Letter: Bullying should never be tolerated
What is bullying? It is a deliberate, antagonistic action with the intent of inflicting hurt or pain on someone else. The behavior is unfair, one-sided and can be physical, emotional, verbal or visual.
Bullying can take place online and face-to-face.
Why do teens bully? They may be seeking power and control over someone, wanting to “fit in,” are jealous or insecure. Approximately 39 percent of bullying happens due to physical appearance and 33 percent due to perceived sexual orientation. Regardless of the intentions, bullying should never be tolerated. Every student deserves a safe and stress-free learning environment.
Why does bullying prevention matter? Teenagers who become the target of bullying can experience low self-esteem, anxiety, depression, frustration, loneliness and rejection from their peers. This can lead to poor academic performance, self-harm, eating disorders and more.
Each day, in the U.S., more than 160,000 students stay home from school and approximately 4,400 teenagers commit suicide every year due to bullying/harassment. That is 12 teenage suicides per day! For every suicide, there are 100 attempted suicides; that is about 500,000 attempted suicides per year.
It is vitally important to teach students how to identify bullying behaviors and aggressively promote school safety.
Lindsy Gladstone
Kennewick
This story was originally published November 7, 2015 at 11:22 PM with the headline "Letter: Bullying should never be tolerated."