Bullying And Teen Suicide

Bullying is done purposefully to hurt, threaten or scare someone. It can be done orally with words or physically with actions. One or more persons can involve in bullying and degree of cruelty also varies. Bullying can include name calling, teasing, stopping the person from going where he/she want to go or from doing what he/she want to do, or injuring someone physically.

Bullies usually have average or above-average self-confidence, look for recognition or attention from peers, find pleasure from causing injury to others, make themselves look strong, look to control other people or conditions, and are expressed as hot-tempered and rash (Zirpoli, 2008). Bullies are common among students that come from families having little tenderness or affection. Parents of bullies monitor their children very little and use discipline inconsistently. Parents of bullies also employ inflexible discipline styles, where physical punishment is very common (DeHann, 1997).

Students often present the same behavior observed within their home atmosphere including rude behavior displayed by parents toward each other or toward others. Bullies are not generally model students. Very frequently, they are not successful in school and have poor relations with their teachers. Bullies have trouble with social skills, not capable of making friends easily, and do not even know healthier ways to connect to others. Bullying effects Being a victim of bullying is very traumatic for children. Short term effects of bullying include developing hatredness to go to school.

Many victims start to disbelieve all their classmates at school and face problems in making friends. Some victims can develop physical illness or depression. The long term effects of bullying include damage of child’s health that continues into adult life. It increases anxiety, damages self-esteem and can cause severe depression. Some children even get suicidal thoughts and commit suicide. The Phoebe Prince, 15, a freshman at South Hadley High School in Western Massachusetts, is an example of teen suicide for bullying.

Prince hanged herself at her home on January 14th, 2010 as she was subjected to physical mistreatment and verbal harassment on that day (CNN, 2010). Earlier that day, she had been harassed at South Hadley High School library when she was studying. The harassment took place in front of a staff member and a lot of students, but nobody of whom informed it until after the death of the girl. Phoebe was also even harassed when she was walking through the school hall on that day and was walking on the street towards her house.

The bullies also threw a canned drink at her while she was walking home. One male and two female students were involved in the harassment on January 14th. The harassment has been provoked by the group’s disapproval with short dating connection of Phoebe with a male student. But, that day’s events were not the only reason for the death of Phoebe; she has been harassed verbally and threatened to harm physically since three months until the death of hers. The group, who bullied Phoebe, crossed their normal limits and exceeded the normal teenage related quarrels.

The bullying group was also decided to disgrace her and to make it impracticable for Phoebe to continue at school. She has also been harassed on the internet using social networking sites. But, the bullying was mainly conducted on school premises during school hours (Eckholm & Zezima, 2010). Therefore, bullying can have serious negative consequences, even death, which happened in Phoebe Prince case. Phoebe took her own life to escape from bullying in school, on Face Book, and through text messages. Therefore, anti-bullying laws need to be implemented and bullies should be punished severely.

References CNN (2010). More students disciplined following girl’s suicide. Retrieved March 31, 2010 from http://www. cnn. com/2010/CRIME/03/30/massachusetts. bullying. suicide/index. html DeHann, L. (1997). Bullies. Retrieved February 1997 from http://www. ag. ndsu. edu/pubs/yf/famsci/fs570w. htm Eckholm, E. & Zezima, K. (2010). 6 teenagers are charged after classmate’s suicide. Retrieved March 29, 2010 from http://www. nytimes. com/2010/03/30/us/30bully. html Zirpoli, T. J. (2008). Bullying behavior. Retrieved from http://www. education. com/reference/article/bullying-behavior/