A Letter From Your Publisher: Childhood Bullies
By Lynne Westbrook
June 23, 2016
This week my daughter came to me and told me about an incident where she saw another child being picked on and bullied. We talked about what happened and actually went through a few scenarios (practice) so that if this happened in the future she would feel comfortable in talking confidently to the bully. I had a proud mama moment when she told me how she had refused to participate in the most recent bullying event and a few days later she went back to the bully and told her she did not like the way she was treating the other child (after our practice scenarios). So, crisis averted (?) Well, this got me to thinking about how often this happens in our children's world. While I was thrilled that she talked to me about it, I know there are many children that don't want to talk about it because either they are the victim or they feel embarassed. So, I looked up statistics on this just to share with my readers so we can all be aware of when this is happening the most. I was surprised that:
- 28% of students in grades 6-12 report they are bullied frequently.
- 70.6% of students have seen bullying in their schools.
- The highest incidence of cyber bullying is among grades 9-12 (16%) and 55% of LGBT students experienced cyber bullying in the last year.
Kidspower has 8 skills kids can use right away to help face bullies with confidence - read up on this great article here.
