Bullying and Cyber-bullying today is a main issue in our world. “Enter the newest form of bulling – cyber-bullying -- whereby children and teens deliberately use digital media to disseminate false, embarrassing, or just plain mean messages or pictures about one person to others. The American Academy of Pediatrics calls cyber-bullying "the most common online risk for all teens,"” (Teach your kids the hazards of cyber-bullying- Chicago Tribune, February 12, 2013). Families have lost their loved ones or kids have missed out on life due to depression. This issue also causes suicides or suicide attempts. People need to stick up to bullying or cyber-bullying because it causes many issues that are crucial. Bullying isn’t stopped as much in schools as it should and Cyber-bullying is practically never taken care of. People need to show schools that confronting bullies will make a difference.

First, “Up to 75 percent of American children have been victims of bullying, according to the National Crime Prevention Council,” (CQResearcher). This statement shows that 25 percent of those children are the bullies that cause 75 percent to be depressed or suicidal. There are reasons why bullying goes unnoticed. Kids stay silent due to being afraid that they’ll be harassed because they told. The world shouldn’t be like this. 160,000 students shouldn’t be afraid to come to school.
Some say it’s just words and that it shouldn’t hurt because it has no meaning. Well, maybe to the bullies it has no meaning because it comes out of their mouths, but to the ones being bullied, words are everything because it’s the only thing they know. Plus to those who are bullied, they know the difference if words mean something or not. Meaning, if they hear someone talking about them but they know the person and their friends with them, then they know their just kidding. But if they hear some stranger say something then it’s the words that count that comes out of their mouth.

Second, there was a young lady that saw things on Facebook about her friend that goes to her school. A bully stated she wanted to smash her friends head in the locker. Of course the young lady was worried for her friend so she told her what was going on. Once she said something, they both went to the principal to see if he could help. He stated, ”We can’t do anything about this because it is on Facebook and it’s not happening in school,” but what he didn’t know was that it was happening in school because it had mentioned using school property to cause the problem. What’s trying to be explained here is that schools sometimes don’t care about cyber-bullying when they should. The two girls soon found out a couple of days later that the principal finally figured out that it had been happening in school and that he did as best he could to take care of it. The main reason was that he didn’t believe the girls right away when they came up front with it instead of holding it back. The reason for this statement is that no one did something right away when it was affecting others.

Third, schools and students should do more to help those that are being bullied. If a student comes to you scared that something will happen to them or their friends, they should listen to them and try to do something about it. Don’t shut them down thinking nothing’s wrong or that they are just saying this because they don’t like that person. No! Don’t make assumptions that shouldn’t be made. Do something about the problem the student comes to you with. It may be serious or, it may not. But you should always listen and do your best to help. Don’t try; just do it and see what happens. You may just have saved a human being. Listen and help.

Finally, bullying and cyber-bullying should be taken care of one step at a time. It may be difficult but the outcome will be amazing because you’ll get to see more beautiful faces and happy families each and every day. It makes a difference once you start.