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55% of lesbian, gay and bisexual young people experience homophobic bullying at school http://t.co/AtcjY69y... The teenage years are a challenging time for many young people. But for those who think they might be gay, lesbian or bisexual, it can be even more bewildering. According to a new study published on Tuesday by the gay equality organisation Stonewall, 55% of lesbian, gay and bisexual young people experience homophobic bullying at school; 96% say they hear words like "poof" or "lezza" in the classroom, something that can be "hugely damaging" to children who are trying to come to terms with their sexuality, says the charity's chief executive, Ben Summerskill.
As documentary filmmaker Lee Hirsch discovered, the travails of a tormented child can be an examination far more terrifying than anything faced in the workaday life of an adult. “A group of five or six guys pulled me into a bathroom, where they had run the showers and hot water to make it steam up,” Hirsch recalls. “They were acting out like they were taking me to a gas chamber and beat me up in there. It was absolutely terrifying.” Hirsch had blocked out the incident, which took place at his high school in Long Island, until someone posted about it on his Facebook page. He was 15 at the time. Twenty-five years later and Hirsch is a celebrated filmmaker, but the title he is most proud of is champion of the downtrodden. His documentary Bully, which follows five children from America who are persecuted relentlessly at school, has become a global phenomenon and has put the topic of bullying firmly back on the agenda in the US. “I was bullied through middle school, elementary school and it’s something you carry,” says Hirsch.
Danielle talks about her past with bullying, and why that worries her about her son starting kindergarten. My oldest son heads to kindergarten in the first week of September. Which as a mother, brings me a whole new plethora of fear and anxiety. Especially considering for my first roughly eight years in public school I was picked on and bullied. Yup, I was the little girl that was bullied by my classmates. Hell I still am bullied today, but that is just a whole other story in itself. If it wasn’t about my clothes from Bradlee’s, it was about my payless shoes. When the clothes were no longer an issue, it was my braces. When my braces weren’t an issue anymore it was the people I chose to hang around with. No matter what I couldn’t win until I somehow ended up hanging with the “cool” high school kids when I was in 8th grade.
When he saw classmates taunted on Twitter, 17-year-old Kevin Curwick, a high school football captain, decided that online bullying should not be a spectator sport for his Minnesota town. So he quietly set up a Twitter account, @OsseoNiceThings, to praise students in need of a social facelift. "She is so good at dancing, she gets more scholarships than D1 athletes," he tweeted about a girl who was attacked by an anonymous account. Curwick says since the @OsseoNiceThings page started on July 29, the Twitter posts attacking his classmates have disappeared.
Nearly one third of all students aged 12-18 are bullied at some point in their educational career, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. With so many students experiencing bullying, parents need to know how to protect and equip their children. Also on the rise in schools, sexual harassment is thought to have a greater negative impact on victims than bullying, making informed parents vital to their children’s protection against sexual harassment.
Why Victims May Not Report Abuse
Unfortunately, many victims of bullying do not report the abuse they undergo, because they fear it will only worsen if the bully finds out the victim told someone. Many victims might not report abuse, because they feel it is in some way their fault. Especially with sexual harassment abuse, students may feel deep shame over what has happened, and therefore will be unlikely to bring it up with a parent.
Since children may not tell parents if they are the victims of bullying or sexual harassment, it is crucial that parents are able to recognize the signs of bullying and sexual harassment.
If you found out your child with special needs was being bullied on the school bus, what would you do? Here are seven great tips to keep your child safe and prevent future bullying incidents.
With bullying and teen suicides continually in the spotlight, I was honored to have been asked to write a preface for a new anthology, Letters to My Bully, which examines this topic in great depth. My own letter to my bully was incredibly difficult to write, as was the video to make, as it took me back to those difficult days of high school when I was nervous just to walk across campus. How someone deals with such experiences can shape his or her adulthood, for better or worse...
Lately, we’ve been bombarded with stories about bullying incidents involving children, some of them resulting in tragedies. These horrific stories appall us and make us wonder what happens in a child’s life that could cause him or her to want to be mean and cruel, to want to tease, belittle or even physically hurt another to this extent?
What is called “bullying” does not usually show up until a child’s middle school years, but the traits have probably been forming since early childhood. A child’s actions often reflect how he or she has been treated.
A young boy with special needs was attacked by a gang of bullies at his junior school who beat him so severely he ended up in hospital.
McKenzie-Graye Evans spent three nights in hospital after he was kicked and punched by three other boys who had followed him to the toilet in between lessons.
The 11-year-old, who suffers from a range of disabilities, including Asperger’s syndrome, was put in hospital on the last day of term at Edge Hill Junior School in Stapenhill, Staffordshire.
Mark McCormack spent six months researching teen boys in the U.K. What he found was a culture of acceptance that defied cultural expectations. Consider the scene: Tom, a small, shy, openly gay high school student, sat at the back of the school bus on his own. He saw three of the most popular, athletic boys get on the bus, fresh from soccer practice. As they made their way down the aisle, they saw Tom alone and moved toward him.
What happened next?
Not what you’d expect. The boys, in fact, sat down to talk with Tom. “I didn’t really know him well,” one later told me. “I knew he was the gay kid at school, that’s all. … He was all on his own. I mean, I couldn’t just let him sit there alone. Nobody should have to sit alone.”
I recently appeared on New Day Northwest where host Margaret Larson asked what parents should do if they are told their child has been bullying others. A viewer misinterpreted what I said, so I thought I'd clarify my position on the issue. What parents should do if they are alerted by school officials that there may be a problem with their child -- either as a bully or a victim. This is a really tough situation and I've had to answer this question many times. As I explained in the interview, a parent's natural reaction is to say, "Oh, no, not MY child." The problem is that too many parents will just automatically assume that the educational "establishment" is out to get their child. And part of this is due both to the natural feeling of wanting to protect your child. You don't want to be told that your kid is a BAD KID and that's what you hear when someone tells you that Little Johnny or Little Suzie have been involved in an "incident."
What causes bullying? Bullying is a behavior that is often learned in response to stresses in the bully’s world. These stresses can include strained parental relationships or abuse, poor academic performance, unsupportive peer networks or anxiety regarding physical appearance. While bullies give off the appearance of confidence, it is often the case that their actions are driven by insecurities. Harassing and overpowering others gives bullies a sense of superiority, making up for the lack of control in some other part of their lives. Surprisingly, many bullies are often motivated to abuse others because they have been victims of abusive behavior. The anger that they feel as a result of being hurt is directed toward other individuals.
Girl bullying / relationally aggressive behavior appears to be motivated by underlying fear and insecurity. The first step to counteracting girl bullying is an awareness of the hidden causes of girl bullying. The second step is gaining an understanding that these are behaviors we don t have to accept. And the third step is sharing support and skill building for dealing with and/or reducing girl bullying behavior. She includes a section on parent workshops and handouts. This book provides a school-based approach to girl bullying that includes class lessons, small group activities and ideas for individual counseling. The class lessons include stories, activities, suggestions and reproducible student worksheets. These strategies are not just for girls and can include the entire class. The group approach includes surveys, stories, strategies, student assessments, and group activities. The individual counseling section includes situation cards, activities, student worksheets, and a simple problem solving model. ..
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Psychologists, not to mention parents, have long observed that kids who seem depressed tend to have trouble getting along with -- and being accepted by -- their peers. What the experts haven't been able to agree on is which comes first, the depression or the social difficulty. Most researchers have supposed that kids who are excluded or bullied become depressed as a result (rather than vice versa), while others have suggested that the two problems go hand in hand and are all but impossible to tease apart.
A new study, published this week in the journal "Child Development," provides some of the strongest evidence to date for a third theory: Kids who cry easily, express negative emotions, and show other signs of depression ultimately suffer socially because they are shunned by their peers and attract the attention of bullies.
With at least two pupils committing suicide in the first half of this year and seven expelled for bullying, Gauteng education MEC Barbara Creecy yesterday said action could not be delayed any longer. Gauteng Childine has seen a sharp increase in the number of calls from victims of bullying. Last year, the call centre received 4989 calls. In the past four months, it has received 2416 . Of particular concern is the spike in cyber bullying, Unisa social worker and researcher Goodness Zulu said .
After a viral video of her being antagonized by a group of middle schoolers sparked an outpouring of support from more than 32,000 online strangers, Karen Klein is using some of the $700,000 in donations to launch an anti-bullying foundation, KSDK reports. She told WROC she plans to put $75,000 toward the Karen Klein Anti-Bullying Foundation “We’re hoping to get other people to put money in it, and this is going to be for education for people that have been bullied, for people that just — for people that need it for this situation,” she said.
When it comes to bullying, the bystander is not innocent. In fact, anti-bullying bystanders who adopt a “cruel’s not cool” mentality can make the biggest impact of all. Think about it. If a bully is shamed by his peers for the names he calls his victim(s) at school or if she is chastised for the false rumors she spreads on Facebook about her victim(s), why would they continue to behave this way? Removing any social stock that a bully feels they obtain via bullying can go a long way to neutralizing this behavior.
The goal is to create a zero-tolerance environment at school. To do that, schools must teach children that reporting a bullying incident is different from tattling—that it’s crucial for them to speak up when they are bullied, or when they witness someone else being bullied. “Parents need to understand that the solution to bullying is with the parents,” Leventhal says. “When parents talk to their kids about this, they need to talk about how they as adults can protect the kids.” Leventhal says parents must create an environment where their children feel comfortable telling them about the bullying. If children don’t trust their parents and think their parents will make things worse—perhaps by calling the bully’s parents or talking to the bully themselves—children will be much less likely to tell their parents. Finding someone who can help is essential for kids who are bullied, because it brings them to the conclusion that they are not responsible for the bullying, says Bill Belsey, founder of bullying.org. This understanding helps children develop the self-confidence necessary to stand up to a bully.
According to the article “Cyber Bullying: Intervention and Prevention Strategies” by Ted Feinberg & Nicole Robey of the National Association of School Psychologists 2009, there are several types of cyber bullying: Flaming – On-line fights using vulgar language
Exclusion – Intentionally excluding someone from an online group
Outing and trickery – Engaging someone in instant messaging or text, tricking them into revealing secret information, and then forwarding the information to others
Harassment and stalking – Repeatedly sending cruel or threatening messages
Denigration – Posting degrading information or gossip about someone to ruin his or her reputation or friendships
Impersonation – Breaking into someone’s email account and sending out vicious or embarrassing messages to others...
Kitamoto, Japan (CNN) -- Incense burns in the corner of the Nakai family living room -- part of an altar to their daughter Yumi, who committed suicide seven years ago. Yumi was just 12 years old when she took her own life, jumping from a condominium building.
"We never saw this coming," says her father, Shinji. "She was a daddy's girl, we went swimming and skiing together and loved to take trips. I was convinced there had been a mistake."
Her mother, Setsuko, lights another candle at her daughter's altar and says a prayer for her, as she does every day. She is convinced bullying at school was one of the main reasons Yumi killed herself. In the months preceding her suicide, Yumi told her mother she was being taunted by some of her classmates.
"I called the school and spoke to her teacher," she says. "The teacher said, 'I'll deal with this problem' and never got back to me, so we assumed it was solved.
Bully Official Trailer #1 - Weinstein Company Movie (2012) HD
This year, over 5 million American kids will be bullied at school, online, on the bus, at home, through their cell phones and on the streets of their towns, making it the most common form of violence young people in this country experience. The Bully Project is the first feature documentary film to show how we've all been affected by bullying, whether we've been victims, perpetrators or stood silent witness. The world we inhabit as adults begins on the playground. The Bully Project opens on the first day of school. For the more than 5 million kids who'll be bullied this year in the United States, it's a day filled with more anxiety and foreboding than excitement. As the sun rises and school busses across the country overflow with backpacks, brass instruments and the rambunctious sounds of raging hormones, this is a ride into the unknown. For a lot of kids, the only thing that's certain is that this year...
Zach King says when he goes back to high school next month, he won’t be scared. Bullied since second grade, the openly gay 16-year-old was harassed and taunted for acting "girly,” having long hair and being different at Unioto High School in Chillicothe. It came to a head in October when he was severely beaten in his third period class by another student and it was captured on video. That’s when Zach and his mom, Becky Collins, went from victims to activists.
We are proud to announce that 'Bullying: It Stops Here' [ http://bit.ly/MsTCsU] has just been nominated for an Emmy Award! The CNN television Town Hall special moderated by Anderson Cooper and developed in collaboration with Rosalind competes in the category of Outstanding News Discussion and Analysis. Final results will be announced during the September 23 ABC broadcast of the Emmy Awards.
I have to stop and ask myself, why are the five teenaged boys arrested for brutal bullying, enjoying the act, so much so they called it being ‘fun’ that could not stop themselves? Why? Are parents to be blamed, are teachers not doing enough or is our moral fabric just being torn to shreds that our cynical outlook towards life is finally affecting our youth? To put it plain, another five boys have been arrested on suspicion. They assaulted a 14-year-old boy, broke his nose and lit his hair on fire and are not remorseful!
Cyber bullying does have negative consequences. The effects of cyber bullying can be short-term or if not dealt with can create long-lasting problems that can significantly impact the life of the target as well as the bully themselves. As a parent, it is your responsibility to check how much time your child spends in front of the computer. More importantly, you need to keep an eye on what each of them is doing. If you observe something strange, do not ignore these signs, even if it seems something small – step out and investigate. You need to do this as the short-term consequences of online bullying may start out small but they can significantly develop and impact your child’s future. Lets take a look at some of the effects of cyber bullying for the target
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