Children suffer from bullying every day, causing depression and sometimes suicide. School violence has dropped in recent years due to the anti-bullying rules most schools across the country have put in place. Schools are now required to report all incidents such as assaults on students and staff.
The anti-bullying rules are a nationally recognized program called Olweus Bullying Prevention Program. This program teaches children how to identify and reporting bullying and how to be good, upstanding citizens. Before this program was set into place, schools were not reporting all cases. Only the serious incidents were being reported. Now, most academic officials use the anti-bullying initiatives to curb disciplinary problems.
Many children, young adults, college students, and even adults suffer from mental problems due to bullying. May has become National Anti-Bullying month. There are many different types of bullying which include verbal, social, physical, and cyber. Cyber bullying is an increasingly popular form of bullying and it involves the internet, texting, and any form of social media that is used to harm others mentally causing the victim depression. In a study, Cyber bullying causes the most depression as to other forms of bullying.
Verbal bullying involves words to harm others. Social bullying involves the bully to isolate the victim from a group or cause harm to the victim’s reputation. Physical bullying involves any form of violence to the victim’s body or possessions. The effects of bullying can be carried over to adulthood and cause damage to a person’s health. Victims are more likely to suffer from anxiety and depression which can cause problems with their families, friends, and co-workers.
A global provider of legal solutions (ARAG) has provided a list of four things to do if you can take if your child is being bullied. This is a hard situation for parents because it is hard to know how saver the situation is or how to talk about the problem. I am a parent myself and I know that a parent’s role in helping their child deal with bullies is very big and important. Letting children know that bullying is unwanted, aggressive behavior. Bullying may be considered harassment if it's based on gender, sexual orientation, race, color, national origin, disability or religion. Harassment is illegal and is punishable by the law.
The four steps you can take if your child is being bullied are (1) know your rights- each state has its own laws on bullying and harassment (2) contact the child’s teacher – in most cases the teacher will handle the problem and involve the principle and his/her councilor (3) Get a copy of your school's anti-bullying policy and follow the process for raising a complaint and (4) keep notes of all incidents and all details of the incidents. All federally funded schools