Bullying has always been a major issue in schools, beginning as young as kindergarteners. The children and teens who are being bullied suffer from loss of self-confidence, anxiety, suicidal ideations, and just feel worthless. This has always been an issue and not necessarily can we completely stop it, but we can help to reduce the number of cases. We need to counsel the bullies and let them know that their actions are not appropriate. In schools including mine, we need more groups to talk about these issues, send notices home to parents, and also help and support the children who are suffering from this.

Students spend about eight hours in school learning, and much longer when they have extra-curricular activities going on. The schools do not make the students aware of these issues that are happening. Some may not even know anything like this is going on around them. Bullying can turn into something even bigger because of social networking sites. Instead of the miserable eight hours, the torture continues when they get online. The victims of bullying are trapped and have nowhere to go. Creating groups in schools will allow students to communicate and talk about these issues and how they feel about them. This will help reduce the number of bullying incidents in schools, because the bullies will actually learn how they are affecting the lives of their peers.

Bullying is an issue that happens mostly because of what children learn at home from parents. Maybe some parents are fighting at home, abusing them, swearing, involved with drugs or alcohol, or just don’t show much care towards their children. This causes these actions to stick in the child’s brain and have the belief that these things are completely right. Anger and frustration may build up inside the child, causing them to release their feelings, lashing out on another child. This makes the bully feel better, knowing that they have hurt another child, giving them the feeling they had at home when they saw their parents. This is why we need the schools to send out notices home to families and form groups for parents with demonstrations on how they should behave around their children.

The victims of bullying have to deal with a lot, mentally, socially, and emotionally. They have lower self-esteem, motivation, confidence, and fear of what might happen to them next. Pop singer and Disney channel actress Demi Lovato, was bullied when she was young. I can also speak from my own experiences. I am a quiet, but smart girl. My peers would pick on me because I never used to talk to anyone. I would usually sit alone and always do something related to school. They noticed I would get the highest grade in every class and they tried many times to bring me down. They would call me names, pretend to be my friends, and would ask me to do their homework for them. It hurt to know why out of the whole class, am I the one to be picked on? I remember coming home some days crying, not understanding why this was happening. But now, I know where this bullying is coming from. I believe there should be more support systems in schools. There should be a therapist or someone these children can talk to. Holding feelings in all day is not right, especially if a child is shy.

In my opinion, I want bullying to lessen in the next few years. I would not like to see other children having to deal with similar feelings that I had to. It is a very dark place to be in, feeling like everyone hates you and sometimes you feel powerless. That is why I strongly believe there should be issues groups in schools, notices being sent home to parents, and more support for the victims of bullying. We may not be able to completely stop bullying, but we can reduce the amount of situations in schools. Therefore, the majority of the students can remain happy to learn and go to school every day without any worries.