Students Can Combat Bullying
Bullying continues to be a concern in schools. Students can be proactive partners in stopping bullying at school and after hours.
Students are bullied every day. Bullying can happen anywhere, but it is prevalent in school environments. Bullying is often under-reported because children and young adults may be scared of the consequences of outing their bullies.
In 2014, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the U.S. Department of Education released the first federal definition of bullying. The definition encompassed three elements: 1. Unwanted aggressive behavior; 2. Observed or perceived power imbalance; and 3. Repetition or high likelihood of repetition of bullying behaviors.
DoSomething.org says around 20 percent of students between the ages of 12 and 18 have been bullied during the school year, and more than 150,000 teens have skipped school because of bullying.
The Pew Research Center reports that 35 percent of U.S. parents with children younger than 18 say they are extremely or very worried that their children might be bullied at some point. Those fears may be warranted, as the Monique Burr Foundation for Children reports a child is bullied on a playground every seven minutes and between 50 and 77 percent of students report having been bullied.
