Bullying – an activity of repeated, aggressive behavior intended to hurt another person, emotionally, physically or mentally. Bullying is characterized by an individual behaving in a certain way to gain power over another person.

Over the recent years we have learned more about bullying and how common it is. As a first time mom, the thought of my son being bullied someday saddens me. No one ever wants to see their child hurt especially by another person or persons. Luckily, thanks to people like Cory Scott, there are more resources available to parents and children on how to deal with this issue.

To learn more about bullying you can visit Cory’s facebook page called Prevent Bullying: Break the Silence.

(Q) What has been your personal experience with bullying?

(A) My personal experience is that my daughter was bullied for over a year. The bully lived in the neighborhood so she couldn’t even get away from him when she went outside to play. At school, she was taunted everyday by him, he turned all her friends against her by telling rumors which made her become very isolated and withdrawn. He attacked her on spillit. This is a site where kids can go on anonymously and post anything they want about anyone. He threw firecrackers at her at one point. It came to the point where the police and schools had done everything they could to stop it and it didn’t help. This became extremely frustrating on a daily basis. The only thing that ended it, is that the bully ended up moving away.

(Q) Why did you start the facebook page Prevent Bullying: Break the Silence?

(A) I started this page because I wanted to take action. I was so frustrated by the pain the bully was causing my daughter that I had to do something. There is a lot of talk about bullying, but there doesn’t seem to be enough action, unless it comes into the limelight like what I am trying to do. I want to make it so we have such a big group of support that the bullies might think twice about there actions. Also if the anti bullying trend start to take off, then we should be able to make bullying “uncool”. This will give the victims more power to help each other and stand up to bullying. I want to keep the momentum going so that bullying turns into an everyday topic that people are hearing about.

(Q) How does bullying affect children?

(A) Bullying affects children by causing them to have a low self esteem, it causes them to become depressed to the point where they no longer want to go to school or even leave the house. This can eventually lead to suicide because they feel like they have no where else to go. This is another reason why I started this site, so the victims can feel like they have huge amount of support behind them and they don’t have to feel like they are alone.

(Q) Children who are bullied normally have a hard time asking for help. What advice would you give to a child that is being bullied?

(A) The advice that I would have for the child is to tell someone who you feel very comfortable with. It doesn’t matter who, sister, brother, friend, minister, teacher, guidance councilor, etc. just tell someone. This is a major problem that the victims have also because they are so intimidated and scared of the bully that they will not talk. The thing the child should realize, as soon as they talk to someone they will start feeling better, and it only continues to get better from then on because now you have someone on your side and the support will continue to grow.

(Q) What do you want parents to know about bullying?

(A) Parents should watch for the signs that I mentioned in question 3. They should also be talking to there kids on a daily basis to see what is going on in there life. They should also be vigilant with there use of electronic devices, internet, etc.