It’s no question that bullying is a big problem in the world and the worst problem is that it’s not illegal. It’s after the worst happens is when jail is involved. Before we can get into this subject, let’s define the word bullying.

Bullying: unwanted aggressive behavior; observed or perceived power imbalance; and repetition of behaviors or high likelihood of repetition (stopbullying.gov). This definition also goes into the two types of bullying, which are direct and indirect bullying. To find out more, you can check out the website.

Now that we have the definition of bullying, let’s look at some statistics for bullying.

About 28% of students in America Grades 6-12 have been bullied.

20% of students in America from grades 9-12 have been bullied and

30% of young people admit to being bullied.

15% of high school students were electronically bullied in the past year

Lastly, a whole 55.2% of LGBTQ students experienced cyber bullying 

(all stats taken from stopbullying.gov)

Now let’s look at a graph with some stats from nces.ed.gov.

I’m not going to go through these because it’s a lot, but taking a look at this, it shows the different ways of bullying, percentages of sexes that receive these types of bullying tactics, and the percentages of sexes as a whole. Again, looking at this confirms what we already know, bullying is a problem.

I know a lot of these stats are based on kids in high school and under, but adults get bullied as well. Adult bullying is just as much of a problem as youth bullying. Even worse is that, because you’re an adult, you might feel like you can’t say anything. Children are told to go to adults when they’re bullied, but who do adults go to?

In 2011, foxnews.com reported that careerbuilder.com did a survey on U.S. workers.

1 in 4 respondents stated they were a victim of bullying at work.

14% said the bully was their supervisor

11% said the bully was a co-worker

No respondents confronted or reported their bully.

Does this sound alarming to you? It does to me.

Bullyingstatistics.org gives 5 different types of adult bullying. For this post, I’ll just give the three that might be known the most:

1.Impulsive Adult Bully- this is connected with spontaneous bullying. The bullying isn’t planned.

2.Physical Bully- In adult bullying, this doesn’t always mean actual fighting. This can involve taking the stuff of the person who’s being bullied.

3.Verbal Adult Bully-this type of bullying usually involves rumors or verbally humiliating the victim. A lot of this, I believe, is seen through the internet.

Each type of bullying is different, but they all have the same affects. Being bullied as a child sadly doesn’t always stop when you reach adulthood. Whether you’re a child or an adult, you can’t stay silenced. SPEAK UP. Not speaking up about being bullied can cause more harm to yourself than it can the bully. Find someone you trust. Take action. Bring light to darkness that the bullies choose to hide in.

You can do it.