CAUSE OF THE MONTH: National Bullying Awareness Month

The issue of bullying seems to be on most everyone’s radar these days, but are you aware of these shocking statistics? According to anti-bullying org Make Beats Not Beat Downs:

1 in 7 students in grades kindergarten through 12th grade is either a bully or has been a victim of bullying

Over half of all students have witnessed a bullying crime take place while at school

A reported 15% of students who don’t show up for school report it to being out of fear of being bullied while at school.

Along that same vein, about 1 out of every 10 students drops out or changes schools because of repeated bullying.

Some of the top years for bullying include 4th through 8th graders in which 90 percent were reported as victims of some kind of bullying.

Bullying gets a lot of attention in the media these days, and anti-bullying curriculums are happening in many schools. But despite this, there’s still some confusion about what exactly qualifies as bullying. Here’s how we break it down:

Bullying is intentional and often repeated behavior that hurts or harms another person physically (fighting, hitting, etc.) or emotionally (taunting, gossiping, excluding, etc.).

Since 2006, October has been deemed National Bullying Prevention Month, created by anti-bullying nonprofit PACER with the aim of raising awareness about bullying and how it can be prevented.

This year’s theme for the month is: The End of Bullying Begins With Me, and PACER has come up with a ton of suggestions for how you can get involved in supporting the month and furthering the cause in your school and community. Here are just a few:

Run, Walk, Roll Against Bullying – On Saturday, October 6, Run, Walk, or Roll Against Bullying to increase awareness and raise funds to support the cause.

Unity Day: Wednesday, Oct. 10 – Join the movement to Make it Orange and Make it End! by wearing orange on Unity Day. Wear orange, hand out orange “UNITY” ribbons at school, and write “UNITY” on your hands or binders. To feel the power of unity, ‘Attend’ and ‘Share’ the Unity Day Facebook Event!