Monday, January 3, 2011 @ 5:05 AM
Bullying or in other words, peer abuse is undoubtedly every children's and parents' fear. It is something inevitable and even if you were to attend one of the prestigious schools in Singapore, it is impossible for you not to witness or even experience it. Bullying includes deliberately pushing someone physically, throwing objects at someone, verbally insulting someone, spreading rumours about someone or even ostracising someone from his social clique. Sometimes I wonder what do people benefit from bullying others? Does it make them feel superior? Do they think by doing such an immoral thing they will gain respect from their inferiors? Honestly, it's not something to be proud of.
I have witnessed for myself how bullying had adversely impacted someone to the extent she never wanted to attend school. She was a girl who enjoyed going to school before the whole incident happened and she was academically a good student and a nominated prefect as well. However, she had lost the motivation to go to school when she was ostracised by her friends. Besides that, her friends often gave her hurtful remarks which had dampened her self-esteem. Due to that, she had not been attending school for close to a week and her studies were also affected significantly. And what's worse? She chose to keep everything to herself and nobody knew the problems she was facing until her form-teacher decided to visit her at home.
Though she was apprehensive to tell us what was going on initially, we managed to console her to open up. Little did we realise, she was having problems with her friends and that she felt left out in school. No one wanted to talk to her, play with her or even sit her during recess time. She felt so lonely that she would prefer staying at home than going to school. But the thing is, this wouldn't have happened if she had reported it to her form teacher or parents.
That is one mistake victims of bullying usually do. They prefer keeping everything to themselves thinking that they are capable enough to handle the matter than reporting it to their teachers or parents. At the same time, I feel that it is not wrong for them to keep quiet about it because there are also a few teachers or parents who see bullying as a trivial matter. And instead of giving the victims solutions to overcome it, they would just tell them to ignore it. I mean, there has to be a reason why they shared it with us. It's because they know they are incapable of taking the matter into their own hands. Nevertheless, even though the adults might think such matters are least of their concerns, victims should always seek help from someone before the matter gets out of hand.
And what amazes me the most is that children as young as 9 years old are capable enough of bullying their schoolmates. When I was 9, hurting someone was the last thing I wanted to do because I believe in the saying "What goes around, comes around". In my opinion, going to school is not only about getting proper education or scoring well in all our subjects, it is also about being nice to everyone and treating everyone as our friends. I cannot deny that I often dread going to school due to morning classes and the amount of work I received but it was never due to my friends. Even if I were to have conflicts with my friends, I would approach my mother for advices. And most of time, she would advise me to straighten things out with them but if things just don't work out, we forgive and forget. I mean, everyone wants to have good and memorable experiences in school, don't they?
I have witnessed for myself how bullying had adversely impacted someone to the extent she never wanted to attend school. She was a girl who enjoyed going to school before the whole incident happened and she was academically a good student and a nominated prefect as well. However, she had lost the motivation to go to school when she was ostracised by her friends. Besides that, her friends often gave her hurtful remarks which had dampened her self-esteem. Due to that, she had not been attending school for close to a week and her studies were also affected significantly. And what's worse? She chose to keep everything to herself and nobody knew the problems she was facing until her form-teacher decided to visit her at home.
Though she was apprehensive to tell us what was going on initially, we managed to console her to open up. Little did we realise, she was having problems with her friends and that she felt left out in school. No one wanted to talk to her, play with her or even sit her during recess time. She felt so lonely that she would prefer staying at home than going to school. But the thing is, this wouldn't have happened if she had reported it to her form teacher or parents.
That is one mistake victims of bullying usually do. They prefer keeping everything to themselves thinking that they are capable enough to handle the matter than reporting it to their teachers or parents. At the same time, I feel that it is not wrong for them to keep quiet about it because there are also a few teachers or parents who see bullying as a trivial matter. And instead of giving the victims solutions to overcome it, they would just tell them to ignore it. I mean, there has to be a reason why they shared it with us. It's because they know they are incapable of taking the matter into their own hands. Nevertheless, even though the adults might think such matters are least of their concerns, victims should always seek help from someone before the matter gets out of hand.
And what amazes me the most is that children as young as 9 years old are capable enough of bullying their schoolmates. When I was 9, hurting someone was the last thing I wanted to do because I believe in the saying "What goes around, comes around". In my opinion, going to school is not only about getting proper education or scoring well in all our subjects, it is also about being nice to everyone and treating everyone as our friends. I cannot deny that I often dread going to school due to morning classes and the amount of work I received but it was never due to my friends. Even if I were to have conflicts with my friends, I would approach my mother for advices. And most of time, she would advise me to straighten things out with them but if things just don't work out, we forgive and forget. I mean, everyone wants to have good and memorable experiences in school, don't they?