Bullying in the USA is on the rise. Teens are committing suicide, injuring themselves, and causing emotional and/or physical harm to themselves and quite possibly their family and friends. There are many ways to be a bully, be bullied, and how to prevent bullying as a bystander.

According to www.bullyingstatistics.org, there are 4,400 teen suicides per year, and for every suicide, there are 100 suicide attempts. Suicide can cause devastating emotional trauma on the family of the victim and his/her friends. Bullying can be broken down into several types: physical, emotional, cyber, and even sexual. Nowadays cyber bullying is a big problem, and it is increasing rapidly. Since the Internet is almost a necessity, there really isn’t any way to stop cyber bullying completely. However there are ways to prevent it happening to you specifically (see paragraph 3).

Being bullied is never fun. I have been bullied, and I’m sure everyone has at least once in his or her life, no matter what your popularity status is. Let’s say that Johnny is one of the unpopular kids at school. Johnny is most likely going to be bullied by Jake, the popular kid who thinks that he is the only person in the world who matters. However, Jake could also be bullied. Most people think that popular people have “the life” and don’t deal with any bullying whatsoever. Jake could be bullied by Clarisse. Clarisse could like Jake, but he doesn’t like her, so she decides to start spreading rumors about him in order to get revenge. As anyone can see, anyone can be bullied, regardless of social status is.

Another issue with bullying is that people don’t know how to handle being bullied or what to do if they see someone being bullied. If someone is being bullied, he/she needs to tell someone. It could be a parent, teacher, or even a friend. According to www.stopbullying.gov, “They [school children] may not feel safe stepping in in the moment, but there are many other steps they can take,” and these are only a few that people have the option of doing; spend time with them, listen to their problems, tell a trusted adult, help the person being bullied get away from it, help him/her tell an adult as well, distract the bully, do not turn violent because things will get worse, and spread the word of anti-bullying. The main point is to make sure that an adult or someone who is trusted is told because they can do something about it relatively fast.

To put things in a nutshell, bullying is very common now, and it is important that we acknowledge and confront it. No one deserves to be bullied, no matter what the reason is. There are ways to stop it, and those ways need to be spread around and put into action.