Thinking back to my years in Jr. high school and high school itself, I can remember all the emotional trauma and mental stress of being a teenager. Back then we did not have the internet, Facebook, Youtube, Instagram, and other social programs, but we still had to deal with bullying, body shaming and stereotyping, and so on.
I can recall kids being picked on if they were too skinny and boney if they were chubby, or if not as developed as most. The way you wore your hair, the clothes you wore, and even the neighborhood you lived in played a part in the whole thing. Girls, I think had it the hardest, if they were late bloomers or plain jane with average looks due to puberty, they suffered attacks from both girls and boys.
Boys dealt with similar, but it was more focused on how cool you appeared, the clothes and car you had, and if you were athletic and or a so-called tough guy. Hormones and social pressures were murder for all of us during those years, even those who were on the cool person’s list had issues to deal with, so easily one could go from cool to the outcast.
Some teachers may have tried to help students deal with issues, but most chose to just keep out of it all, thinking any intervention by a teacher may worsen the situation. Unfortunately, not doing anything only lead to bullying becoming worse since there were very little to no repercussions for such bad behavior. The Bullying issue is something that needs to be addressed at home first, parents need to apply some sort of discipline when it comes to their children being aggressive toward others. Schools and teachers only can do so much and to be honest, it really is not the teacher’s place to discipline someone else’s child. Teachers are there to teach academics and skills to the students, not parent them.
The Shcool though does have the responsibility of keeping each student safe, and reporting any if not all unwanted behavior to the parents. Sometimes The parents are not even aware that their child is being bullied or being a bully in school. So if they do not inform the parent then no sort of corrective action can be taken from the parent’s side. Then there are the very rare cases where parents either do not care or they support their child’s behavior.
So now, not only do kids have to deal with the face-to-face bullying in school but they come home and get bullied online. Cyberbullying is far easier to commit than face-to-face due to the possibility of anonymity and not having to personally face the victim of the bullying. So I believe that has helped in increasing the amount of bullying experienced by kids.
What is the Solution? well, there is no single solution, It will take a whole lot of different policy changes, parental participation, and probably a bit of counseling thrown in. I am not sure what all is needed to be done, that is for the experts to figure out. All I know is that bullying can scar some people for a lifetime, and there is really no reason to allow bullying to continue.
Only if it was like in the comic books, The strong protecting the weak, The wise guiding the people and so on. But life is not a fairy tale or a comic book, so we all have to do what we can to promote better behavior and discourage unwanted behavaior in what ever means we are able. Unfortunately Bullying does not stop in highschool, it carries on into adulthood, and into the real world. You can see it all around, in the work place, in social gatherings and even in politics.
Well thats my Random thoughts for today
Till next time, Be excellent to one another as they said in Bill and Ted.
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