Guest Column: Why I Bullied
National Bullying Prevention Awareness Month is in October, and is a great time to examine the forces behind what makes a bully.
By Kate Yemelyanov I recently thought about looking up my tormentor from sixth- and seventh-grades on Facebook and submitting an interview with her for Salon's "Interview With My Bully" series. Then it occurred to me that there might be people wanting to interview me as well: my younger siblings, for example, or maybe the girl I targeted with a cycle of hostile anonymous poems in sixth grade. The forces that make a kid a target for abuse can turn the same kid into a bully. The undiagnosed Autistic Spectrum Disorder that made me a figure of fun to my classmates in my tweens limited my empathy for others and my ability to figure out why other kids didn't like me. I couldn't marshal my superior verbal skills to defend myself from taunting. …
Mike Weakley
11:41 pm on Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Every year in the U.S., an estimated 30% of all students - or 5.7 million children - are involved in bullying as either a bully, a target of a bully, or both. Bullied children are more likely to develop depression, use drugs & alcohol, and drop out of school. Because of this, I have put together a bully prevention show for schools & libraries. This fun & educational program teaches kids about the… more ›