Bullying is something that just about everyone is going to experience at some point in their life. Bullying is a part of growing up, as children often pick on others who they perceive as different. Some children experience bullying at higher rates and with more persistence than others, but in general, the youth throughout the country is most likely going to have some connection to bullying. However, bullying rates also have a direct connection to the suicide rates inside of the United States. Suicide rates because of bullying has been increasing in recent years, so understanding the overall current bullying rate in the country is very important and how this plays an effect on the suicide rates for bullying.
According to bullying rates in America, nearly one in three schoolchildren experience some level of bullying between the grades of six through 10. However, throughout an entire childhood, the percentage for this jumps drastically. 83 percent of all girls claim to have some sort of harassment growing up, while 79 percent of boys experience the same harassment. Girls throughout their young lives are almost always more likely to experience bullying than boys, yet both groups are rather high in terms of percentage. The bullying rates in the US are not just done behind closed doors though. Bullying happens outside in the open, with many people usually seeing it. In fact, six out of 10 teenagers say they see bullying happen at school at least once a day. This just shows that bullying usually is not something that is done in quiet. While cyber bullying rates are starting to grow and are more specific to after school instances, bullying in school is a very real problem and is something that everyone needs to be aware of.
The rates of bullying drastically affect children going to school and their overall educational experience as well. In fact, around 160,000 children miss some amount of school each and every day due to simply being frightened or intimidated by other students. This eventually hinders and hurts their chances of learning in school, dropping their grades and, ultimately making simply going to school that much more difficult. Bullying can become so difficult for some children that they eventually drop out of school all together. One out of every 10 children who drop out do so because of bullying. Due to this, a child basically is completely changing the way they live and their potential future due to the bullying they experience while at school.
Bullying does not just occur inside of the school though. It also takes place online, and with more and more children using the Internet for social media and for other interactions, bullying has taken to the Internet as well. Currently, around 35 percent of all children have, in some shape or form, been threatened over the Internet. This cyber bullying is also something that is going to eventually rise as well, with more and more people taking to the Internet at a younger age. Plus, as children start to see ramifications of the bullying done inside of the school, they are more likely to do it over the Internet, as they are less likely to experience any sort of punishment due to what they say and how they act on the Internet.
Bullying is even more of an extreme for children who identify themselves as gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender. With children continually picking on others who they perceive to be different, bullying children who fall into the LGBT category occurs frequently. In fact, nine out of every 10 children who are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender say they are harassed throughout the school year due to their sexual orientation.
Bullying is not always something that just occurs during childhood though. Many children who are perceived as bullies continue on as such throughout the rest of their life as well. In fact, 40 percent of all boys who are identified as bullies throughout the grades six through nine are arrested at least three times by the time they hit the age of 30. Many of the students who are continually bullied can turn to violence themselves though. In fact, In fact, 75 percent of all school shootings can be linked to some sort of bullying and harassment.
Suicide rates due to bullying are rather higher as well. According to the Center for Disease Control, cyber bullying suicide rates accounts for 4,400 deaths in teens and younger children each and every year. The suicide rate due to bullying is the third highest cause of death in young people throughout the country. It is also important to understand that there is a total of 100 suicide attempts to every successful suicide deaths, which means that there is a total of 440,000 attempts in the country every year. The 10 to 14 age group is the most likely to attempt to commit suicide.
Suicide rates from bullying often comes from all sorts of different bullying. In general, 18 percent of bullying comes from rumors and fictitious stories while another 18 percent of bullying comes from general ridicule. Six percent of bullying comes in the form of children being intentionally left out of an activity, while eight percent claim there were actually touched, tripped, spat on or experienced some other form of physical altercation from the bully. Five percent of those bullied said they received verbal threats against not only them, but their family, while three percent said they were either forced to perform activities against their will and another three percent of children said they had goods damaged against their will.
Suicide rate from bullying causes far too many deaths of young children in the United States. That is exactly why the bullying and suicide rates need to come down. Otherwise, it is just going to grow into much larger situations and more and more children are going to experience bullying, whether it happens inside of the school or while they are online.