Bullying Can Kill… Be Careful
Ronald Tenio Salada
Bullying is unwanted, aggressive behavior among school aged children that involves a real or perceived power imbalance. The behavior is repeated, or has the potential to be repeated, over time. Both kids who are bullied and who bully others may have serious, lasting problems. Bullying includes actions such as making threats, spreading rumors, attacking someone physically or verbally, and excluding someone from a group on purpose. Bullying can occur during or after school hours. While most reported bullying happens in the school building, a significant percentage also happens in places like on the playground or the bus. It can also happen travelling to or from school, in the youth’s neighborhood, or on the internet ( https://www.stopbullying.gov, August 17, 2021 ).
There are three types of bullying, namely verbal bullying, social bullying and physical bullying. Verbal bullying is saying or writing mean things. Verbal bullying includes teasing, name-calling, inappropriate sexual comments, taunting and threatening to cause harm. Social bullying is sometimes referred to as relational bullying and it involves hurting someone’s reputation or relationships. Social bullying includes leaving someone out on purpose, telling other children not to be friends with someone, spreading rumors about someone and embarrassing someone in public. Physical bullying is involving hurting a person’s body or possessions. Physical bullying includes hitting, kicking, pinching, spitting, tripping, pushing, taking or breaking someone’s things and making mean or rude hand gestures ( https://www.stopbullying.gov, August 17, 2021 ).
Cyberbullying is another type of bullying. It is another type of bullying that takes place over digital devices like cell phones, computers and tablets. It includes sending, posting or sharing negative, harmful, false or mean content about someone else. It can also include sharing personal or private information about someone else causing embarrassment or humiliation ( https://www.stopbullying.gov, August 17, 2021 ).
Bullying can really affect both the bullied and the bully. Individuals who are bullied can experience plenty of negative impacts. If a person is bullied, it can cause negative effects to his/her physical, social, emotional and mental aspects. This person who is bullied can experience depression, anxiety, intense feeling of loneliness, changes in his/her daily routines and activities, sudden loss of interest to the different things/activities that he/she used to love doing, some health issues or problems, sudden decreased of academic achievement or school performance and some mental health issues and problems. These negative effects, if cannot be avoided, may lead to the worst-case scenario which is committing suicide and death of a person who is bullied by others.
On the other hand, a person who bullies others can also engage in violent behaviors. The person who bullies others can easily get into fights, destroy the belongings of others, engage in some immoral and illegal activities, engage in pre-marital sex, abusive towards other people and drop-out of school. These negative effects, if cannot be avoided, may also lead to the worst-case scenario which is causing death of others and of the bully himself/herself.
So, in other words, bullied persons and those who bully others can really experience serious and long-lasting problems. Bullying can really cause negative effects to both the bullied and the bully. And if cannot be avoided, bullying can cause harm, pain and even death to the bullied and the bully. It could possibly happen if bullying will not be stopped because if bullying is intense already, the bullied person may think of killing himself/herself or may think of ending his/her own life.
Let us help one another to stop bullying. Whether bullying is happening in the school, at home, in the community or in the digital world, it is really necessary to stop it. It is because it is not giving any good effect but rather it can only cause negative impacts to both the bullied person and those who bully others. It can even cause death of someone if it is already an intense type of bullying. The bullied person might be depressed and might experience anxiety disorder, and if the person has no one to talk to or no one will help and defend him/her, he/she may think of committing suicide in order to kill himself/herself.
Parents, guardians, teachers, school administrators, government officials, non-government organizations personnel and others should be helping one another to stop bullying. They should always be, especially for the bullied and the bully. They should always be ready to lend an ear to these people and give them advices about bullying. They should always be there in order to enlighten the minds of the bullied persons not to commit suicide. They must teach others about the ill effects of bullying and how to avoid bullying. Most especially, they must instill in the minds of the people that everybody should avoid bullying. Everybody should be careful with his/her actions and words not to hurt others. Respect and love for others should be there in order to avoid bullying to take place. Everybody must avoid bullying because BULLYING CAN KILL.
