Bullying in our community

In the past years bullying has become a serious problem, but it hasn’t always been a problem.

Bullying was once a part of life, part of growing up. Now it has gone to extremes and has caused kids and teenagers around the world to commit suicide or self harm.

“Bullying is intentional harmful behavior initiated by one or more students and directed toward another student. Bullying is unjustified and typically is repeated,” said Gabriela Cervantes the school’s councelor.

Cervantes explained that bullying isn’t being mean. It’s when just targeting a student and harassing that person. It can either be verbal, emotional, etc.

There are four types of bullying. Punching, Verbal, Social, Cyber, and Hazing.

Physical bullying is when you bully someone with physical activities like kicking, punching, pinching, or pushing. Boys use this type of bullying more often than girls.

The other type of bulling is verbal bulling. Some examples are teasing, name-calling, or threats to hurt or scare others. This type of bullying is the most common.

The other type of bullying is cyber-bullying. This type of bullying takes place in any type of digital device, like a phone or computer. Some examples of cyber-bullying are posting negative comments, pictures, or threats on-line.

Finally, the last type of bullying is hazing. This type of bullying is when you join a group or team, new members have to do embarrassing or dangerous things in order to get accepted.

Over 3.2 million students are victims of bullying each year. At school, there are about 56% students experiencing bullying. There are 90% of 4-8 graders that are reporting about being victims of bullying. 160,000 students skip school because they’re afraid of being bullied. Physical bullying increases in elementary and verbal abuse remains constant.

Some signs to let you know someone is self harming is having cuts or scars, having sharp objects in their belongings, wearing pants or long sweaters during warm weather.

Cutting is very dangerous because if they cut too deep they might cut a vein or artery and can develop a serious infection.

Also, they might be making statements about wishing to die. They might be writing or talking about death. Kids might be creating suicide notes.

We should stop bullying because it makes teens feel different, powerless, unpopular or alone. Bullying is really hurtful to other kids which causes them to commit suicide or self harm. Bullying causes stress in students. 30% of child suicides are from bullying. When kids get bullied they are afraid to try new things because they think other kids will make fun of them. Bullying causes depression, anxiety, anger, drug and alcohol abuse, anti-social problems or self harm.