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How Can We Recognize and Help Someone That is a Victim of Bullying at the IA

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How Can We Recognize and Help Someone That is a Victim of Bullying at the IA?

What is Bullying?

Bullying is a broad topic, but can best be defined as the degrading of someone's emotions and/or physical being. Many of you think that bullying is merely calling people names, but there is much more to it. Bullying has many forms. This is a worldwide problem. It affects everyone at least once in their lifetime and everyone can be a bully. To be more specific, at the IA, bullying does not just happen to the weak and defensless but to the strong and defensive. Most bullying at IA includes grades, since IA is a purely academic school. So how can we help?

Who is a Bully?

Everyone can be a bully, but some people may not even know they are hurting another person. By just saying "Wow, you got a B? I got an A" or "How do you not get this homework, you're so stupid" can be emotionally hurting a person. Everyone can also be a victim of bullying or a bystander. The victim is someone who is the one being bullied and the bystander can be a friend just standing on the side. A bystander can also be bad in a bullying situation because if they are just standing on the side, and not telling anyone, they are doing harm to the victim.

http://www.childsafetyaustralia.com.au/children/bullying/images/bully.gif

Who Does it Happen To?

Bullying can happen to anyone, no matter age, gender, race, or culture. Everyone has been a victim of bullying at least once in their life, even if they didn't know it. If you have been bullied in the past, it is obviously too late to tell someone but you can help stop bullying. If you are being bullied right now, tell someone.

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Causes of Bullying

There are many causes of bullying. Most cases include anger and insecurity of the bully. When someone is insecure, it may cause them to do stuff they don't normally do. It can cause someone to be mean or aggressive towards another person. If you are experiencing problems in your life and/or you are angry/depressed about something, contact an adult. An adult can be your parents, your relatives, or your school counselor. Counselors are there to help you and they can help you get through problems you may be having. This however, isn't always the case. Some bullies are over-confident and have little empathy towards their targets. They tend to be larger than their peers and tend to drink and get into trouble.

Male vs. Female

Males and females are equally bullied. Females are more likely to be a victim of sexual comments or verbal abuse, whereas males are more likely to be a victim or participate in physical abuse. Girls can verbally abuse another girl by spreading gossip about another girl and guys are more likely to hit another guy and do physical damage.

Types of Bullying

Narcissistic Bullying-This type of bullying involves little empathy toward the victim and has little care about consequences. These bullies appear to have high self-esteem.
Physical Bullying-This type of bullying involves physical abuse of another person. This includes punching, hitting, shoving, or kicking. These bullies are action-oriented and it is easy to identify.
Verbal Bullying-This type of bullying is the degrading of someone's emotions by words. This includes name-calling, teasing, insulting, or making racist comments about someone. Since there are no visible scars of bullying, people tend to overlook people who are victims of verbal bullying.
Cyber Bullying-This type of bullying is perhaps one of the most common. Cyber bullying is a broad topic. It is similar to verbal bullying, but it is over the computer. This includes posting hateful words about someone on blog sites (Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, etc.), mean e-mails, hateful text messages, and more. It can include cyber-stalking and can potentially have dangerous consequences. Simply taking a picture/video of bullying going on, such as a physical fight, and posting it on the internet can be considered cyber bullying.
Gang Bullying-Being in a gang is being a bully. Gangs travel in groups and tend to be more dangerous than one bully. They usually are against a racial or ethnic group and tend to target people who they dislike. This bullying is common in crime filled areas and potentially has a consequence of death of the victim.
Sexual Harassment-This type of bullying is usually targeted at females, but that doesn't mean it can't happen to males. Sexual harrassment is a very serious topic and not only is it bad because it is bullying, but it is against the law. This bullying can include anything from simply touching someone who doesn't want to be touched, to saying sexual comments to the victim or anyone. It can also be very serious and can lead to rape or even death. If you know someone or are a victim of sexual harrasment, tell someone immediately.

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http://www-lib.co.santa-clara.ca.us/kids/lists/bullies_younger/bully.jpg

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Prevention

Preventing bullying can be easy, but it needs to happen fast. Awarness needs to happen fast. To help prevent bullying, you can raise awareness in your school and help a friend in need. Educate people on the effects of bullying (permanent emotional and physical scars, insecurity, pain, etc.), what bullying is, who it affects, and you'll be one step closer to help stop bullying.

Why Did We Choose This Topic?

This topic was important to us because we have all been victims of bullying and we want to be part of the help to stop bullying. We believe that it bullying does affect IA and we want to help raise awareness.

What Can We Do?

What we can do is raise awareness. What can you do? Help us. Tell a friend or a family member. Educate them about bullying and tell them it is a world-wide problem. People are being bullied all over and it needs to stop.

Going Beyond

For our going beyond, we did a shortened version of our presentation to a class of freshmen. We presented to freshmen because they are just starting their career at IA and they have almost 4 more years to educate people on bullying and to help stop it. We asked them two questions: how many of you have been bullied and how many of you have been bullies. Their response was little but after the presentation and the teaching of who can be a victim of bullying and who can be a bully, their response was much larger when we asked them again at the end.

BULLYING STOPS HERE.