Beware Of Bullying

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Let me state that it is a pleasure to be here in steem Indonesia to participate in this engagement challenge. The week two topic from this community is something I relate with very well. I have been a victim of bullying and right now I am advocate of stopping bullying knowing how this can have bad emotional and psychological effect on the individual.

I believe many have been a victim of bullying or bullies at some point in their life. If you've not been in any category then you must be very lucky. I on my end have been bullied physically, verbally and on the cyber space.

PHYSICAL
There was a time in secondary school where my mates were much bigger than me in stature. One of them called Abraham took to bullying me as an occupation. He would take my things and refuse to return them and on one occasion when I demanded for it he actually hit me against the wall and threatened me. He wasn't the only one, they were others too that did same to me because I was also very quiet and introverted.

VERBAL
I got this a lot from my dad, he was always quick to anger and when he was not beating me he would be using words to hurt me. I was always traumatized. In school my mates would use my weakness to ridicule me, maybe I was bad in a particular thing or subject. This made me very withdrawn and unable to associate much

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CYBER BULLYING
The internet especially a place like Twitter X is now full of very toxic people who take to bullying others. If you were to drop an opinion that went contrary to theirs they would curse you, troll you, go back on your past tweets and bring up things to mock you. It has gotten so bad to it has now been normalised as dragging, a social media slang were you bully someone into shutting up which they call folding.

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According to UNICEF parenting these are the following ways by which we can equip our kids to avoid bullying.

1. Educate your children about bullying: Let your children know about bullying, what it is so that they can identify it when it happens to them or to someone else.

2. Talk openly and frequently to your children: Talk to your children and be part of their daily life, that where you'll be able to detect when bullying occurs. They'll also be more open to you to let you know about their daily life.

3. Help your child be a positive role model: There are three people to bullying: the victim, the bully and the bystander. Children should be taught to be inclusive and not just to stand and watch because they evil you watch today may knock on your door tomorrow. They should be able to stand up for bullied victims and question bullying behaviours.

4. Help build your child’s self confidence: Teach your children to engage in activities they love and to make friends, this will boost their self-confidence.

5. Be a role model:
   Children always look up to their parents, do not be a bully yourself. Speak against it, act against it and your kids will follow suit.

6. Be part of their online experience: Get to know the online platforms your child uses, explain to your child how the online and the offline world are connected, and warn them about the different risks they’ll face online.
   " ^Source

Sharing from my own experience I think the best way is to speak out. In a school environment we have teachers and counselors we can speak to who are better equipped to handle this.
We can also stay aware from the bully and try to avoid anything that will make them want to bully us.

If it's a verbal bullying I try to close my ears and not allow anything they say get into my head. I shut myself out from the talk and noise.

In an online situation, it is very simple. Just block the person. All social media platforms have this options where you can block someone from accessing you.

Thank you for reading my article, I invite @comfortpeter, @wilmer98 and @goodybest to participate and give me their feedback.
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