We must take a stand against bullying. Bullying is one of the country’s worst problems and often leads to multiple, even worse problems in society today. One of the most recently prominent and increasingly frequent problems are the incidents in which children who are bullied throughout their lives come back to harm others, only because they are taking our their frustration of being made to feel different, inferior, or cast out.

Some people don't take bullying seriously. They think it is just a normal part of life and that kids should have to learn how to handle it themselves. They do not realize the traumatic mental effects that bullying can have on a person. For example, Tim Gill, a former government adviser and a published childhood expert argues that the level of playground bullying is being exaggerated and children must learn to cope with name-calling and teasing to help them develop resilience, a childhood expert says. In one of his books, he argues that mollycoddling children by labeling 'unpleasant behavior' as bullying is stopping them from building the skills they need to protect themselves.

The 2014 Mother Jones article “Bullying Victims Are Twice as Likely to Bring a Weapon to School” by Julia Lurie provides a substantial amount of anecdotal evidence to prove the horrible situations that can be brought about by bullying. For example, witnesses of a 2013 shooting at Sparks Middle School in Nevada recall the 12-year-old shooter telling a group of students, "You guys ruined my life, so I'm going to ruin yours.” For years, anti-bullying groups have drawn a connection between bullying and school shootings. The Department of Health and Human Services's Stopbullying.gov website reports that the perpetrators of 12 of 15 school shootings in the 1990s had a history of being bullied.  
 
 

We can all admit that bullying is not going to disappear overnight. However, if we teach the right ideas and values to our youth, and apply appropriate measures to work on some of society’s problems related to bullying, we can make progress in the fight to end this unnecessary evil. Some solutions could be to build more awareness, put together bullying programs for open communication, and to create more empathy throughout society for victims of bullying. Bullying usually results from children who aren’t feeling good about themselves. If we can make even a small portion of these children feel better, we are doing the right thing. I only have one question to ask. How could parents help prevent their child from being bullied?