Monkey See, Monkey Do

Blog Four

                                                                                                        Image found on: Creative Commons    

Have you experienced the feeling of being left out or excluded from social activities by peers? Perhaps you were even verbally or physically abused by a peer? According to the HBSC study, 35% of young people reported bullying others at least once within a two month period in 2014. So, you can imagine how many people these 35% of bullies had affected over that two month period (Craig, W. & Harel Y.). Bullying can be physical, verbal and mental. Cyber bullying has become a growing issue as people hid behind computers to harass others, yet still affect victims just as much as they do in person, if not more. People that participate in bullying have left me wondering how many times they were bullied
themselves, before they chose to give in to the harassment. Stopbullying.gov defines bullying as "unwanted aggressive behavior among school age children that involves real or perceived power imbalanced". However, I believe bullying can go well passed the ages of school children. Hitting, yelling at, and even rejecting your peers are just a few ways of bullying. In their study, Craig and Harel found that  boys are bullied more than young girls in every country out of their 163,000 participants in 35 countries.  My reason for studying peer rejection along with other forms of bullying is my upcoming Capstone event dealing with adolescence. My Capstone project is a concert that allows adolescents (as well as adults now) to comfortably celebrate their religion with family and friends. Because people have different beliefs, some may feel uncomfortable voicing their beliefs (especially adolescents) out of fear of peer rejection. It is important for adults to teach children early that bullying of any kind for any reason is simply unacceptable. And I believe it is just as important for children to be comfortable enough to speak to an adult as bullying can leave one feeling powerless.

KidsHelpPhone is a place for kids and teens to call if being bullied: 1-800-668-6868
or click http://www.stopbullying.gov/get-help-now/index.html to learn more