Counseling Students to Overcome Bullying Fear

Counseling Students to Overcome Bullying Fear
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Introduction
Bullying goes by a number of definitions, but the basic idea relates to the use of aggression, meant to target a person. Characteristically, bullying is a methodically carried out plan to harm or hurt the intended person. Most of the experts will define the practice as the use of coercion and force to intimidate and abuse the target person. For a practice to qualify as a bullying act, it has to show some elements of repetitiveness, imbalance of power between the aggressor and the victims as well as the intent to harm or hurt the person.
It is estimated that more than 32% of the students have experienced bullying at one point or the other in their lives. Most principals however, will stand tall and state that they do not have any form of bullying in their schools, which is not entirely true. The aspects of bullying are so vast that they cannot be illuminated with simple checkboxes on the routine reports. Over the years there have been cases of students fighting back, by bringing weapons to the schools and as the result end up in the news rooms across the states (Helpguide.org, 2014). Recent years have seen a rise in the number of students that come to school with a loaded gun and open fire killing students and bystanders. This aspect of students’ choosing to fight back, is directly related to the fact that students who are under intense fear subjected to them by the bullies, are more likely to bring weapons to school as a form of retaliation or to help them feel safer.
Research suggests that in the schools that show high prevalent cases of bullying, the students perform worse than in the average schools (Linsin, 2011). Counselors have a great role to play in the reduction of the cases of bullying and more so in helping the students that have experienced bullying to recover from their fear and live productive lives (HYPERLINK "/about/contact/copyright/index.aspx" \t "_parent" \o "Copyright"American Psychological Association, 2014). At the same time, bullying has in the past been associated with increased rates of suicide as a factor among many others.
Thesis statement
This paper tries to establish the best approach for counselors to help students who experience fear from bullying recover and become productive.
Variations of Bullying
There are quite a number of outlets that the bullies use to get to their victims, all of which can be classified under either verbal, physical, cyber or social bullying (Linsin, 2011). This is why it is quite a challenge for the school heads to indicate the true figure of the students that are being bullied at their schools. For the school head who feel that they have eradicated the aspects of bullying in school, it is crucial that they understand the various outlets used by bullies to wreck havoc on their victims (Helpguide.org, 2014).
Students are commonly bullied by spreading rumors about them, tormenting victims, physical harassment, verbal abuse, threats, outing, gossips, cyber bullying, intentional exclusion from peers activities and sexual harassment. Out of all these outlets, cyber bullying has taken the lead in the recent years due to the element of anonymity (Stopbullying.gov, 2014). Cyber bullying is an aspect that can be defined as, using electronic devices to deliberately inflicting harm repeatedly. Ideally the use of the cyber space has revolutionized the way traditional bullies harassed their victims. Bullies now can attack their victims without having to face them, which extrapolates the extent of the scope the bullies can inflict fear and therefore expounding their reach within the given population.
Effects of Bullying
Bullying has a compounded effect on the victims and more so it also affects the persons who witness it as well as the ones that are perpetrating the acts. For the bullies, it is common to find that they will engage in irresponsible sexual activities, engage in alcohol abuse, get into fights, property vandalism, drop out of school and develop into criminals in their adulthood. Persons who experience the acts of bullying being perpetrated by other kids onto innocent students are also affected by the experiences (Helpguide.org, 2014). As such, they may be seen to abuse drugs, develop mental health complication, such as guilt, fear and/or anxiety as well as miss school or skip intentionally to avoid the experience (Stopbullying.gov, 2014).
For the victims who are the prime elements of the paper, the effects of bullying form lifelong scars that can affects all spheres of their lives. Students who go through the bullying ordeal experience a variety of physical, mental, health and social complications that affects their lives immensely. Depression and anxiety are the most common feeling that any child who is being molested experiences. The student may feel extreme sadness, fear and loneliness. As such, they may lack interest in other activities, such a co-curriculum and academics activities (HYPERLINK "/about/contact/copyright/index.aspx" \t "_parent" \o "Copyright"American Psychological Association, 2014). Ideally, their mind is always preoccupied with the thoughts of the bullying and the turmoil of unending fear of what they are going to experience next, given that rate of repetition. It is this feeling of unending fear that drives all the other complications to materialize, from health complications to social hardships.
Counseling Bullying Victims to Overcome Their Fear
Bulling has had strong pillars in the society due to the fact that every one who is not directly involved feels that he/she is not responsible. It is only after an escalation of the effects of bullying shows up that the parents, school teachers and the media take up the mantle. After the dust settles, it is all forgotten only to resurface when there is an incident (Linsin, 2011). The best approach is the one that involves the students struggling with fear, their parents and the school teachers. These are the pillars of the student at any one time, and they form the best basis of addressing the problem.
The Student Victims
Understanding Their Feelings
The first and most crucial step in helping the students overcome his fear, is help them understand themselves bef...