Bullying part 4

This will be the last part of the bullying blogs. I wrote these blogs not to harp on people about teasing others or to throw statistics in people's faces that I am sure have been on the news or in the paper or somewhere that is easily seen. My point is to possibly wake some people up to the reality of what impact you have on people's lives. We are going to college for some of the people reading this, and in college try and make a promise to yourself to be more open to people. Don't ridicule someone because they are different because you never know when that is their last straw, when they no longer can do life anymore. I once read a book called "Thirteen Reasons Why," by Jay Asher( I truly reccomend this by the way) and it was about a girl who had committed suicide but not before creating 13 tapes that were to be sent to every person on a list that had some impact on why she decided to commit suicide. It went through her story of how everything ended up linking together and causing one massive situation that she couldn't handle anymore. That book truly shows that you never know what someone is dealing with outside of the environment you see them in. You don't know what they deal with when they go home, or what they have to handle in other classes. We have so little time in some people's lives and do you really want that little time to be you bullying them or making them feel inferior to you for whatever reason?

What people chose to say to others does hurt, that saying, "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names can never hurt me," Is wrong, it can hurt you. It is not okay to chose someone out of a crowd and make them feel alone or inferior, because chances are what you are making fun of them about they probably can't change. If you do anything in life at least try to remember that you may think its funny but that person probably doesn't and would you want to wake up in the morning and read in the paper about how someone YOU bullied died because something you said? Personally I woudn't want that on my conscience. I have my moments where I forget this very thing I am hoping people will learn to do, but I am getting better and I hope that someday it never happens because life could be so much simpler if people learned to accept others for who they are and not avoid them because of things they can't change.

So here is a blog I found about bullying, one story of millions that happen all the time.. http://bullyingstatistics.blogspot.com/

Here is a link where I found some of my statistics http://www.pascack.k12.nj.us/70271919141818/lib/70271919141818/Bullying_Statistics.htm

and this is a link to a video about a bullying project movie or show that is coming out..
http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/feature/2011/04/27/bully_project_movie_trailer/index.html


I hope that even if you chose not to go along with what I say that someone out there learned something and maybe was able to change a few lives in the process.

(Oh and sorry Mrs. Healey that this one is like 13 minutes after 12!)

Bullying part 3

I know many people may read this and say, bullying really? What more is there to say about bullying? What haven't we heard about that growing up, especially in todays society? If you turn on the news you can hear stories about someone being bullied all the time. So what are the effects of bullying to someone? What will happen to them in the future? Well let's find out..

Bullying has many effects on different people, and can depend on your personality and whether you have real friends and even how your home life is. There will be those people who are bullied and when they get to college will have found what they are meant to do and be, and not worry about what other people called them when they were in 5th grade, but this isn't what happens to everyone. For example, imagine that there is a student who is now in highschool, they have been bullied nonstop every year since at least 5th grade. Their home life is horrible, their parents treat them just as badly as those people at school do, what do you think will happen to them? Well they will either toughen up and harden themselves from being able to be hurt or they could get extremely depressed because they feel as if they have no one. That feeling of loneliness has a huge impact on a person's life. They could start to believe what everyone tells them and even start to do worse at things like classes or not perform well, they become self-fulfilling prophecies. However, again this is not the only outcome, some cases do lead to suicide.

Yes I went there suicide, a topic I have heard many people talk about in ways that I am shocked beyond belief by. People look at those who have killed themselves or try to hurt themselves and say there must be something wrong with them, they have to be crazy, why would you ever do such a thing? Then they continue to ridicule them as if they up and did this for no reason. This appauls me that no one sits down and thinks to themselves, you know I wonder why they did that? I wonder what the breaking point was? No one tries to say, "Hey maybe they aren't crazy, maybe they just had a lot going on in their lives, you shouldn't judge them because they did that." So many people not just teens die from suicide because of what someone else has said to them. Due to abuse they have received and isn't that what bullying is? Abuse? So many people do not link those two words together but even when a parent abuses their children that is still bullying. Even when two adults bash each other based on something that is bullying!
People assume that this word has one finite definition, a definition that people are excluded from when they reach a specific age, and a definition that is limited to only being two children or two teenagers involved. I am sorry but that is NOT the definition of that word, and we make judgements about that word without even thinking about what it does to someone.

Bullying doesn't just effect the person you hurt with your words or actions, it effects everyone in their life that they communicate with, that they live with, and that they are around on  weeky to daily basis. People forget that as humans we have feelings and that feelings DO matter, that what we do to others makes a big deal and should be watched.

Bullying part 2

So to begin this post off I decided to show some statistics. 1 out of 4 kids are bullied. In a recent study 77% of the kids were bullied physically,mentally, and verbally. 1 out of 5 said that they were bullies or did bullying of some kind at some point. 8% of students miss one class per month due to being scared of being bullied. Playground statistics- Every 7 minutes a child is bullied. Adult Intervention -4%. Peer Intervention -11% No intervention-85%.

These statistics go on and on. Students everywhere have to wake up in the morning and go to school worrying about who is going to beat them up, who will make fun of their hair, shoes, clothes, or whatever that person decides. Some students live in constant fear of being attacked by someone around them. My question to that is what kind of effect is this going to have on those kids? Being in constant fear, unable to feel welcomed or unable to belong to something would not be pleasant. In fact it would go past that to be downright unbearable. Most of the time you will hear stories about people only being bullied about one thing, maybe they had an embarassing fall and everyone saw, they may be laughed at for a little while but eventually people forget. But what about those kids that are bullied everyday? What do they do? How do they live?

Those people have to feel so insignificant, so separated from the rest of their classmates and their peers. I for one know that feeling inferior to someone is not fun and makes for less self esteem or confidence in  your abilities. The feeling of inferiority can make someone doubt their abilities about something they should be able to do with no problem.

There have been laws, and riots, and protests against racial bullying and racism, yet in schools all across America and across many other schools in the world bullying still exists. I remember being that age and thinking that you couldnt tell your parents or you couldn't tell a teacher because they would call that kid's parents or tell the principal which never helped because once the bully got in trouble, you felt more of the pain. Honestly those kids were right, it is hard to tell on a bully, because the system for dealing with them does nothing. That system does not help whatsoever. So what is a kid to do when they feel desperate and feel alone because of bullying? That situation doesn't leave much room for safety in a child's life.

Now in today's society with the booming technology with more and more people having cell phones that get the internet, that have the ability to have emails sent to their phone and a connection to social websites like facebook without needing a computer, information spreads quickly. Before it used to be that the school building and area around it was the only danger from bullies. Today that isn't even where most of the bullying takes place. The internet has spawned a bullying beyond what it used to be. It has spawned something that can create a falsehood, spread it within minutes to hundreds of people, and do it all anonymously because it doesn't have to be face to face anymore. What does this mean to those who fall on the lower end of the social network? It means utter humiliation not just in school but outside of it and with the ability of spreading something untrue and reputation destroying so much faster than before.

Bullying is not something to take lightly, in can have tremendous effects on someone all the way through adulthood. Many people assume that bullying at grade school age is normal, its a rite of passage almost, everyonse has it happen to them and it is just the norm. What I say to that is why does it have to be the norm? Why is that ever okay to let people make judgements about someone because they are different or because they can? There is no benefit by someone being beaten up or emotionally abused by someone, there is never and will never be a good outcome of bullying or abuse. So my question to America is why haven't we done more to help the youth of this country? Why don't we try to stop it to change the views because at those ages we have the ability to mold their future habits, and if we let it happen when they are little, they will only learn to do the same thing to adults as they continue to get older.

Bullying part 1

Bullying. There isn’t a human being on the planet that doesn’t know what this word means. As soon as you hit the age to be in school it will happen. Whether you are the victim or the bully, or whether you are an adult who watched it happen you know what it is. So many people, adults and children, around the world and in many homes have to deal with this word. Chances are they have felt the pain of this word at some point in their lives, and probably did it to someone else too. When people hear bullying they think of two children, possibly on the playground or in classes at school. However, only thinking bullying happens in these two places, and only these two places are naïve.  It doesn’t matter what age you are, bullying can still happen, the difference is that when people are older, others feel that they should be able to handle it and are probably being dramatic if they can’t handle it. I remember being in middle school and I think many people would agree with me that at least for girls middle school was one of the worst times to be a kid. Bullying was a commonplace thing and when everyone got aim accounts it became even easier to attack someone at home and not just school anymore. With the internet steadily growing bigger and bigger and invading more homes and more opportunities to invade people’s lives the aspect of bullying grows tremendously as well.  To imagine being a middle school child in this era where it’s extremely easy to get on the internet and harass someone, it would be much worse. I’m sure the feeling would be claustrophobic and one that would feel as if you couldn’t get rid of the person who was making fun of you. It’s sad to think of what that would be like and how you would deal with that. The feeling of not being able to escape what someone was saying, and not only that but being able to have it spread to more people faster without control. Imagine all this is stemmed back to one kid bullying someone else because they are different or just because they want to, it doesn’t seem to be just in the playground anymore does it?