What is bullying?
Most of us would be able to tell a story about a time we were bullied, or when a friend of ours was bullied. If you asked your parents and grandparents they would probably be able to tell you a story about being bullied in their school days. They may even admit that they did some of the bullying themselves!
Emma’s granny put up with Thomas taking her lunch. She told the teacher once and Thomas got into trouble. Thomas got really angry and bashed up Emma’s granny and called her names. Emma’s poor granny kept getting bullied by Thomas. She didn’t do anything to stop the bullying because she was scared she would get bashed up again.
This story has a happy ending for Emma’s granny because she came up with a great plan with the help of her friend and it worked! Emma’s granny found out what food Thomas didn’t like to eat and had it every day for a week. Thomas never took her lunch again!
It’s stories like this that have caused people to stop and think about the unhappiness that bullying can cause. There has been a big change in the way we think about bullying and the way we deal with bullying.
These days, bullying is taken seriously by schools, families, and the whole community because it stops you from feeling safe and happy. Bullying can also interfere with your learning at school. For these reasons most schools will have a policy against bullying and harassment.
Even though the bullying is now seen as unacceptable behaviour, there are some people who still think it’s OK. People who believe bullying is OK probably think that it’s no big deal because nearly everyone gets bullied at some time in their life, and we should just put up with it, or fight back and in the end it will be all right.
We know this is NOT TRUE. Bullying is NOT OK and everyone needs to stand up against it.
Bullying is hard to describe because there are many examples of it and different people will be affected in different ways.
Here is a definition for you to think about and discuss with other people (friends, other class mates, teacher, parents)
Bullying is action against a person or group of people that is done on purpose to upset or to hurt whoever it is aimed at. The bullying happens more than one time, it can happen many times a day or week or even for month or years.
