My issue is bullying. Indeed from own past experiences, bullying affects all the aspects of a person. Cognitively, a person bullied feels low and inferior. Secondly, they tend to detach themselves from everyone due to fear of being bullied. The demeanor shown by the bullied persons thus is gloom and faced down. In this issue paper, bullying shall be analyzed from a very personal perspective embedded with personal experiences.
My experience on bullying
Throughout my life, I have been bullied by people around me, peers, teachers and work mates. It is frustrating to be bullied (Vanderbilt " Augustyn, 2010). In fact, it becomes more painful to be bullied for your physical handicaps. I suffer from familial tremor, a condition that makes my hand to shake without stability all the time (Zimprich, 2011). It makes it difficult for me to present in group discussions before people. Besides, I have a difficulty holding papers, drawing and writing. As a result, my school work has been a great struggle all through as most students tend to enjoy my situation and bully me for it.
This condition has also made me shy socializing in public places. For instance, I fear meeting new people, holding cups as well as eating in public. I am always taunted for my condition which also made me to lose my dream. At first before I chose nursing, I wanted to be an actress. However, I was bullied to the extent that I lost my self-esteem then I dropped this dream. On the contrary, the bullying never stopped. In my new career as a nurse I met an assistant medic who noticed I shake a lot. She took advantage of my situation and failed me in my practical assessments. It was more traumatizing when she pulled me aside and asked me why I had to do nursing with that kind of shakiness. Her bullying felt deep in my heart and mind. She made me give up on nursing career so that I chose to pursue a different degree.
I have also witnessed my younger brother being bullied for his autism. People detach him so I have to spend time with him once in a while. In point of fact, my mother too has suffered bully because she also has familiar tremor. Another reason for bully in me is my polycystic ovaries syndrome. The syndrome results into excess hair in my body. For that reason, people bully me a lot.
The Bronfenbrenner’s Model
According to Bronfenbrenner, a person’s ecological system is divided into microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, macro system and chronosystem (Boon et al, 2012). All these systems affect a person’s social life. For instance, my friends at school bullied me because of my familiar tremor condition. In this case, the friends are part of my microsystem in the ecology. I felt affected of their bullying. The assistant medic who bullied me at work also fell in the microsystem of my ecology. In general, microsystem is the closest ecology one interacts with. It affects a person’s social life directly.
Again while at home, my brother felt bullied by other people due to his autism. He felt very detached and I had to comfort him. His problem affected me. This kind of relationship falls in the mesosystem for I felt bullied indirectly from my brother’s microsystem ecology. His microsystem affected mine. Mesosystem, therefore, is the interrelationship of the microsystems.
My issue was a product from the two ecosystems-microsystem and mesosystem. They affected my happiness, learning and career. I felt isolated and undermined based on the bullying I received from these ecosystems. It is therefore realized that pertinent issues we face in our ecosystems can be very detrimental so as to ruin entirely one’s life (Boon et al, 2012). My career for instance, has been shaped by the bullying I received from the people around. I abandoned nursing and theatre arts just because I lost my confidence and personality for people who bullied me.
Recommendation Strategies
Bullying as an issue is not only a problem that affected my family and I but it also affects many children in schools. However, it needs to be eradicated through rational decisions that have to be made correctly by the people in our ecosystems. I would recommend the strategies below to be used by people in order to change the situation.
First, it is proper for institutions to set clear rules and expectations that forbid bullying. The rules should be made simple and enforceable (Gerlinger " Wo, 2016). The students then are supposed to be made to understand these rules and the important to follow them. Besides, the rules are supposed to have clearly spelt consequences that should be suffered by the people who break them. The rules should also instill a sense of respect and responsibility in the people for whom they are meant.
Another recommendation is for institutions to have open communication (Gerlinger " Wo, 2016). Indeed, communication is vital in building good rapport in any ecological system. Bullying therefore, can be resolved when people speak about it positively. All the stakeholders are supposed to talk about it and understand the dehumanizing effect of the vice.
Lastly, I would recommend the reward of any positive behavior noticed as far as bullying is concerned. For instance in the school ecology, teachers should encourage students to stop bullying each other. The students who have demonstrated positive behavior change towards bullying should then be rewarded positively.
Peer-Reviewed Literature on Bullying
Bullying is common in most schools within the United States of America and the global at large. Children suffer diverse effects from bullying varying from physical to psychological (Rose, Monda-Amaya " Espelage, 2011). Some of the effects stay with the victim even long after school. Some of the emotional effects include natural fear to strangers, distrust of new people, low self-esteem, and shininess among others.
It is also certain that bullying will occur on the junior students or people being bullied by senior students (Rose, Monda-Amaya " Espelage, 2011). On the other hand, the common forms of bullying consist of: verbal bullying, relational aggression and rational bullying. Relational bullying for instance entails, mockery, hurtful names and making others feel detached. In retrospect, it is relational aggression that my brother and I went through in our ecological systems.
In addition, verbal bullying is composed of demeaning words used against others to make them feel very low. Verbal bullying is the most common form of bullying in schools. For example, according to Rose, Monda-Amaya " Espelage (2011), 74% of students between ages 7-13 have been called harmful names that hurt. Also, 62% of students have seen others being teased at school. Girls have become the most victims of teasing.
Conclusion
Every society should change their perception on such contingent issues as bullying. It has adverse effects that carry on into a person’s life to adulthood and if the effects are not properly addressed the person may suffer from them forever. On the contrary, the bullies should be offered civil education so that they may be enlightened to realize how bad bullying is. Lastly, the victims of bully should try never to lose their personality and confidence to those who bully them. They should remain strong all through and condemn the matter so that they do not lose their assertiveness.
References
Boon, H. J., Cottrell, A., King, D., Stevenson, R. B., " Millar, J. (2012). Bronfenbrenner’s bio ecological theory for modeling community resilience to natural disasters. Natural Hazards, 60(2), 381-408.
Gerlinger, J., " Wo, J. C. (2016). Preventing school bullying: Should schools prioritize an authoritative school discipline approach over security measures?. Journal of school violence, 15(2), 133-157.
Rose, C. A., Monda-Amaya, L. E., " Espelage, D. L. (2011). Bullying perpetration and victimization in special education: A review of the literature. Remedial and Special Education, 32(2), 114-130.
Vanderbilt, D., " Augustyn, M. (2010). The effects of bullying. Pediatrics and Child Health, 20(7), 315-320.
Zimprich, A. (2011). Genetics of Parkinson's disease and essential tremor. Current opinion in neurology, 24(4), 318-323.
