How we define Bullying

Students describe bullying, including examples of bullying behavior and how it might make someone feel.

Bullying is the act of harming or intimidating people. It is usually an act reflected off a problem a bully has unto someone who is vulnerable. Bullying also occurs more than once typically every day. Bullying that happens in movies tends to be unrealistic because they wont put your head in a toilet. Not only is there physical bullying but mental bullying where they attack your mind because they have mental problems. Also there is cyber bullying most likely on social media. In this case they attack your insecurities and pinpoint them to turn them against you."

• Ashton, 8th Grade

"Bullying is when someone repeatedly harasses and sometimes assaults a person that impacts the person negatively. Bullying can be verbal, physical, or cyber. They could verbally hurt someone by making fun of them or saying mean things to them. They can physically hurt someone by beating them up or stealing from them. They can bully someone online by making fun of them on social media or sending them hurtful messages. Bystanders can help the bully out because if they just watch, the bully will think nothing can happen to them and will continue to bully someone."

• 8th grade student

Bullying is being mean to someone deliberately on a regular basis. People who are being bullied often don’t want to ask for help because they think it won’t help, or that the bully will just bully him more, or that it will be embarrassing. Bullies don’t normally make a scene and normally just make snide comments and annoy the student. It’s harmless unless the victim's mental state appears to be affected (being sadder then normal). If you see someone being bullied and can identify at the very least they don’t like it, contact a TRUSTED parent/ adult for advice/help."

• Ian, 8th Grade

"Bullying is when a person or when people makes another person feel uncomfortable physically or mentally. Examples of bullying is sending mean messages through social media or when you are at school or in public and someone treats you bad and make you feel inferior. Making someone feel inferior could decrease their confidence and make them not want to do things as simple as coming to school or having fun. When bullying happens in public such as school, people will stand around, laugh, talk about it to other people and when people do that it encourage the bully to bully some more. So to prevent bullying people who witness it should help the person who is getting bullied and tell a trusted adult."

• 8th grade student

"Bullying is when you are doing something hurtful to someone when they didn’t do anything or you just don't like them and you mess with them. Bullying can be in many different ways over an app or in person. Bullying can make people feel stressed or make them feel suicidal if it is really bad and one knows and if other people are just watching it happen it can make the person that’s getting bullied can make them think that it’s never gonna stop. If someone helps that benefits the person that’s getting bullied life because you can never know how bad or how worse it is."

• 8th grade student

"Bullying is when one person talks bad about someone or is being mean and talking down on people to make them feel better about themselves. Also bullying is when someone sees another person getting bullied and they join in. Bullying is when people mess with others who can’t defend themselves."

• 8th grade student

"Bullying is when a student keeps messing with another person and hurts their feelings and does stuff to them when the teacher isn't looking, causing the kid to not go to school. The student might be scared to tell anyone because he knows the student might bother him or her."

• 8th grade student

"Bullying is when you talk down on someone. When you hurt someone's feelings, it makes them very mad. When you have said something negative about the other person and they think negatively about themselves."

• 8th grade student

"Bullying is when somebody keeps messing with someone just based on what they wear or how they act and then bystanders don't do anything to help that person that's being bullied so then that makes them feel even more lonely than what they need to be because they don't have friends. But some people bully just because of what's happening in their life or/and home. Also bystanders sometimes do nothing out of fear of being bullied for trying to help."

• 8th grade student

"Bullying is many things, here are some examples: Stealing someone's stuff and putting it somewhere they can’t get to is a pretty common form of bullying. Calling people rude and diminishing names is also known as a common form. Physically harming a person is not as common and is way more dangerous than previous ones."

• 8th grade student

"Bullying is when someone is picking on people constantly. Bullying is not nice and can put people in a really sad mood. Bullying is something you should not be proud of, it is not cool and I don't condone it."

• 8th grade student

"Bullying is when someone uses their power to make someone feel bad about themselves. Bullying could be talking about someone in person or online it could also be physical. Bullying can make someone feel bad about themselves or it could make them feel lonely. Bullying could make a bystander feel bad about just watching but if they tell someone it might make them feel scared because the bully threatened them."

• 8th grade student

"Bullying is a seek to harm, intimidate, or coerce someone perceived as vulnerable. You can get bullied anywhere including home, at school, or even in public. When someone get bullied that person often feels sad about the situation and they might want to commit suicides. If you ever see anyone getting bullied let a teacher know."

• Korion, 8th Grader