.2% because of their gender expression (National School Climate Survey, 2013). 64% of students enrolled in weight-loss programs reported experiencing weight-based victimization and 84% of students observed students perceived as overweight being called names or getting teased during physical activities (Puhl, Leudicke, & Heuer, 2012).

Educators and staff need to be aware of the early warning signs of harassment and bullying. Once recognized, they need to be quick to intervene when they see this occurring. However, educators must remember that signs of violence are not always signs from one person. Bullying and hate crimes are also prevalent in schools and need to be recognize. The company, Teaching Tolerance, has this advice for educators: “listen, watch, and learn.” The site’s file on “Responding to Hate in School” says that attention needs to be paid to what is being heard in the halls. In “The Final Report and Findings of The Safe School Initiative,” researchers found that in many cases of school violence, other people knew about the attack before it actually happened. Teachers must be aware of this and listen for any and all rumors. A teacher also needs to listen for slurs or common derogatory phrases. They must be alert everywhere in the school, not just their own classroom, and constantly search for signs of marginalized students, entitlement, and violent behaviors. They even must be aware of other educator’s attitudes and behaviors towards students as well as their own perceptions. Teaching Tolerance implores educators to “be the person who knows what’s really going on at your school” and to take an active part in ending school violence (Willoughby, p. 5-6).

NO!!!Mom AND DAD I DONT WANT TO GO TO SCHOOL ANYMORE, I DONT WANT TO BE TORMENTED AGAIN!!!This shows that bullying has traumatized a majority of children in our nation.People who are bullies to take power or control.Bullying in its various forms that is one of the problems many children and teens have to face daily when they go to school or outside out school when they are not with their parents.