Many teens can say that they have been bullied in some form throughout their high school experience. Bullying can be very harmful.

Bullying is a problem in schools all around the world that must be taken more seriously. According to statistics reported by ABC News, nearly 30 percent of students are either bullies or victims of bullying, and 160,000 kids stay home from school every day because of fear of bullying.

Schools imply a zero tolerance policy for bullying, but this is often untrue. Students are bullied and made fun of constantly through high school, and teachers do very little, or nothing at all, to keep it from happening. Bullies do not get a severe punishment, and this is why this continues to happen.

Students are often standing up for themselves in these kinds of situations because to them, it is their only option. Students have realized that telling a teacher does not help often, so they take it upon themselves to stop the bully. The problem here is that the student standing up for himself by fighting back, gets in trouble as well.

Unfortunately, the students who do not have the courage to stand up for themselves, can sometimes resort to harming themselves mentally and physically. This kind of thing can often go unnoticed, but even the people who notice a difference, do not speak up because they do not take it seriously.

People may disagree to all of these statements and say that it is not the bully’s fault. They may say that it is their home life that causes them to treat people that way. Having a bad home life does not in any way, make bullying okay. There is no excuse for making someone else’s life miserable.

A good solution for this could be harsher punishments on anyone who bullies someone. A three day suspension does absolutely nothing to a bully, except give them a free vacation. In any serious case of bullying, students should be kicked out of school, and should have to face charges.

Bullying is taken way too lightly in this society. How many students are going to have to harm themselves, or feel horrible about themselves before someone realizes that something more has to be done?