Bullying is a painful, dangerous problem
By Rhonda Smyth, CV&T News Editor
I’m sure everybody thinks they have heard enough about bullying.
Mostly what is being talked about now is “cyber bullying” that happens through social networking sites and chat rooms on the Internet.
But old-fashioned face to face bullying still occurs in our schools and is just as painful as it has always been for the victims.
Maybe you don’t consider just making fun of somebody as being a bully. It is.
If you laugh at somebody because they are overweight, have bad teeth, frizzy hair or wear glasses then you are a bully.
In the extreme, bullying consists of things like shoving somebody’s head in the toilet or sticking your foot in front of somebody to make them fall.
A lesser form might be just bumping into somebody on purpose to make them drop their books, and grabbing their pencils or lunch money.
From the time I started school we were always taught to keep our hands to ourselves and not to take anything that didn’t belong to us. Pushing and shoving, like breaking line or speaking up without raising your hand were forbidden.
There is also what I call reverse bullying. That occurs whenever somebody who is more fortunate than others is bullied by the less fortunate due to jealousy.
The jealousy might be because somebody has a better car, more clothes, nicer home or just the same love interest.
I recently saw a family channel movie in which a girl was the victim of cyber bullying due to jealousy. A girl made another girl’s life miserable by posting lies about her in a teen chat room.
The one thing the victim learned through the entire awful experience was that you need to tell somebody when it happens to you.
Keeping quiet protects the bullies.
So if you are being bullied or you see someone else being bullied. Tell an adult. Tell a teacher or your parents.
The only way to stop it is to make everybody aware it is going on.
Remember kids have killed themselves over being bullied. Kids have dropped out of school due to being bullied.
And all children have the right to attend school in a safe and happy environment.
The school years should be the best years of their lives, not a time filled with torment.
It is time it stopped.