As someone who was herself a victim of bullying, I am certain that calling names, catcalling, physical assault are not the only forms of bullying.....
THINK PAD
Teenage is, it is said, a grueling period of one’s life. It’s a time when scientifically, the anatomy of one’s body gets complex and starts to develop, leaving major changes physically, emotionally, hormonally and mentally. It’s a time period of life where people starts to question their own existence, get consumed by insecurities and fears, try to fit in as much as possible to make themselves look interesting or attractive enough, and in this present era, competition between people has gotten a little too far. So far that it has resulted in teenagers hiding their insecurities and fears behind facades of being interesting, and for that, they’re willing to stretch all the limits, and even go beyond that if it doesn’t work out … even if that means hiding themselves by bringing someone else down.
The toxic culture of making kids behave in a way that they are “socially acceptable” is what ruins them, and this is one of the major causes why children between the ages of 13-18 are most likely to be affected by bullying
Bully, a word we all are familiar with. I am quite sure a huge population, while reading this is having flashbacks of how they were treated back when they were in high school or secondary school, because no matter how much we deny it, we have all suffered in one way or another. Bullies are everywhere and bullying is indeed, a very ugly truth of our society that we tend to hide by saying “it’s normal to have fun with friends.”
As someone who was herself a victim of bullying, I am certain that calling names, catcalling, physical assault are not the only forms of bullying. Emotional bullying is pretty much real and not treated as seriously as authorities treat the aforementioned forms of bullying. Even the victim sometimes doubts if he/she is really being bullied or is it all in his/her head? Emotional bullying is when manipulation, sugar-coated words and emotional assault is done by someone who claims to be one’s well-wisher. For example, a big number of teenagers stay in toxic friendships and relationships, because they’re deprived of love and attention, and with an ounce of attention, they are attracted to predators who make them insecure in the name of love. They slowly manipulate them into believing things that they wouldn’t have believed in otherwise, making them end up thinking they deserve what they’re going through. Similarly, the standards and cultures we’ve slowly and unintentionally developed in our schools, making our kids believing that being “popular” or “extraordinary” is directly proportional to the degree of attractiveness they hold, which is absolutely not true. We often ignore realities and never teach our kids the basics of life. Basics of life say that not all of us can end up becoming superstars, super genius and life changing motivational speakers. Truth is that most of the people live the same average lives we run away from because that’s how the world works; all we need to learn is to make the most out of it.
The toxic culture of making kids behave in a way that they are “socially acceptable” is what ruins them, and this is one of the major causes why children between the ages of 13-18 are most likely to be affected by bullying.
A simple and profound way to save our kids is to stay close to them. To understand that they also go through some major changes … changes that can force them to question things around them and make them prone to the ways they behave. As a teacher, I have often seen students tolerating the bad behaviours of their mates because they have a fear of being lonely, and as a student I have lived that fear. I am again, pretty sure a lot of people have lived that fear, and it’s about time we try to eradicate this fear from our generation. The fear of loneliness makes a lot of people tolerate things they won’t otherwise, and leads them into some really nasty things. Sometimes, they end up being emotionally and physically abused. Instead of dictating them to live their lives the way you as an adult want, try listening to them and then raise them accordingly so that they don’t end up traumatized and spend their twenties or rest of their lives in misery.
Bridging the gap is one of the most important things we need to do. Our future generations need to be saved by the predators looking to hurt the young people they can. We have the power of saving them, no one else.
