Youth Suicide & School Bullying By: Estela Aguilar

We all know that in life death is the only thing promised; however, some go and find it before their time. Youth suicide rate is jumping according to CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)  & medical news today. The rate has jumped an 8%, for males and females aged 10-24. What is causing our youth to take their own life, at such a young age. School bullying is a big factor of youth suicide. Just in April 2009 two of America’s youth committed suicide due to being bullied on in school. Both their mother’s are hoping to reach out to America in hopes that this doesn’t happen to any one else’s child.

Whether it’s in the bathroom or the playground many children get bullied at school. As parents the last thing you think of,  is for your own child to take or even consider taking their own life away. Most people think that their children attend school to get an education not, to get picked on by other students. It starts at home disciplining your children not to be bully’s at school and treat others how you expect to be treated. How common is school bullying? According to a (psychologymatters.org) 2001 study by psychologist Tonja Nansel, PhD, and colleagues involving more than 15,000 U.S. students in grades six through 10 found that 17 percent of students reported having been bullied “sometimes” or more often during the school year. Approximately 19 percent said they bullied others “sometimes” or more often and six percent reported both bullying others and being a victim of bullying.

Getting picked on day after day at school can leave a child either not wanting to go to school or even worse committing suicide. Suicide should not be the answer for getting picked on at school. There needs to be more programs (especially in Elementary schools) about school bullying, just like there is programs such as DARE for drug prevention. How many more of our youth will continue to commit suicide due to school bullying? Let’s punish the bully’s so, the youth wont be scared to attend their own school. Not only does bullying lead to suicide but, also school shooting which ends up the shooter commits suicide after there shooting spree. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbine_High_School_massacre said that bullying was one of he motives for the 1999 Columbine High School massacre. Eric Harris & Dylan Klebold bot were bullied at school. After killing 12 students, one teacher, and injuring 21 others they ended it by committing suicide.

America needs to find a solution to bullying otherwise our youth will continue down this path. School should be a safe place and at times it’s not.

This entry was posted on 15. June 2009 at 04:56 and is filed under Introduction to Sociology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.