A Detailed Essay on Bullying: Amanda Todd's Experience and Prevention

This essay examines the multifaceted issue of bullying, using the tragic case of Amanda Todd as a focal point. It explores various forms of bullying, including verbal and cyberbullying, and their devastating impact on victims. The essay details the specific types of bullying Amanda Todd experienced, highlighting the manipulation, social isolation, and psychological distress she endured, ultimately leading to suicide. It analyzes the consequences of bullying, such as social exclusion, depression, and the stigma faced by victims. Furthermore, the essay compares bullying in the past and present, identifying similarities like name-calling and differences like the prevalence of cyberbullying and sexual harassment. It also discusses contributing factors to bullying behaviors, such as lack of parental attention and low self-esteem. The essay concludes by suggesting preventative strategies, including teacher training, internet surveillance, and the implementation of programs like the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program, to combat bullying and protect vulnerable individuals.

Running head: BULLYING
BULLYING
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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BULLYING
Bullying can be of various types such as emotional, physical, verbal, psychological
and mental (Roland & Munthe 2017). Recently Cyberbullying has become very common.
The essay aims to explore the bullying that Amanda Todd went through that ultimately forced
her to commit suicide.
In the video of Amanda Todd, it is quite evident that she went through different forms
of bullying. Two bullyings that were most evident in her case was verbal and cyberbullying.
These bullying further aggravated her problems. The verbal bullying comprised of taunting,
threatening, teasing, as well as calling her with disgusting names, whereas in cyberbullying
she was manipulated in showing off her breast to a person on the Internet who later
threatened to circulate her nude pictures on the Internet (Penney, 2016). This further led to
the manipulation of her social relations and intimidation. She became extremely depressed
and at last committed suicide. The three consequences that she had to face due to this incident
was social exclusion so much so that she was left with no friends, she became depressed and
started taking anti-depressants, and people started calling her a psycho (Penney, 2016). To
deal with these problems she with her parents went on changing cities and schools but the
situation remained the same.
Strategies that could be used by Amanda's parents and school authorities were
involved with the child to get a thorough knowledge of the problem. Another approach that
they could have used to avoid her suicide was to stop the online ventures that could have
saved her from the trauma. They could have given her more attention and time so that she
spent less time on the Internet. Two similarities between bullying cases of today and that of
high school were name-calling along with gossiping. Even in those times, students used to
gossip about her classmate or other students of the school when they came to know a
humiliating fact about someone. Name-calling was another type of bullying that was common
like today, which gave mental scars to people who had to face it. Two differences between

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bullying of today and that of high school were that in those days ragging was another form of
bullying. People were not left with life-long scars, nor were they left with any emotional and
mental trauma. In those days, bullying did not happen due to sexual preference, unlike today.
Some contributing factors that lead to bullying behaviours are lack of attention from
parents, poor education and lack of self-esteem. These children seek attention by bullying
others. Lack of knowledge and low confidence also leads to bullying (Mazzone, Camodeca &
Salmivalli 2016). Three ways in which preventing programs can help reduce bullying are
training the teachers to talk to children about bullying behaviours and ways to control it—
initiating applications such as surveillance in the use of the Internet that will help in
preventing cyberbullying. Lastly, the Olweus bullying preventing program should be
followed that ensures effective measures and ways that help in dealing with problems of
bullying (Olweus, Solberg & Breivik 2020).
Therefore, to conclude it must be noted that children should be taken care of by
parents as it helps in reducing bullying behaviours and on the other hand strategies to cope
with the problem of bullying should also be taught to them.

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References
Amanda Todd's Story: Struggling, Bullying, Suicide, Self Harm. (2020). Retrieved 10
October 2020, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ej7afkypUsc
Mazzone, A., Camodeca, M., & Salmivalli, C. (2016). Interactive effects of guilt and moral
disengagement on bullying, defending and outsider behavior. Journal of Moral
Education, 45(4), 419-432.
Olweus, D., Solberg, M. E., & Breivik, K. (2020). Long‐term school‐level effects of the
Olweus Bullying Prevention Program (OBPP). Scandinavian journal of
psychology, 61(1), 108-116.
Penney, R. (2016). The rhetoric of the mistake in adult narratives of youth sexuality: the case
of Amanda Todd. Feminist Media Studies, 16(4), 710-725.
Roland, E., & Munthe, E. (Eds.). (2017). Bullying (1989): An International Perspective.
Routledge.