The "New" Bullying Epidemic

Bullying in schools has been in the spot light in recent years because of a few high profile cases that have come to the attention of the media, but as all of us who have ever attended school or dealt with other human beings know, bullying has been going on forever.  There are many questions that need to be answered, such as, “Why is bullying still going on, why do the consequences for the victim seem to be more extreme, and why does it appear that absolutely nobody is taking responsibility for it?”

Many of us can distinctly remember being harassed by an individual or group of kids.  They somehow seemed to be lurking around every corner when there was no teacher or person of authority in sight.  I can recall sitting in class in high school and looking up to see the girl that was harassing me standing in the hallway gesturing and mouthing obscenities to me.  This girl and her friends had a long history of bullying and harassing, usually picking a new victim every couple weeks.  For some reason the thinking was that these kids needed attention so she was a teacher’s aide during that period and was out roaming the halls.  She was also waiting for me after several of my classes and threatened me right in front of a teacher who did nothing but tell her to go to class.  So when I started hearing of these new stories I wasn’t shocked but I was pissed off that the powers that be are acting like this is some new epidemic.

You would think that now, in the day and age of police officers taking up a daily presence in some schools across the U.S., here in Delaware called a “resource officer”, that there were be a decline in, at the very least, the acts of bullying but that isn’t the case.  There was a story recently in the news about a 14 year old boy who was taunted for being gay and suffered harassment throughout middle and high school, apparently daily at school as well as online, posts telling this boy he should kill himself and so on.  He finally did kill himself.  Lady Gaga dedicated a song to him at one of her shows and when the song was played at the homecoming dance after his wake a crowd of his friends cheered for the boy but the crowd that had been bullying him started chanting, “We’re glad he’s dead” and “You’re better off dead”.  The boy’s sister was there and was terrorized.  The school did nothing.  Finally the police are investigating it as a hate crime.  If I as an adult harassed someone like this it’s considered terroristic threatening and a misdemeanor.  Why is it still not being taken seriously?  It seems that still nobody wants to deal with this problem and then when something horrible happens the school acts shocked about it and say they had no idea that it was going on even when there is proof it went on right in the classroom or hallway and the child and/or the parents reported it to school administration repeatedly. 

Bullying starts as soon as children step feet onto the school bus.  Children form cliques and start excluding and ostracizing each other in kindergarten.  When I was in kindergarten I had long hair down to my waist and one boy in particular would yank my hair until I almost cried.  I told my teacher every time it happened and came home in tears upset about it.   Everyone dismissed it, as “he just likes you”.  Well my kindergarten harasser went to jail soon after high school for stabbing someone.  Bullying and dominating other people starts early.  An example I heard recently is of a young boy who was ceaselessly picked on while riding the school bus.  The school and the bus driver’s solution?  To punish the boy being harassed by assigning him a seat in the front of the bus and allowing the bully free reign to harass other children, which he still does.  One of the reasons bullying never ends is because bullies are raising bullies.  There seems to be a total lack of respect that is ingrained from the beginning.  There are a lot of young parents now but you can’t lay the blame on that either.  I mean a young a-hole is going to grow up to be an old a-hole.  I’m sure the bullies from my high school days are still bullying their way through life and their kids are seeing and learning from that.  As an adult I still meet bullies in my day-to-day life and you can be sure your life is going to be a living hell working for someone who learned to get ahead by being domineering and pushing people around.

Then you have to ask, “Why are the consequences for the victims of bullying much more extreme then they use to be?”  You never heard of kids when we were growing up killing themselves over being bullied.  Yea, we got into fights and beat up sometimes but we were basically told to “suck it up”.  We were upset and down about it but we didn’t automatically think that suicide was the solution.  “Are kids softer now?” Meaning, have we raised a bunch of dependent kids that do nothing but go to therapy, take Ritalin, and play Xbox?  Has technology done them a disservice?  I would think all that therapy would enable our kids to work things out with each other but with the advent of the Internet, people are able to reach out and harass someone 24/7.  Emails, social media, Youtube, etc., have all allowed someone to step right into your home.  Then there’s cell phones and texting.  There’s no escape and the cruelty is abhorrent. 

Lastly, WHY does it seem that absolutely nobody is taking responsibility for bullying?  Children shouldn’t have to change schools or be home-schooled to get an education in peace.  Their rights are being violated and there is still no one willing to stand up for these kids.  We teach our kids to turn to authority figures to protect them and they’re still being let down in a big way.  It seems that the prevailing attitude is that kids are overreacting to harassment, threats, and sometimes physical violence, which leads me to wonder if some of the people in charge of disciplining and stopping the escalation of harassment may either have been or are bullies themselves that think it’s no big deal so they are slow to react. So when something does happen they feign ignorance about a problem they clearly knew was happening.  Or is it some kind of power trip, laziness, lack of caring, or fear of the bully and the kid’s parents?  Why aren’t they scared of a lawsuit by the victim’s parents?  What I do know is that there needs to be a change and the only way it’s going to happen is for parents to have a serious talk with their kids about tolerance and acceptance, and teaching that you don’t always have to like someone to get along with them.  Then actually mean it and live it.  The schools need to actually enforce zero tolerance for bullying.  Each act should be taken seriously and recorded so that there is no chance for escalation.  Bullying needs to be seen as a crime with consequences to pay way before children think about killing themselves.

~Michele Hogsett