Bullying is a major problem throughout the U.S. This is an addendum to my first article about bullying. You will also find many future articles about this topic, since bullying has lead to several young suicides and, for others, severe depression.
Some people believe that it won’t happen to them or their child. Honestly, bullying is extremely common and I guarantee it will happen to your child. I am certain it has happened to you several times. I know it has happened to me more than I can count; even as an adult. The good news is I knew how to handle it.
First off, there are things you can do to prevent yourself from being bullied in the first place. Confidence is the main ingredient to making bullies turn the other way. Your body language, attitude, and how you conduct yourself all play a role. The problem is many people don’t have that confidence and conduct themselves in such a way that they become victimized. So how do you get that kind of confidence? It’s simple: learn how to protect yourself. It’s a great feeling walking around knowing you don’t have to worry about being attacked. Bullies can read this.
Although you might not be a target for a bully it still doesn’t guarantee that you won’t become bullied. So your second step is knowing how to deal with bullies. You need to know how to diffuse the verbal harassment and how to physically handle a bully if he attacks you. If you learn the three T’s of dealing with verbal harassment, you will be able to implement them and will put a stop to the bully. You must also understand the rules of engagement when dealing with bullies.
At Miller’s Kenpo Karate we teach children and adults all of these things. They learn the three T’s to verbal harassment and also learn the rules of engagement (five steps to take). We instill real confidence by teaching effective training methods and movements, along with the proper mindset.
To prove how bad bullying is, I have included the statistics of 2009 for bullying, which were mentioned in an article written by researcher John W. Sheridan.
Here are some School Bullying Statistics from 2009 Surveys:
*Over 75% of our students are subjected to harassment by a bully or Cyber-Bully and experience physical, psychological and/or emotional abuse.
*Over 20% of our kids admit to being a bully or participating in bully-like activities.
*Over one half of bullying & Cyber-Bullying events go unreported to authorities or parents.
*In 2009 surveys showed over 100,000 children carried guns to school as a result of being bullied.
*28% of students who carry weapons in school have witnessed violence in their homes.
*On a daily average 160,000 children miss school because they fear they will be bullied if they attend classes.
*On a monthly average 282,000 students are physically attacked by a bully each month.
*Every seven minutes a child is bullied on a school playground with over 85% of those instances occurring without any intervention.
*46% of males and 26% of females admit to having been involved in physical fights as a result of being bullied.
*Over 85% of our teenagers say that revenge as an aftermath of being bullied is the leading cause for school shootings and homicide.
*The top 5 states in regards to reported incidents of bullying and Cyber-Bullying are California, New York, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Washington.
*A child commits suicide as a direct result of being bullied once every half hour with 19,000 bullied children attempting to commit suicide over the course of one year.
As you can see from the school bullying statistics listed above it is indeed a serious problem that must be addressed whenever discovered.
Unfortunately, as indicated above, most instances of school bully activity go unreported by the student victims.
This makes it very difficult for teachers or parents to intervene on behalf of the victim and provide the proper counseling needed for the victim as well as the bully.
A relatively new type of bully, the Cyber-Bully, is relevant in schools as well as home and is a growing concern for parents when trying to protect their kids from this form of abuse.
Cyber-Bullying is the harassment of kids through the use of the internet and filters into the schools when kids return to classes.
It is so serious that over one third of our kids who frequent the internet are victims of the Cyber-Bully.
[end statistics]
I will have a separate article in the future about Cyber-bullying. Notice that Pennsylvania is one of the top 5 states for bullying. You CAN do something about it. Although most school systems have adapted the zero tolerance rule, meaning that any students who get into a physical confrontation both parties will be suspended. That’s good in one way that it prevents some physical bullying from happening, but not so good in other ways. It still doesn’t prevent all of it, and it doesn’t stop any of the verbal harassment.
Michael Miller (Reality based self-defense expert)
www.millersdojo.com
814-368-3725
michael.miller@millersdojo.com