School Bullying and how is affects people

When children are bullied at school, teachers and parents have different outlooks and views on how it should be dealt with. Whilst children are encouraged to tell someone else, not necessarily a parent or teacher, but someone they trust, they often don't.

In days gone by, there was the 'Honour Culture' where if someone would insult you, you would then challenge them to a dual to find out who the strongest person is. The second is 'Dignity Culture' where you would be told to be the bigger person and walk away. "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me", this is what I was brought up on, to just leave it alone, but also to tell someone as it could help. Lastly is the 'Safety Culture' where certain parents or guardians would wrap the children in bubble-wrap to protect them from the world and tell them that nothing bad happens.

For example, if children or even young adults are told to stand up for themselves and fight back, that's classed as duelling or honour culture, which could have negative connotations attached to it rather than the positive connotations of 'good job that they stood up for themselves'. If someone stands up for themselves or others they are being disruptive and are normally the ones that are punished, not the ones that are causing the problem. This is the main reoccurring problem is schools, it makes students, no matter the age, feel lonely and then they begin to question everything "Does this person actually like me or are they pretending just to hurt me?" or "They said that I couldn't do it, so I guess I can't".

It is the little things that can cause the most long-term emotional damage on a person, even if they forget about it for a while, it will always be there in the back of their minds, just waiting for the perfect moment to remind that person of the time that they were bullied in school for a similar situation.

Bullying within schools is fairly low considering with "UNESCO report reveals, ‘Almost one in three students (32%) has been bullied by their peers at school". 20% of those students told a teacher, but majority of children DO NOT tell teachers out of fear. They are more likely to tell their friends rather than a responsible adult as there is less likely to be repercussions. But not telling someone is not purely down to fear, some people that don't tell simply do not trust the person enough that they will not make the situation worse for them later down the line.

In fact, bullying continues in 70% of cases and reporting it can make it worse. Overall, research has found that in about half of the cases, while the teacher was able to reduce the bullying, in the half the cases it either stayed and same or was worse.

Children and Young Adults, when they grow up, are less likely to stand up for themselves in a workplace or at home and more likely to do as they are told and follow the rules. They question everything again, continuously apologise for everything even when it is not needed. They feel like they have to explain every little detail down to the last to make sure they have the story straight incase someone comes and asks them, in fear of being bullied either by; emotionally manipulated, physically, mentally abused and more.

The impact that bullying has on people 10,20 or 30 years after it happened is tremendous and no one really knows why someone is the way they are unless they knew what happened as they were growing up, as their brains were still developing and they are now almost programmed to apologise for everything, question everything.