ABUSE - THE FACTS
By Nora Amrani
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This abuse is indicative of a much larger issue of disrespect across the board. We see it everywhere
in how people treat one another from people loudly talking on cell phones letting everyone hear
their foul language and private business, to the inability of a company to know how to handle
customer service. I personally feel that this began with the Reagen era in Washington and
reached its peak during the Bush Administration, with their cockey and threatening attitudes,
their lack of respect for others. Now we see it in politics in the Democratic Party, and the
rudeness and corruption went full throttle during the past election. Women still don't get
equal pay for the same jobs men do. Women often take work because they have to, not because
they want to. Then, there are women who have such low self-esteem they'll cop to anything,
and not care. So why is anybody surprised? It's being allowed.
Respect must have a comeback in schools, in homes, in the workplace. Common decency and kindness,
compassion. Abuse in any form is NOT love.
WHAT IS ABUSE?
monitors what you're doing all the time
"You're so stupid. You never do anything right!"
Emotional and verbal abuse, attempts to isolate, threaten or intimidate
can harm you, even if you are not being abused physically.
Moreover, emotional and verbal abuse often are a sign that physical abuse will follow.
Some examples of emotional and verbal abuse include:
No one deserves to be abused, physically or verbally. Abuse is not fun, nor funny.
BULLYING & CYBERBULLYING
Cyber bullying, which is sometimes referred to as online social cruelty or electronic bullying,
(we've often seen this here, too) can involve:
Sending mean, vulgar, or threatening messages or images;
Posting sensitive, private information about another person;
Pretending to be someone else in order to make that person look bad;
Intentionally excluding someone from an online group (Willard, 2005).
I think, though, that excluding someone from an online group happens all the time on web sites
that have private chat rooms. It can be beneficial to exclude someone from an online group if
that person has been behaving or speaking inappropriately, verbally abusing others. You don't
resolve it by punishing the victims of abuse and rewarding the abuser (unless, of course,
there is something within a person that resonates to abuse and therefore supports it) - in
which case there will be no positive change.
Cyberbulling can be done through:
How common is cyber bullying?
Although little research has been conducted on cyber bullying, recent studies have found that:
18% of students in grades 6-8 said they had been cyberbullied at least once in the last couple
of months; and 6% said it had happened to them 2 or more times (Kowalski et al., 2005).
11% of students in grades 6-8 said they had cyberbullied another person at least once in the
last couple of months, and 2% said they had done it two or more times (Kowalski et al., 2005).
19% of regular Internet users between the ages of 10 and 17 reported being involved in online
aggression; 15% had been aggressors, and 7% had been targets (3% were both aggressors and targets)
(Ybarra & Mitchell, 2004).
17% of 6-11 year-olds and 36% of 12-17-year-olds reported that someone said threatening or
embarrassing things about them through e-mail, instant messages, web sites, chat rooms, or text
messages (Fight Crime: Invest in Kids, 2006).
Cyber bullying has increased in recent years. In nationally representative surveys of 10-17 year-olds,
twice as many children and youth indicated that they had been victims and perpetrators of online
harassment in 2005 compared with 1999/2000 (Wolak, Mitchell, & Finkelhor, 2006).
Who are the victims and perpetrators of cyber bullying?
In a recent study of students in grades 6-8 (Kowalski et al., 2005):
Girls were about twice as likely as boys to be victims and perpetrators of cyber bullying.
Of those students who had been cyberbullied relatively frequently (at least twice in the
last couple of months):
Of those students who admitted cyber bullying others relatively frequently:
60% had cyberbullied another student at school, and 56% had cyberbullied a friend.
Contact the police immediately if known or suspected cyber bullying involves acts such as:
Threats of violence
Bullying and abuse, which frequently leads to physical violence, is probably the biggest
social issue of our times. Abused children grow up to be abusive adults. They feel no love
for themselves, feel unworthy and powerless. We must break this old pattern and heal it if we are
to move forward for a better life, or a "new civilization". Get help.
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