Respond to two bullying discussion posts.

I’m trying to learn for my Social Science class and I’m stuck. Can you help?

1) To me, bullying is a method of identifying a person or persons that you can demean or harm for purposes of self-gratification or to cope with other issues going on in your life. I would describe a bully as a person who typically has a poor self-image and tries to bring others down, so they feel somewhat how they feel but in some cases, they’re just a mean-hearted person. I would describe the victim typically as a person who is isolated maybe doesn’t have a lot of friends a person who may lack confidence and are overcome by fear and anxiety by the person who is bullying them. Some options for treatment when it comes to bullying are seeing a child psychologist, family therapy or school counselor. Some methods of preventing bullying are role modeling nonviolent behavior and communicating that bullying is not acceptable. Teaching good social skills and encouraging children to communicate issues that they are having are also ways to prevent bullying. Multi-generation parent caring is a growing challenge for adults trying to raise young children while taking care of older parents. The impact has been found to be both positive and negative. The positives came in the area of emotional support and the negatives came in the area of instrumental support.

2) Bullying to me is a form of harassment. I believe it comes from the need to express dominance and control over an individual. I remember as a child I would see bullying of other children based on how they looked, where they lived, how smart they were, etc. I believe bullying starts with a bully being able to pick up the self-esteem of their victim. The victim gets harassed by the bully either physically or mentally and the victim reacts with a sense of powerlessness. The power is believed to be held by the bully and the bully is satisfied. I believe the advent of the internet and social media provides an additional environment for individuals to be bullied. Cyber bullying is more and more common. It allows a large amount of people to be exposed to bullying or allow them to be the subsequent audience of bully antics. I believe an effective treatment option or preventative measure for bullying is identifying and addressing bullying behaviors (Stopbullying.gov, 2020). This is directed towards a potential bully and addresses that bullying behaviors are not tolerated. I also believe that a victim of bullying should feel like communication is available to any trusted person to better understand how the victim is feeling and to provide a sense of comfort.

The impact on a family when a middle generation parent is caring for a child and an aging parent is called the sandwich generation phenomenon (Price, 2003). This usually involves women, who are experiencing both child rearing and parental caring to aging parents simultaneously. This phenomenon demonstrates both positive and negative results. Berit Ingersoll-Dayton, Margaret B. Neal, and Leslie Hammer state that this generation benefits from aging parents in providing care for their grandchildren (2001). Grandparents can provide an additional helping hand to reduce the load of sandwich generation parents. On the other hand, the American Psychological Association (APA) state that sandwich generation moms are more stressed due to the added pressures of taking care of their children and their parents simultaneously (2008). It is not hard to believe that with the changes of care tactics daily can affect a sandwich generation parent. The fact is that more studies should be done to address more underlying aspects of this phenomenon. Speaking from a child’s perspective, I enjoyed being close to my grandparents when they were alive and learned a lot from them when they were helping to raise me and my siblings. I do admit, that my mom seemed stressed and stretched thin to be able to support us and her aging parents. It did seem that she had to make very difficult choices to support one or the other at times.