By the age of twenty four, 60% of bullies have a criminal record. Bullying has not only ruined the lives of victims, but the lives of the bullies themselves too. Students all over the world are verbally and physically assaulted by their peers every day. At schools, bullies rip their victims self esteem to shreds while their self esteem sky rockets. Bullying may seem impossible to defeat, but it can be overturned. The solution to bullying may start with a simple zero tolerance rules being added to schools around the U.S.

Bullying is just a term for aggressive behavior, or harassment. Children who become bullies are often being bullied themselves. So whenever they attack someone it’s often just a way for them to relieve stress going on in their own lives more then it is about how they personally feel about you. A bully’s stress can come from many sources of things; some of them might be coming from a bad home life which turns them to an aggressive life style because of all the negative influences in their lives. Another reason a kid might be lead to bullying is because they have a low self esteem and whenever they bully somebody it allows them to feel more dominate and gives them a chance to boost that self esteem.

Little does this bully know that as they are releasing their stress on who ever they target, they are building up stress on the kid who is on the receiving end of the bullying. There is nothing positive about what a bully does. There are other ways to get out stress, anger, depression, or etc. Bullies are affecting lives of innocent kids daily and that is not okay. Even as bullies, as you are doing what you are doing, what do you get out of it? You might get a quick laugh, but that other kid might be having a long cry.

School is supposed to be a safe place for every child, but this is not capable of happening when an average high school is flocking with bullies. There is a strong link discovered by researchers between bullying and depression. Depression is an illness that can be triggered by multiple things, but it can clearly have a relationship created by bullying. Bullies and their victims are proven shown to be more likely to suffer from depression then the other teens who are not involved in bullying. Depression is frightening and has the ability to extend to things such as:
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Low self esteem
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Physical illness
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Anxiety
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High rates of school absence
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Eating disorders
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And drug abuse.


It’s clear that schools should have a zero tolerance policy on bullying because a bully can’t be stopped with just a few words spoken to them and then a day or two of punishment inside school. Nine out of ten times the bully will just go back to bullying as soon as they are given the opportunity once more. Everyone needs to take a stand on bullying and prevent it 100% in schools before it leads to making your school an unsafe place for the students in it, and before it leads to that students demise. Step up. Support zero tolerance bullying policies.