Bullying

A young boy wakes up by the ringing noise of his phone. It was 3 am, who could possibly be texting him at 3 am. It was his best friend or his ex best friend. A lot happened between them and they’ve been fighting for almost a month. Now the boy's best friend is texting him about how dumb and annoying he is, calling him names and making fun of him. The boy was facing a type of bullying by his friend, Cyberbullying.

3.2 million student are victims of bullying each year and they are suffering. Research from Finland shows that people who are bullied as kids continued to suffer as young adults. There are different types of bullying. Physical bullying which includes punching, kicking, slapping, any type of damaging actions. There is also Verbal, Cyber Bullying, and Hidden. Verbal bullying includes calling names, insults, teasing, intimidation, homophobic or racist comments, or verbal abuse. Cyber bullying includes hurtful text, image or videos. Hidden bullying is designed to harm someone's social reputation or cause them humiliation. This is done by lying and spreading rumors, showing negative physical gestures, playing nasty jokes to humiliate others, mimicking unkindly, and encouraging others to socially exclude someone. 11 year old boy who studies in Chatsworth International School was facing Hidden, Cyber and Verbal bullying.

The boy and the bully used to be really good friends. After the two month Summer Holiday the bully changed and he had become someone different. After the second week of school the bully went up to the boy with an aggressive attitude and quoted

“I don’t need you anymore I have other people” and walked off.

“I couldn’t believe what he said, the ____ I knew would’ve never said that.” The boy said during his interview.

What caused him to change so much? What are the causes of bullying?

Some causes of bullying could be the person's personality. Research shows that bullies are most likely to have an aggressive personality. It is also possible that the bully is an attention seeker and he is bullying you to get attention from other people. They also might like having power over someone and controlling others or they could think bullying is cool and funny or they even could be bullying because they’re jealous of the victims. Causes of bullying could also be personal for the bullies. For example, it is most likely for a bully to be having trouble at home. It could be that their parents aren’t around them all the time and their usually alone at their homes which leads to lack of adult supervision. Also they could be feeling stressed out so they take their anger out on others.

The cause of the bullying the boy was facing was jealousy. The bully was really good at sports and was really smart. On the other hand, the boy’s lack of experience in sports was as funny as the 21 vine but his educational skills were even worst.

Then what was he jealous of?

The boy was good at socializing. This meant that he had much more friends then the bully and without him the bully was all alone. The fact that the boy was stupid and not sporty but him being sporty and smart but he still didn’t have friends made him jealous. The bully started talking behind the boys back and lying about him to his closest friends so that they would hate him. He also started to bully him verbally. The effects on that hurt the victim like getting shot with an arrow straight into the heart.

There are short term and long term effects of bullying. Short term effects of bullying are getting a lower self esteem, depression, suicidal thoughts and attempts, abnormal fears and/or worries, sleep disorders, nervous habits, frequent crying, bed wetting, poor appetites or digestive problems, school problem, and rage. Long term effects of bullying are trauma disorders, self destructive behaviour, and alcohol or substance abuse.

The effect of bullying for the boy was that he got a lower self esteem and he started to go through minor depression. Getting bullied wasn’t what made the boy depressed, it was the fact that one of his closest friends betrayed him and stole all his other friends. He was all alone for the entire time until school ended.

Results from interviewing class 8_5 from UWCSEA east show that 87% of people faced bullying. Considering that there is only 23 people in this class 87% is a lot. 47% of people in class 8_5 has bullied other people before.

Bullying is still going on in everyday life. U.S research shows that the bullying rate has been dropping since 2005. In 2013 the percentage of students aged 12-18 who reported being bullied dropped to 21.5 percent. That is a down from 31.7 percent in 2007. But bullying hasn’t stopped yet.

That was just one example of bullying but there is much more going on in the world and some are worst. Bullying is an important issue to me and it surely important to other people as well. There will still be bullying and no one can end it. But making a difference to your and your peers life is something you can do.

- Sakura