High schools across America open their doors again this August of 2016 for students, parents, and teachers to gather for registration of the new school year. This year will be like many others; there will be homework, sports activities, grades, and friendships created and broken. But like every year there will also be a darkness that is found in almost every high school across America, a painful and often unnoticed darkness that can result in the third leading cause of death among teens. This darkness is bullying. Teenagers, who experience this darkness, either being the bully or the victim, will experience emotional and psychological pain that will result in depression, anxiety, fear, anger, and can result in teen suicide.
This year and from here forward must be the time we face this plague head on, no more ignorance or pushing the issue aside. It is not a part of growing up and together teachers, parents and students can make the choice to unify against this common enemy. Focus will be on types of teen bullying that occur, laws that have been created to punish this offense, statistical information on mental health issues caused by teen bullying. Also, examines teen suicide rates as the result of bullying, and how the issue is getting resolved in communities and high schools so change can come about for future generations.
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Types of Bullying and the Statistics in the United States
There are several types of bullying experienced in the high schools. The most common type of bullying is often the verbal bullying. It accounts for almost 77 percent of the students who get bullied in one way or another that also includes the mental bullying. These forms of bullying get displayed in various ways that include spreading rumours, yelling obscenities or even using some derogatory terms that get based on the race, gender, religion and the sexual orientation of an individual.
According to the recent statistics of bullying in schools, of the 77 percent of the individuals who get bullied, 14 percent often suffer from the severe or bad response to the abuse. The number includes the students undergoing the experiences such as poor self-esteem, depression, the anxiety about going to school and even have the thoughts about suicide as they get bullied by their peer. According to this bullying statistics, nearly half of the students in the United States fear getting bullied in the bathrooms or harassment and as a result of most of these students often create excuses about going to school.
The most unfortunate part about these bullying is that almost 85 percent of the bullying cases that takes place in the schools have no intervention or effort by the administration or the teachers to stop them from taking place. However, several schools in the United States have created some laws in which those who engage in bullying can get punished. This has attracted the attention of the members of the communities who have also come up with the approaches to resolving bullying in high schools so as to cut down the numbers of the students who live in fear of getting bullied in secondary education.
Programs Set by the US Government to Stop the Bullying Epidemics
One of the essential programs established by the US government to stop bullying is creating the awareness of the administration and the teachers to know their state laws and the district policies regarding bullying. The US now strives to train the teachers, educate the parents and also guarantee that the whole district is consistent while enforcing the policies. The program is set so that all the students can be on the page and have the same feeling. With the training of the teachers and educating the parents on the laws regarding bullying, they will also strive to educate the students and show them the penalties in place so as to stop bullying (Schneider et al., 2012).
Another program set in place is monitoring of the hotspots. These are particular places where the bullying occurs and in most cases, they are places where the adults are not present such as the halls, bathrooms, the playgrounds and even the buses. In the presence of the adults, the students feel safer, and the bullying behaviours do not take place easily. The US government thus encourage the adults to get alerted and provide extensive attention in the presence of multiple children. The statistics from the US Department of bullying claims that 47.3% of the bullying acts occur in the hall or the stairwell while about 33. 7% of victimisation often takes place in the classrooms (Mahoney, 2012). However, it is recommended that the teachers and the parents also have an open communication as a strategy to implement this program since all the places cannot get covered at the same time. All the staff thus gets advised under the program to monitor the spots.
The human services and the health department in the United States encourage the teachers and the other staff to follow up the students after the bullying incidences since the incidences cannot stop immediately. They need to talk to the students so that they know the route courses of the problems before settling the issues. Separating the students enables them to collect the proofs, and this will enable the school to resolve the issues as they strive to mitigate it from happening. The U.S.A also encourages the schools to engage the students in solving the bullying issues. The contributions of the parents are essential since when individuals work together, the big differences can get resolved. It thus helps in building the rapport between the parents and the teachers of their parents.
Furthermore, the community has a role to play in bullying. Most individuals in the community come together so as they redirect the behaviour of the children who take part in bullying. This will help in changing their attitude and will start seeing each other as brothers. Bringing the power together in the community helps them educate the students and practice the good values that will not make their friends feel not wanted or make them have mental suffering since such traumas are what make other students commit suicide. In the communities, there can be activities directed towards discouraging the students from taking part in bullying. The activities can include the businesspeople making the t-shirts with the slogans of bullying prevention for specific events (Varnava, 2014). Also, the caregivers may also read the books that discourage bullying and explain to the children the risks associated with the bullying to deter them in forming part of it.
Bullying has also lead to the increased cases of suicide among the teens with suicide considered the third leading cause of the death among the teens. The reports from the CDC claims that almost 14 percent of the deaths that have taken place among the high school students have resulted from the suicide while nearly 7 percent has attempted it. The study by the Yale University also claims that the bully victims are at higher risks of committing suicide when compared to the non-victims due to the psychological trauma they go through that sometimes make them avoid the school due to the fear of getting bullied (Fu et al., 2013). The deaths result from the different types of bullying that may include emotional bullying, sexting, physical and circulating the nude or suggestive photos of a person. The students who commit suicide often begin showing the signs such as withdrawal from others, consistent sadness, depression while some also have troubles sleeping or even eating. Such emotional and psychological problems are what make these students commit suicide.
Conclusion
The statistics on the mental health issues show that the bully victims often have four times prevalence of the agoraphobia and also suffer from the generalized anxiety and the disorders such as the panic disorder when they become adults. While the bullies often suffer from the antisocial personality disorder, the individuals also suffer from some problems like the pre-existing psychiatric or even having the hardships in coping with their families (Benedict et al., 2014). Even though the victims can be better people in the future, they still think about the past events and hold on to them, and this is what often causes the mental health problem in the victims. In some cases, the emotional problems are what lead to the suicidality.
References
Benedict, F. T., Vivier, P. M., & Gjelsvik, A. (2014). Mental health and bullying in the United States among children aged 6 to 17 years. Journal of interpersonal violence , 0886260514536279.
Fu, Q., Land, K. C., & Lamb, V. L. (2013). Bullying victimization, socioeconomic status and behavioural characteristics of 12th graders in the United States, 1989 to 2009: repetitive trends and persistent risk differentials. Child indicators research , 6 (1), 1-21.
Mahoney, M. (2012). Part I— an overview of bullying and guidance for its prevention. Retrieved from http://www.ode.state.or.us/search/page/?id=3572.
Schneider, S. K., O'Donnell, L., Stueve, A., & Coulter, R. W. (2012). Cyberbullying, school bullying, and psychological distress: A regional census of high school students. American Journal of Public Health , 102 (1), 171-177.
Varnava, G. (2014). How to stop bullying in your school . Abingdon-on-Thames: Routledge.
