A young girl's perspective on bullying

AMELIE SATTERLEE

Hi, I am a ten-year-old girl in fifth grade. I have noticed that school boys have tried to make girls feel weaker than them and make girls feel bad. I want to tell you some ways to ignore it and to stop it from happening.

One thing I have experienced myself is having what kids like to call “frenemies”. It means that they pretend to make fun of you and you pretend to make fun of them. Now that is not really being a bully because you are actually friends just pretending to be enemies, but sometimes it can still hurt people’s feelings.  It is best to stop being mean to each other because sometimes people will not know if it is a joke or not. And even if it’s a joke it can still hurt so it is best to not play that game.

Common bullying in school is like if someone laughs at you, says mean things like you look dumb, and stuff like that. Boys sometimes try to make girls feel weaker by making fun of them or saying that the girls are bad at things or that they are stupid. One way to make it stop is to just say “thank you.” If you do that you will get the bullies very disappointed because they wanted to make you sad and you showed them that it didn't work.  Another way to ignore it is to simply walk past them. That will get the bully thinking a bunch of questions in his head and not give them what they wanted, which was some kind of reaction. Finally, a good thing to do is to tell them to stop. Sometimes kids don’t even know that what they’re doing is hurtful unless you tell them.

Maybe they have been bullied so much that they don’t even realize its wrong, and you need to tell them.

So that’s how you can ignore common bulling. Now there is one more thing I want to say, if you are getting punched or really hurt or something there is only one thing to do and that is to tell someone like a parent or a teacher and they will do something about it. You have to get help. Also, stick up for others if you see them being made fun of. It will make you stronger to help others and you will help someone have a better day.