Adolescents move from being primarily influenced by their parents to being strongly influenced by their peers 0
While bullying has been a problem for some kids since the beginning of schools, several factors have significantly increased the scope of the problem in recent years.
One is the increase in the level of violence with students bringing guns to school. The other factor is the level of technology available, including cell phones and the internet. As students become adolescents, bullying increases for a number of reasons.
The primary one is developmental: adolescents move from being primarily influenced by their parents to being strongly influenced by their peers. Since parents tend to be more mature than other kids, this change entails kids being exposed to immature communication at the very same point that this communication becomes central to their understanding of themselves.
The addition of cyber bullying means that there is no “safe” place for kids. It used to be if kids were bullied at school, then at least home was a place where everything was okay. With cyber bullying, a student cannot even use his or her cell phone without being subject to someone else’s meanness. In order to address bullying, all adults involved with young people need to be alert to the subtle signs of bullying whether kids are the bully or the bullied.
This can be a challenge since every generation of teens seems to produce its own culture and incomprehensible (to adults) language. Yet the only way bullying can be stopped or prevented is for adults to intervene and make it clear that bullying is not acceptable in any form.
