Bullying and Cyber Bullying
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School bullying has various effects, both short-term and long-term that affect the oppressed’s physical and mental health. There has been an implementation of anti-bullying programs to curb this habitual behavior. Bullying includes physical attack, verbal intimidation, or psychological intimidation, which leads to fear or harm to the victim. Bullying usually occurs when there is an imbalance of power where the more powerful child oppresses the less powerful one.
Bullying is not associated with aggression or violence. An example of bullying is calling people nasty names, excluding someone from activities, or spreading rumors about someone. Bullying can be harsh sometimes, like taking someone’s belongings or even threatening. Many of these anti-bullying programs are based on using common sense in reducing bullying instead of researching why children bully others, or some are bullied or victimized.
Bulli and Pupe is a program that was used in Italy to show how bullying was brought about by family violence. This program offers a long-term effect on adults who were raised by violent parents (Donegan, 2012). Such children should be helped by providing counselors and advising their parents about the repercussions of such behavior to their children. Project Ploughshares Puppets for Peace is another program used to educate elementary school students about the dangers of bullying and how to resolve conflicts. This program used puppets that enacted bullying scenarios and showed the right resolution to such scenarios (Brighi, 2012).
School anti-bullying programs are usually effective, mostly the ones associated with parent training, disciplinary methods for the children, and the program’s intensity. Cyberbullying is also another form of bullying that brings about psychological distress. Cyberbullying brings about depression and mostly low self-esteem. The children targeted by cyberbullies feel powerless, especially when many kids are involved with the bullying. Cyberbullying is more dangerous as it invades even in our homes through phones or the internet, making our children unsafe even in our homes (Hinduja, 2010). Sometimes the children being bullied may end up angry and plot a way to revenge. This is dangerous because research shows it is better to forgive a bully than to revenge the act. When a child is bullied, they should have someone to talk to about their feelings and help them end the torment.
References
Donegan, R. (2012). Bullying and cyberbullying: history, statistics, law, prevention, and analysis. The Elon Journal of Undergraduate Research in Communications, 3(1), 33-42.
Hinduja, S., & Patchin, J. W. (2010). Bullying, cyberbullying, and suicide. Archives of suicide research, 14(3), 206-221.
Brighi, A., Guarini, A., Melotti, G., Galli, S., & Genta, M. L. (2012). Predictors of victimization across direct bullying, indirect bullying, and cyberbullying. Emotional and behavioral difficulties, 17(3-4), 375-388.