Bullying hurts

By Tashmin Hunzai

“People try to say suicide is the most cowardly act a man could ever commit. I don’t think that’s true at all. What’s cowardly is treating a man so badly that he wants to commit suicide.” Tommy Tran

Look at that ugly guy! Look how s/he is dressed . Why are you so fat?

Poor guy! Are you a donkey? Why you have teeth like a rat? Why your voice sounds so ugly? You are an idiot because you fail every time!

We hear and use these sentences in our daily routine.

It is fun right? No, it is not fun. Have you ever thought how would the person, against whom the words are being used, feel?

You are bullying the person, harassing him/her in a way, even if you don’t realize it.

What is bullying?

According to Stop Bullying,a website dedicated to address teh issue, ‘bullying is unwanted, aggressive behavior among school aged children that involves a real or perceived power imbalance. The behavior is repeated, or has the potential to be repeated, over time. Both kids who are bullied and who bully others may have serious, lasting problems.

In order to be considered bullying, the behavior must be aggressive and include:

• An Imbalance of Power: Kids who bully use their power—such as physical strength, access to embarrassing information, or popularity—to control or harm others. Power imbalances can change over time and in different situations, even if they involve the same people.
• Repetition: Bullying behaviors happen more than once or have the potential to happen more than once.

Bullying includes actions such as making threats, spreading rumors, attacking someone physically or verbally, and excluding someone from a group on purpose.’

According to various studies, many of the people bully others to acquire resources, gain/assert power, and to gain “reputation” (it is the most cited benefit of bullying).

When it comes to schools, many students are bullied for being a failure, for not having a better financial and social status or background. Many of us can relate this with our own experiences. The one who is well dressed is seen in a lovely way and the one whose dress is torn, we see him/her in the meanest, through our weird facial expressions, or usage of words like eew, yuck, aakh, or by using demeaning and belittling phrases and slangs.

We know that it is bad we still like to act in the same behavior again and again because it is fun for us and we entertain ourselves by wrong ways. We do not think of the one for whom we are acting like this. If someone is not dressed properly it is because of some reasons for sure. We do not try to understand the realities and the situations of the one who is being the center of fun or entertainment. It is not only get up there are other things like we come across students who fail to attempt the papers and fail to understand the class lectures are also bullied, people taunt them and try their best show their superiority in the marks obtaining war. To be a failure is not a bad thing, believe me, it the best situation when a person works hard to achieve his/her target by staying positive but what drags him/her to the negativity is the reactions s/she gets from the surroundings. Bullying affects psychological development of a person. Bullying may cause social isolation, symptoms of anxiety and depression, changes in sleep patterns, School avoidance (in case of students), low self-esteem and bullied victim feels ashamed.

In schools students are bullied and this is not even discussed among the students. What teachers and parents can do is that they can identify the problem and the issues about why someone bullies the other and try to arrange counselling sessions for both groups. The other thing is that we do not have firsthand knowledge about what is bullying, and harassment is. We need to aware people not only students about what bullying is and what are the consequences of bullying.