Looking at Bullies Differently
Bullying may not seem to be a huge issue in schools today but bullying is still a prevalent problem between children. In 2016 statistics were taken and resulted in more than one out of every five students or children have reported being bullied before. Students who have reported being bullied thirteen percent were made fun of by being called names or being insulted. Twelve percent dealt with rumors being spread around through the school about them, five percent were subjected to physical accounts of bullying such as being shoved, tripped and even spit on. The last five percent state that they were deliberately left out from activities. These numbers may not seem high or outrageous but bullying shouldn’t even be common. It’s normal for children to be bullied or to bully today.
Why do children bully and where do they pick up the tendencies to treat others poorly? Arguments can be made stating that when parents treat their children poorly the child tends to pick up on these behaviors and actions. In turn they begin to treat their peers poorly which leads to bullying. When children grow up with an unhealthy at home life sometimes they don’t know how to act towards others.
Bullies tend to have aggressive behaviors designed to obtain goals and these goals often begin first in their home environment. Children are most vulnerable to learning the appropriate behaviors at a very young age. Most of the behaviors that bullies tend to pick up on are due to the way their family acts. The home situation of most bullies is quite harsh, punishment is often within the home either verbal or physical. If the child makes a minor infraction it could lead the parent to over react in a verbal, emotional or physical way. Children being raised n an environment like this often don’t gain approval or praise at any time.
If the primary caretaker has a negative attitude toward the child at a young age with lack of warmth and involvement in this child, it increases the risk that this child will grow up with hostile or aggressive behaviors towards others. Not just people in their families but towards people in general. If the child does become aggressive and the parent becomes permissive of these behaviors, without setting clear limits to the behavior towards peers, siblings, and adults the child’s aggression will most likely increase. If the parent of a child uses physical punishment and violent emotional outburst when trying to get their point across, this child is more likely to become more aggressive than the average child.
It has been concluded that bullies often stem from families where the parents are authoritarian, hostile, and rejecting, have poor problem solving skills and advocate fighting back at least at the least provocation. Children being raised in a hostile home environment could often feel neglected and unwanted. This could lead to the child becoming aggressive and act out in order to try and gain attention from their parents.
The parents of these children probably don’t realize that their behaviors toward their child leads them to act the same way they do towards others. Some of these children who bully may not know any better because they were raised in a home with negativity and where they were constantly put down. So they may see it as normal behavior when they are treating others this way not realizing that they are actually bullying.
Out of a home environment of negativity emerges a personality steeped in the belief and justification that intimidation and brute forces are ways to interact with obstacles that are encountered in life. It has been said that violence begets violence. If a child is treated with violent behaviors they most often turn and treat others with violent behaviors.
The aggression and anger of these children often builds up because they are not able to speak out at home in which it grows. So when they arrive at school and have to deal with some sort of situation they may just explode and go off on others within this environment.
Justifying bullies is not what is happening but these children that bullies often can’t take all the blame they are raised in a sense where negativity towards others is normal. Furthermore, if these children are bullying others their parents often stick up for their child’s behavior and sees it as them sticking up for them self.
References
Bullying Statistics. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.pacer.org/bullying/resources/stats.asp
Roberts, W. B., Jr., & Morotti, A. A. (n.d.). The Bully as Victim. Retrieved February 27, 2018, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/42732181.pdf?refreqid=excelsior:691cee82878e2580b4ba2f967406d63a
Olweus, D. (n.d.). Bully/Victim problems in school. Retrieved February 27, 2018, from http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.rowan.edu/stable/pdf/23420286.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3A81a118046b9f273c73808da868e8d722
Ma, X. (n.d.). Bullying and Being Bullied. Retrieved February 27, 2018, from http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.rowan.edu/stable/pdf/3202462.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3A60abb9588a61d9951c2434b757060c62
Rowan Counterintuitive 
Dancer, would you mind if the first thing I offer is a “clean” edit of your first paragraph as a style model?
—Here you make a false distinction between a “problem in schools” and a “problem between children.” It sounds as if you mean to say kids still bully each other but not in school. That can’t be your intention.
—You have someone “taking statistics.” Those statistics resulted in something, which is pretty odd. The result is that 20% said they were bullied. But that’s the “statistic that was taken.” Right? You don’t mean that students reporting that they were bullied was the cause of their being bullied. But that’s what your sentence says. “Before” is unnecessary (they couldn’t be reporting being bullied in the future).
—You seem to like to break down actions into too many components, Dancers. Here bullies insult their classmates, and insult them, and in doing so make fun of them.
—Your “dealt with” is very ambiguous, Dancer. You might mean victims had to “suffer” rumors. Or you might mean twelve percent of the reports of bullying “were of the rumor type.” Again, you break down three physical assaults into a category you don’t need to name.
—Prohibited FROM participating in activities, but left out OF activities.
—Actually, they’re not numbers at all; they’re percentages of the number of total bullying incidents, I guess. What’s odd is that they don’t add up to 100% as they should, if you’re listing all the reported incident types. On closer inspection, I see you’re combining a couple of statistics, so I’ll try to be clear in my version of your opening paragraph.
—This just restates your first claim that bullying is prevalent.
I added the material in the last sentences to make a meaningful argument from your less substantial claims. (They may not be true. I did determine that grades 6 through 12 were surveyed, but I don’t know the comparison rate for reporting.) A close reading of the survey itself will help you make similar insightful arguments.
Is this helpful, Dancers?
You’re entitled to as much feedback as you can earn by engaging in this process. Respond first (and make revisions to your essay too, if you like); then you can ask for additional feedback.
Deal?
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I appreciate you providing feedback and I will take into consideration everything you had to say, you made good points and I will be sure to revise my work adding in your thoughts and comments.
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