Articles of the Month

Bullying: An ongoing but leave-alone issue

Bullying happens every seven seconds in the GTA and these statistics continue to grow across the nation. Bullying can occur in two different forms physically or verbally. Statistics show that females tend to verbally harass the victim whereas the male will be more aggressive and physically harass the victim. As these incidents grow they affect the growing youth nation, these youth which will determine our future. As the problem progresses organizations are being formed to protect the youth and information on how to deal with these problems are becoming available. Despite all this, not everything is being done within our nation?s power to prevent this.

In the last five years in Canada there have been more than six suicides by young children because they were being tortured and bullied at school. One homicide that involved extreme bullying in Canada is the case of Reena Virk. In this case justice has still not been served. If bullying in Canada keeps up, we will continue to lose more and more of our young lives. This problem not only affects the victim but affects the perpetrator as well. Studies done show that bullies in their later life often continue their style of behaviour and they increase their chances of being convicted for a criminal offence. The same study also shows that when the victims reach adult life, they will often suffer from withdrawal and anxiety. These youth that are suffering are our future. If bullying continues there will be fewer youth with the confidence to strive for success in life.

This problem happens every seven seconds in classrooms but teachers are only aware of four percent. Teachers and students are not speaking up about this issue. The Canadian government has a report out on the problem but other than that not much else has been done. There is a few websites that have dedicated themselves to help the victims of bullying. My personal opinion is that more should be done to teach bullies why it?s wrong to do what they are doing so they can save themselves and hopefully others. Also 25 percent of bullying goes on in the classroom and on the playground where teachers are readily available. More should be done to inform the teacher on how to spot when child is being victimized and how the bully should be dealt with.

If you want information about bullying and victimization go to www.bullying.org . This is comprehensive site including facts about bullying how to get it to stop and what to do if it gets out of hand. If you are being bullied or are a bully and want some help or need some on to talk to call 1 800 668-6868 kids help phone which is a 24 hour hotline for kids. Also if you would like to see the report done on bullying by the government of Canada it can be seen at www.sdc.gc.ca/en/cs/sp/sdc/pkrf/publications/research/1998-000130/page00.shtml.