Final Blog

Well everyone, it has been a good five weeks of posting. So this will be my last blog on bullying. I have enjoyed talking about bullying and ways to prevent it. Though here in the end I feel like I have ran out of ways to break it down more. I feel as if I am starting to repeat myself a lot with this topic but all of what I have been saying and talking about relates back to the overall main topic on bullying. My feelings on bullying remain the same throughout this. I still feel as if more laws should be put into place against bullying. Bullying needs to be stopped, as I have stated over and over again in this blog. Bullying takes many forms and bullies also come in many different shapes and sizes. Bullies can be anyone whether it be the senior jock football player picking on the math geek, the teenage girls tormenting the shy ones, or even adults in the workplace. Bullying is a never ending cycle that starts at a young age and can go all the way through adulthood. I have listed and talked about ways to get through the horrible experience of bullying and ways to stop and prevent it. Bullying Stops Here! You could be the one that Stops Bullying There! Be active, stay positive and stand up against bullying.

Bully Block App

Technology is getting more advanced these days. Every day you may hear someone or another say “there is an app for that”. They have made an application for the Droid phones now that is called the “Bully Block App”. This application is designed to help prevent bullying. It allows you to block phone numbers that are bullying you. Along with being able to capture inappropriate texts messages, picture messages, and even phone conversations from bullies. It has a recorder that can secretly record threatening messages and conversations. It will even block those who may use unknown numbers and private numbers for bullying purposes. It saves your threatening conversations and messages all to your SD card so that you can instantly contact and send copies to the authorities, office supervisors, parents, or teachers. I think that this application for phones will help many teens in the long run. The only real downfall that I see with it is that so far it is only for the Droid phones. It has not been made available for other types of phones. So any teen that is being bullied and wants to use this application, first needs to get a droid phone. It does provide a form of safety for more teens than none though. Many teens now-a-days do have cell phones and are constantly upgrading their phones. In the past there was not an application that students, teens, or just people in general could use to avoid bullies. With technology advances it has made it possible for bullies to bully others anonymously but with this application it will help to stop this from happening. I would highly suggest an application like this for teens that are being bullied, especially if they are just being cyber-bullied. I would also suggest trying to find something like this for their computers. It seems to me like this is a way to help stop bullying and if it really works then that makes this application that much better.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovo1Vfzd8to

Why it is important to stop bullying

Bullying happens all the time. It is not a funny matter or something that should be used as entertainment. Bullying can take many forms such as verbal bullying, social bullying, physical bullying, and cyber-bullying. Teens that are bullied tend to feel bad about their self and can become depressed or confused with their lives. They can become hostile and violent and want to seek revenge. They can also become depressed and distant and want to take their own lives. Some teens that are bullied can go to some extreme measures. Such measures may include carrying guns or knives to feel safe. Along with that, teens that are the bullies tend to drop out of school which may lead to alcohol and drug related problems in their future. Bullying is the start of several problems for the future of many teens. Teens that are bullied can have a hostile outlook on life and carry that with them the rest of their lives. They can start to take their past out on their children. That goes the same for bullies themselves. Did you ever think about what caused bullies to bully others? It could be that their parents were bullied at a young age and bullied them at home because their parents carried it on in life with them. Maybe a bully bullies others because that is the sort of atmosphere that they have grown up in and they do not know better. These are all reasons why we need to stop the endless cycle of bullying. Bullying is one of those things that we should be seeing more public service announcements for, instead of the ones for neglected animals that are still being fed in the pounds. Then again that is off topic. My point is that bullying needs to be stopped and more people need to become aware of the fact that it is happening and they need to do more to stop it.  

Advice from Parents

Parents need a way to get through to their kids. Some parents may recognize some of the warning signs that their child is being bullied. So I thought I would give the parents some advice they could give their children. You should set down with your child and talk to them. Let them know that you are there for them and whatever they are going through. Make sure they know that they can come and talk to you. Sometimes talking to someone else helps so that they can figure out the best way to handle their problems. If they tell you that someone is bullying them then here are some things you can tell them. They should always walk with a buddy; it is called the buddy system many kids know what this is. By using the buddy system, this reduces the risk of being bullied because bullies do not tend to attack people in a group setting. The only time that bullies like to bully in public is if they do it as a sort of peer pressure to fit into a group. They still need to travel with a buddy. Two is better than one in a group scenario. They should also know safe places on their route to and from school. Such places as public areas that they can get to easily and that way there are witnesses to the acts of the bully. Also, you should teach them how to protect themselves and to know when to walk away. Though they should feel confident and proud of who they are so that no matter what the bully says about them they do not let it affect them. Encourage them to speak up against bullying and make new friends. If they have people to back them up then they will feel a lot more confident when confronting the bully.

Things to Remember

This is a list of things to remember if you or someone you know is being bullied. First off you are not alone in being bullied. There are many people every day that get bullied in some way or another. Teens are being bullied for the way they act, dress, talk, or look. Children are being bullied for the friends they make, the color of their hair, the color of their skin, or even just their size. Adults may also be bullied in the workplace or at home. Second, it is not your fault that you are being bullied and no one should ever have to go through the pain of being bullied. It hurts to be bullied and most of the time people are bullied for no real reason, just for the bullies own entertainment. The third thing to remember is whatever you do to stop the bullying, do not hurt yourself. You may feel like it is the only way out, but it is not. You can get help and stop the bully from hurting someone else. Fourth, do not let the bully win. If you surrender to the bully and let them keep hurting you then you are not helping yourself or anyone else. You are just making it easier for the bully to get what he/she wants. Keep doing what you love to do. My fifth thing to remember is, do not bully back. What I mean by this point is just because you are being bullied; do not take it out on your siblings at home or even on the younger/weaker kids around you at school. We want to stop bullying not promote it. Stop it in its tracks do not let it continue to be an endless cycle of one person bullying another after another after another. My last thing that I think all should remember is; talk to someone you trust. If you have someone you can go to that will help you and stand up for you then talk to them. Do not try to keep the bullying to yourself just because they say they will hurt you if you tell does not mean that they can act on that if they are taken care of by an adult or authority figure.

How students react to bullying

Students can react in many ways to bullying. They can accept the bully and keep in mind that the bully may have more underlying issues that are affecting them than what they are bullying the other student with. Students can stand up to a bully; they can do this in several different ways too. Ways to stand up to a bully include: going to a trusted adult or teacher and telling them about it, standing up to the bully in person, or they could just try to avoid the bully all together. Some students that have been bullied will want to switch to a different school or have switched schools just to feel safer. They feel that if they get away from the bully then the bully cannot hurt them, when in reality if a bully wants to hurt them, they may find a way to hurt them anyways, such as cyber-bullying them. Students that are bullied also tend to avoid certain areas in school or on their way home to avoid running into the bully. They may avoid the school bathrooms all together for the fact that they are scared a bully will corner them and give them a swirly or just attack them in general.  Students would rather teachers intervene rather than them ignore the teasing and bullying. They would feel this way because usually only about twenty-five percent of teachers or administrators actually intervene, even though about seventy percent of teachers believe they do intervene, they really do not. Teachers need to intervene more often whether they believe they are or are not, they need to show it by their actions. Even if the teachers’ action was only to give the bully a detention for one day. A detention for one day may help the victim get away and make it home without being harassed.  Help try to prevent bullying, do not just ignore it. It does not go away for the victim so why push it away and out of your mind.

Should kids be tormented? NO!

Should kids be tormented through the internet or cell phones? I do not think so. Megan Meier was a girl that got caught up in the social world on the internet. She met a new guy online and thought everything was going great till he turned on her. She started getting messages from schoolmates and this new guy saying that they did not like her and the way she treated people. She could not handle all that they were putting on her. Because of being cyber-bullied this girl took her own life. Then afterwards her parents tried to contact this guy she had met online but could not get ahold of him. They could not get ahold of him because he was not a real teenage boy, but instead a woman in her late forties that was the mother of one of Megan’s’ former friends. I feel like this woman got off too easily, because back when this happened there were not very many laws against bullying. Since this happened there have been laws put into effect against bullying but since this action happened before the laws were made this woman was not charged as bad as she could have been. The laws put into effect today cannot convict on actions made before the law was passed. I think that parents should keep in mind that no matter how much they trust their kids to behave and be respectful online, that you cannot always trust everyone else in the world. Parents need to talk to their teens before they let them sign up for an account on a social network like MySpace, Facebook, or twitter. Parents, you need to let your teens know that no matter what they talk about online that you are always there for them if they are experiencing harmful threats or mean messages. No teen should feel like they do not have anyone to talk to about being cyber-bullied or just bullied in general. Teens should know that they can go to someone for help and not be afraid to.