Stop bullying - it's a social evil

Recently, Amanda Todd, a Canadian girl committed suicide after relentless bullying on the internet and in her schools. A life lost for no reason. She was just 16 years old and this is not the first death, that resulted because of bullying. How serious is this issue of bullying? How to deal with it? As parents, what role we can play in helping our kids deal with bullying? There are many questions like this and this recent tragedy has brought the issue of bullying in the limelight and there is a lot of discussion going on about this topic in the media and online forums. Because of the widespread use of the internet, there is this big issue of cyberbullying. Physical as well as mental bullying (especially via the internet) both are very dangerous and affect many kids (or even adults), shattering their confidence, making them feel unwanted, and in extreme cases life is lost. 

The first thing we can do is wherever we see bullying we should speak up and try our best to stop it. Often people try to ignore it because they feel it's not their business to interfere in others' personal matters. But bullying is not a personal matter. It's a crime and we should not hesitate to tackle it wherever we come across it. It's a social evil and just because most kids are involved in this it should not be taken lightly. Many think that it's part of student life and to some extent it's true but the question is if students don't realize when they cross the limit and something like suicide results because of this then there is some big problem for sure. This problem has been there for years and keeps on coming up for debates and discussions whenever some tragedy like this happens but it never really got seriously addressed. In some form or other, it always persisted. People can get bullied for so many reasons, their looks, the way they dress, religion, race, color, sexual orientation, etc. Some people make some mistakes in their lives and bullies try to take advantage of those mistakes to bully them (blackmailing is also a type of bullying).

We need to educate kids on how to handle any form of bullying, they need to be emotionally strong and confident to confront bullies. We need to discuss these issues regularly with them and provide all emotional support. People make mistakes in their life, some time mess up big time but everyone needs a second chance. There are rules and laws to punish criminals but no one has the right to trouble or torture anyone for some of their mistakes or just because they are different than the majority, that's wrong. Both kids who bully others and get bullied need training and counseling. We should make them understand that people have different tastes and choices and we need to respect each other and give space. We need to be more tolerant towards each other. These are simple and very basic things that we can teach our kids to make them better citizens of this world. We try to teach them many things to make them devoted Christians or Muslims or Hindus but don't make much effort to make them better and responsible citizens of this world, we need to start doing this. Parents and teachers need to play a key role to solve this type of problem, it's our collective responsibility. We all need to spread the message of love, which is the greatest quality of human beings. Hate and violence only spread negative energy and emotions. I hope people try to understand each other before judging and feel love and kindness towards each other rather than hate. We need to realize that we all are different but still can live together and this is the fun part of being human, this understanding will alone help us to fight this monster of hate and violence.

Thanks for reading and please share your views on this topic. 

(Copyright: Vinay Thakur. Please contact the author for re-posting or publishing) 

Further reading:

1. Mom and Dad -- Do You Have Five Minutes?