Bullying: taking over our schools

Almost all schools in New Zealand have cases of bullying. Each school is different as is each student. The students have different backgrounds regarding family, illnesses and education. Each case of bullying is different; they have different outcomes and different causes. The most common cause of bullying is jealousy. In Intermediate the words used are not as powerful as the words said at high school, so the students at high school generally have more of a drastic reason to feel down and unhappy. Having a past of bullying, in both intermediate and high school, personally I found the pre-teens at intermediate came up with less hurtful words, whereas the teenagers at high school said more harsh and drastic words. The words at intermediate were based around being fat and ugly. Where as the words at intermediate became more intense like white girl, and swearing, the worst point it came to were death threats and physical violence.
Each teenager has a different way of handling issues presented to them. These issues can include illness, family violence and bullying. They resort to different strategies to release emotions they feel. Teenagers have several different emotions as they are going through hormonal and stressing changes. These emotions can include depression, anger and sadness. These may include drinking, smoking and drug abuse. According to a recent survey taken by Ministry of Youth Development New Zealand teen age males aged 16-20 are more likely than teen age females in the same age range to abuse drugs and alcohol. Over half of these uses were related to bullying. More teen women are using drug and alcohol because of bullying than males.
There is an increasing rate of teenagers leaving school before the legal age is another outcome of bullying in our schools. This is shown on the New Zealand’s statistics website (www.stats.co.nz) Bullied teenagers find that it is much less pressure to sit at home than it is to go to school and be bullied. They find they would rather relax on the couch than sit in class being passed rude notes or pushed around during break. Teenagers resort to giving their parents excuses to allow them to stay home rather than explaining the reason for not going to school. This is generally at the point where the bullied teenager finds they cannot handle the issue any more and their anxiety can prevent them from returning to school. A recent article in The Press stated that a 15 year old girl who attended a Catholic School in Christchurch was forced to leave school as a result of bullying. This took place just seven weeks before her mid-year exams were dues to take place. This will have a big effect on the girl’s education and future abilities in finding a job. Bullying results in many loosing their education, which is very necessary to gain a good job.
Incidents involving bullying are generally based around physical and emotional torment. These can have a long lasting effect on the bullied person’s life. The teenager described in the above paragraph experienced not only name calling and receiving abusive texts, but was also beaten countless times in the schools courtyard. When the girl’s older sister tried to interfere when she noticed the fight, she was then beaten and as a result both the girls were taken to hospital.
Parents often do not know the extent of the bullying, so most bullied children are forced to go to school. This can lead to students skipping class and meeting with the wrong crowd. Meeting with the wrong crowd can often lead to drug and alcohol abuse, in severe cases criminal offences.
Cyber bullying is becoming all too common around the world. The worst affected country is America. America reportedly has more teen suicides related to cyber bullying than any other country in the world. It is shown that teenage males prefer to resolve the issue by fighting whereas teenage females continue to carry out the bullying through online websites and