It’s 6:45, the school bus will be here in 15 minutes, Mrs. Verma is preparing the lunch and Mr. Verma is trying to wake up Dhanak for almost half an hour. Dhanak is reluctant to go to school as usual Mr. Verma is thinking, but something is off about Dhanak today. If only people could read each other’s mind then Dhanak’s parents would know how his classmates call him a weakling every day and gang up on him, yesterday was the worst day of Dhanak as some of his classmates locked him inside the washroom for 20 minutes or so, he screamed, he cried and kicked the door until his 11-year-old body gave up. He doesn’t want to wake up today and go back to that terrible place which is supposed to be a safe haven for him apart from his home. He is scared to tell his parents because his school teacher only punished those students for a period then everything was back to normal and they again teased him, even worse this time as he complained about it. He will solve this thing on his own he thinks. He is not weak he is strong, but not today, he is faking a stomach ache, the third time in the last week now but what to do he doesn’t know, he is only 11 years old you see.
This is sadly one of many real-life cases of bullying in schools these days. A recent survey conducted by IMRB, a top Indian marketing research company, showed that ‘every third child’ doesn’t in Indian schools. There are no rigid laws on anti-bullying although the government of India has asked the schools and colleges to have an anti-bullying committee to stop this terrible thing which impacts many children every day. As you can see that bullying is not limited to only schools, it has crept into workplaces too. This behavior starts at the school level and both the bully and the bullied can have lasting impacts. This is soon becoming a serious problem, as children are becoming more aggressive due to the negative environment or many other factors which pushes people to harm the other person.
Types of Bullying:
Verbal Bullying, where the bully teases or name-calling, Inappropriate sexual comments and taunts the victim.
Social Bullying, where the bully embarrasses the victim in public, ruins the reputation in class or tells the other kids to isolate him/her.
Physical Bullying, where the bully physical harm the kid, severely or mildly.
Cyber Bullying:
With the advent of the social media, it has now become very easy to bully people online as they are mostly physically out of reach. Cyber-bullying includes:
- Posting any kind of humiliating content of the victim.
- Hacking the victim’s account.
- Sending or posting vulgar messages online.
- Threatening to commit acts of violence.
- Stalking by means of calls, messages, etc..
- Threats of child pornography.
The question here arises that why children do from a very young age starts traumatizing other children of their own age or even younger than that? Well, mostly the children who bully others are bullied in their homes by their parents or siblings and they have no clue how to deal with all that so they start to take out their aggression on other students. Many children are at risk of bullying like- kids who are different from their peers in respect to shape, size, color, race and religion.
What bullying leads to?
- Depression
- Anxiety
- Isolation
- Fear
- Low self-esteem
Bullying often leads to suicide in extreme cases when the victim is being bullied repetitively by his/her peers or seniors. Parents often pose to be strict with their kids; as a result kids don’t trust their parents to understand their plight in school. They think that they may be called weak because other children are picking up on them; schools also protect their reputation and try to shush up the matter. Lack of seriousness in these matters then leads to kids ending their precious life.
Seriousness and indulgence in your kids life is necessary, if you’re an understanding parent then your kids can trust you and can share anything with you. Your reaction is what that matters. Acceptance, love and support are needed by your child and mostly your trust. Be observant, look for signs if your child is being bullied or being a bully.
When asking for the hundredth time about what is wrong with Dhanak, he starts sobbing badly and tells his dad about what exactly has been going on. Both of them are in shock that their child has been to this kind of trauma in school. They are now angry, very angry and are determined to make their child’s life normal again. Mrs. Verma is hugging Dhanak tightly, making sure that no one hurts her son ever again. Dhanak is feeling safe now. He is feeling stronger now.