How did the bully in school make you feel? by Ashlynn

How did the bully in school make you feel? by Ashlynn - April 2023 Scholarship Essay

“What made you think that looked good on you?” “Omg! Did you see how stupid they looked in that outfit?” Is that something that you heard growing up in school? I loved going to school, meeting new people, and learning all kinds of new things, but I lost my love for them when I started getting bullied. Constantly having someone say something negative about what I was wearing tore me down and made me feel like I wasn’t good enough. The thought that other children have to deal with the same comments, every day, breaks my heart. Children have to deal with comments like these daily at school. They are constantly hearing negative things about what clothes they are wearing, how they talk, what their body looks like, the grades they are getting in school, their athletic ability or lack of, their school supplies, and even the students they hang out with. These kinds of vicious comments are ruining children’s love for going to school and making them not want to be there. Their mental health is being affected, which then affects their learning.

If I had an unlimited amount of time and money, I would create a positive mental health program that teaches children how to be kind to one another, how to show respect, how to think positively about themselves, how to respond to negative comments, and how to treat others how they would want to be treated. The program would have counselors and therapists for the children, who have dealt with bullying in the past, to talk to about how they feel, and teach and implement the necessary tools to not be affected by the negative comments. The students would learn that they are just as equally important as anyone else. The children would also learn how to take negative statements that bullies tell them and revert it to a positive statement, by changing their thinking. They would not allow for the negative comments to affect how they thought of themselves and remember that they are loved by others, but most importantly loved by themselves. I would implement my program in to every school so that every child can be taught how to love themselves and show love to others. I don’t want any other child to have to feel the way that I did! I want children to feel like they are heard and loved by others!