Bullying, a subject that has been in the fore front of the national news off and on lately. A subject that is near and dear to my heart also and if you choose to read on you will find out why. I will also be touching on the different forms of bullying from subtle to the bold and what we as human beings with emotions can do to battle bullying.
Bullying can be found in the home as well as in schools and in the work place, believe it or not. My definition of a bully is someone who is afraid of someone because of what they believe in, or their lifestyle. It can also be picking on someone because they look different or act different than what they, the bullies, are use to and they don’t know how to react.
I endured bullying while growing up, everything from the subtle to the bold. Fortunately I did not have to endure the violent bully. My bullies struck in the emotional and mental forms causing my self confidence to plummet, I still can’t publicly speak as it terrifies me to the point of tears and thinking back I truly believe that being picked on by my piers has a lot to do with who I am today. I was one of the lucky ones who had a good support system within my immediate family, I don’t think I would have survived through High School otherwise.
Subtle bullying is where, I believe, a person is picked on, for example, behind the persons back or just basic teasing to their face. For me it was for how I looked and acted. I wore glasses from an early age, about 7 years old or so, and I acted very mature for my age. As far as acting very grown up goes, I was an only child raised around adults and I did not have many friends my age to play with on a regular basis. But kids don’t understand that fact, all they know is what they see when they are around the person in school.
Bold bullying to me is the down right nasty comments that are made to your face and the rumors that they start. Again for me I was lucky to have family around to help me, because by the end of my senior year in High School I was able to ignore all the cruel comments, jokes and rumors. When college rolled around I was able to get enough strength and self confidence to tell the bullies just what I thought and, you know what, it felt good.
Another form of bullying is the violent type, fortunately for me I did not have to endure this form, but many children do. All forms of bullying can be found in the home personally, it is called abuse by the law but it is still a form of bullying only it is the adult picking on the child.
Now what we as human beings and adults can do is to teach our children about tolerance and acceptance no matter what. We can also educate both ourselves and our children about differences in looks, personalities, belief systems,etc. If we as humans are more educated maybe this world would be a better place for all of us to live and we wouldn’t have to worry if our children who are being bullied will come out the other side unscathed by all that happened to them. We won’t have to worry about them taking guns to school because they can’t take it any more. We won’t have read about another young person taking their own life because they couldn’t see another way to make the bullying stop.
I have just one request and that is to teach the next generation of children, educate them so that we can make the bullying stop. What are your thoughts, concerns, opinions, etc. on this topic of bullying?
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