Teen Issues from an adult perspective – Why people bully others?
Good Morning! Here is the Monday Morning Blog!
The next book in The Way series, The Bully’s Way, is a story about bullying and one response to it. I hope to publish October 2018 during Bullying Prevention Month. Maybe even on National Unity Day. A day in which people wear orange to show support for students who have been bullied. In 2018, that day will be October 24th. I write about middle grade and teen issues, but bullying is not exclusive to this age group. To round out Bullying Prevention Month 2017, I decided to look at people bully.
At the end of my blog last week I posed a question? What would a good next step be for the community in Lebanon, TN? Maybe get a better understanding of why those kids choose to bully. Having that information may help them to correct the issues going forward.
There have been many studies done on the reasons for bullying. I found an article on Mighty Flighter website, home of strong minds and big hearts. Even though the site has a boxing theme, and I am not a big fan, I like their anti-bullying message. Here are 9 reasons they list for why bullies bully others.
The bully was bullied before
Bully is feeling unimportant or left out
Bully has problems at home
Bully has low self-esteem
Bully is jealous
Bully is part of a pack. They tend to roll in groups. It gives them a sense of security in case the victim wants to fight back.
The bully has a big ego
The bully likes to impress
The bully sees you as being different and wants to point it out
One of the other things about bullies is they don’t seem to care about how others feel. Either they lack empathy or just like hurting others to see them in pain.
So, we may have some understanding about why it happens, but what have we done to try to stop it? We have created groups focusing on bullying prevention and there are motivational speakers who speak to groups about their experiences and how we should work together to prevent it from happening. Are these things working? Or are we continuing to just talk about it?
What is the solution? I’m not quite sure. I think part of it educating the ones who bully. Not only about how others feel when they do it, but also take time to listen to the bullies. Find out what their issues are and see if we can help them get to a good place and not bully. The other part is stronger penalties on those who bully to deter them from even doing it in the first place.
I hope our society is able to get to a place and we are able to stop bullying. My heart breaks when I hear of a person committing suicide because they feel there was no way to get away from it. We need to have a place for them to feel safe and a way for the bullying to stop.
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