Filed under: Kids 8-11, Education

School should be a safe place, one where kids can concentrate on learning, not on staying alive. Sadly, however, that's not always the case. "If you're afraid you're going to get beat up after school, it's hard to concentrate when you're in algebra class," said David Kopperud of the California Department of Education. In 1998, the World Health Organization surveyed more than fifteen thousand sixth through tenth grade students and found that nearly a third had been involved in bullying.

There are serious consequences of bullying and not just for the students directly involved. The American Medical Association estimates that as many as 160,000 kids refuse to go to school each day because of bullying. The kids miss out on their education and the schools lose their funding. Further, kids can end up with problems that affect their relationships, self-esteem, and emotional well-being. The U.S. Secret Service found that three out of four school shooters were bullied.

These days, there's an added twist to the problem -- the internet. Bullying has become "more extreme, more humiliating and more public," according to Elayne Savage, a psychotherapist and author of "Don't Take It Personally: The Art of Dealing With Rejection." She sees the effects of bullying in her adult clients too. "You never forget the hurtful slurs and actions," she says.

Continue reading Back to school shouldn't mean back to bullying

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 20th, 2008 at 2:00 pm and is filed under Parenting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.