Millions of kids are bullied in school every year. Some survey's suggest that it might be as many as 90 percent of elementary school children who get bullied.
For those in grades 6-10, it's estimated that roughly 1-3 Americans will be affected by bullying.
For those being bullied, this includes being made fun of, insulted, called names, made the subject of rumors, physically assaulted by being pushed or shoved, slapped, or spit on, having objects thrown at them. Many students get excluded from group activities on purpose, some threatened with harm, and others who have their property destroyed.
There's a high likelihood that you yourself might have been bullied, known someone who was bullied, or witnessed an act of bullying at school. It gets so bad for some students that they opt to miss school because they don't want to face the torment, and some are pushed to the point of taking their own lives.
We've been funneling tons of effort and resources into a myriad of different anti-bullying campaigns over the years. There are a great deal of different anti-bullying speeches that have taken place, many efforts have been tried to promote the message that bullying isn't okay.
Heck, for what it's worth we've even got National Bullying Prevention Month, and World Bullying Prevention Day, but yet the problem continues to persist.
The problem of bullying has fueled a number of families to look elsewhere for their education, whether that be virtual avenues or homeschooling. Previous studies have found that bullying is a growing issue for parents who are choosing virtual charter schools for their kids.
One high school student from California, Natalie Hampton, released her app over a year ago to try and help the issue.
Currently, it's got over 100,000 users and being used in at least 8 different countries.
At some schools where they don't allow cellphones, the new app has even inspired students to create a Sit With Us club that welcomes those who don't have anyone or anywhere to go sit at lunch.
And Sit With Us isn't the only one out there. There are others, like the Anonymous Alerts that works as a platform for people to report bullying at schools. The app has already been accepted for use in more than 30 different school districts in the United States.
Another app, known as Brighten, developed by student Austin Kevitch, helps students send anonymous compliments to one another. It was released back in 2015 and has already been downloaded more than 1 million times.
And after being inspired by the story of the 15 yr old Amanda Todd who took her life after extensive online bullying, it prompted Todd Schobel to come up with STOPit.
This anti-bullying app also seeks to erode the fear associated with reporting bullying incidents. It's been on the market for 4+ years now and has already been downloaded more than 3+ million times. It's also being used in 5 different countries.
Some schools that use the apps have reported that they've seen a downward trend in incidents of bullying after they were introduced.
Unfortunately, simply repeating the message that bullying is bad over and over just isn't working the way that people would like it to. The problem still continues today, but it's inspiring to see so many young students looking for creative solutions to try and address what they see as a big problem in their school.
And for the families who don't want to take the risk, there are always other educational avenues for them to turn to in order to try and get their needs met.
Pics:
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Dribble via guruzfather.com
Sources:
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Healthday/story?id=4506556
https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=719
http://www.businessinsider.com/staggering-facts-about-bullying-in-america-2013-10
https://infotel.ca/newsitem/us-child-suicide-bullying/cp1217315814
http://www.cnn.com/2018/01/16/health/ohio-suicide-cluster/index.html
http://fox8.com/2018/01/15/perry-township-police-continue-to-investigate-factors-in-recent-teen-suicides/
https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/oklahoma/articles/2018-01-10/survey-bullying-leads-students-to-enroll-in-virtual-schools
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/a-more-perfect-union-sit-with-us-app-unites-students-fights-bullying/
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/anonymous-alerts-anti-bullying-mobile-app-is-implemented-by-over-32-texas-school-districts-in-under-60-days-300534580.html
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/anti-bullying-apps-will-fail-unless-society-takes-action-critics-say-1.1363665
https://www.thestar.com/yourtoronto/education/2017/02/28/app-lets-students-make-anonymous-reports-about-bullying-unsafe-behaviour.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/anti-bullying-app-brighten_us_58853303e4b070d8cad367e7
https://patch.com/new-jersey/bernardsville-bedminster/anti-bullying-app-making-positive-changes-nj-schools