Bullying

Bullying doesn't just have to be physical, it can be mental and emotional too; often mental taunting can be the worst.

"Bullying can mean many different things. These are some ways children and young people have described bullying:
- being called names
- being teased
- being pushed or pulled about
- being hit or attacked
- having your bag and other possessions taken and thrown around
- having rumours spread about you
- being ignored and left out
- being forced to hand over money or possessions
- being attacked or teased or called names because of your religion or colour
- being attacked or teased or called names because of your sexuality." (http://www.childline.org.uk/Bullying.asp)

When most people think of the word "bullying," they usually associate it with the stereotypical scenario of a school boy with freckles, glasses and braces getting picked on in a playground by a group of older, bigger, rough kids. However, bullying can happen throughout life, victims and the bullies themselves can be any age. People get bullied at home by their own families, at school, and in the workplace. Whether minor or major, it happens all around is in our everyday life, and quite often, we are even unaware of it's occurance.

Although I disagree very much with bullying, often the bullies used to be bullied themselves or generally have an unhappy life, and so take their anger out on those more vulnerable. This does not justify such behaviour, but for nearly all bullies, there are deep-lying issues and reasons behind their behaviour.

Recently, an eleven-year-old boy killed himself not just because he was getting bullied by other children his age, but also because an adult joined in with the taunting, calling him explicit names, which led him to take his life due to being extremely unhappy. This was a tragic case of bullying, where the school did not intervene, and now the damage is done, and a life has been lost because of it. http://www.shortnews.com/start.cfm?id=61953