August - Bullying Awareness and Prevention Month

August is Bullying Awareness and Prevention Month, an opportunity to encourage communities to share information about bulling through news media, social media, videos, print publications, and promoting dialogue between educators, parents, and students on their roles in addressing and preventing bullying, creating safe and supportive school environments.  What is bullying? Bullying is unwanted, aggressive behavior among school aged children that involves actions such as making threats, spreading rumors, attacking someone physically or verbally, and excluding someone from a group on purpose.

There are three types of bullying:

• Verbal bullying is saying or writing mean things. Verbal bullying includes teasing, name-calling, inappropriate sexual comments, taunting, or threatening to cause harm.
• Social bullying involves hurting someone’s reputation or relationships by leaving someone out on purpose, telling other children not to be friends with someone, spreading rumors about someone, or embarrassing someone in public
• Physical bullying involves hurting a person’s body or possessions hitting/kicking/pinching, spitting, tripping/pushing, taking or breaking someone’s things, or making mean or rude hand gestures.

Bullying puts all youth at increased risk for depression, suicidal ideation, misuse of drugs and alcohol, experiencing sexual violence, engaging in unsafe sex practices, and can affect academics as well. For LGBTQI+ youth, that risk is even higher. Some youth may need professional help to treat stress related from bullying and/or other traumatic experiences. School staff and parents can make referrals for treatment. Parents, school staff, and other stakeholders in the community can help kids prevent bullying by talking about it, building a safe school environment, and creating a community-wide bullying prevention strategy.

 Back-to-school in August brings fresh connections and new friendships, while setting the tone for the rest of the school year. Try to confront bullying as early as possible.  Inspire everyone to unite for kindness, acceptance, and inclusion and help create a world without bullying.

For more information go to these websites: www2.ed.gov › bullying-prevention-month-202110; www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/youthviolence/bullyingresearch/fastfact.htm www.pacer.org/bullying/bullying/nbpm/