Bullying Not Only For Kids

A lot of reports from the past year has centered on the threat of bullies at school and on social networking sites.  A lot of people feel this can be a dilemma that only affects youth, however their assumption is not right.  Residential communities made up of senior aged citizens have their own problems with bullying also.

Small Teams with Power
In secondary school it always seems that a small group of students wield an amazing amount of power or influence within the rest of the class.  It is the same with such residential conveniences.  Documented cases show that a community with over 1,000 persons is threatened by a small number of 10 or perhaps 12 people.  These people dominate the social activities for instance card games or perhaps luncheons and exclude anyone who does not fit in with the “group.”  The “power” group will chat over tea regarding their planned activities and also basically ignore the other residents.

Issues Catching People Within the Act
In school it seemed the teachers as well as administrators were usually powerless to help the affected students.  Without any evidence, or even actually seeing the bullies in some act of intimidation, it looked impossible to impose any type of penalty.  With the more mature citizens the problems are similar.  Unless the appropriate officials actually see anyone or even a group threatening someone else, it is definitely a matter of one person’s statement vs another.

More Issues with Practical Solutions
In high school parents will almost always be telling the affected child to “just disregard the bully” and they will eventually go away.  Some people even suggest reaching out to create new friendships to avoid the feeling associated with exclusion.  Nevertheless, this process is not always possible in a few senior citizen facilities.  Quite a few of those living plans are small.  The solely interaction the residents have is with the other people surviving in the building.  Ignoring everyone wouldn’t be a fairly easy thing to do.

Online Options
Though it is not going to completely solve the issue, there are several online alternatives to help people discover new friends making connections.  The boom in social media sites is a great method to maintain up to date with family and friends, whether they live in the same town or around the globe.  Chat rooms exist on many of these sites that may give people a method to have a private discussion without permitting everyone online see the details of the discussion.  Most social networking sites have various groups based around a common these to ensure that anyone will get a group with their liking.