As the years go by, it seems as though bullying is becoming more worse in our country. This is a true but sad fact. Children in this generation are dealing with more ridicule, more harassment, and more cruelty from their peers both in person and online.
It increases the suicide rates among teens and affects their self-esteem in a negative way. While most people know that they should stand up to bullies, it is never as easy to do when the victim is outnumbered.
Thankfully, some people are willing to stand up for others and fend off bullies. And when that happens, we have a little more faith in the human experience.
Matthew Bandeira had read all the statistics on bullying and realized the importance of dealing with it. As he says in the video, 28 percent of students from age 12 to 18 report being bullied. And as you can imagine, many don’t report it at all. Additionally, about 160,000 children avoid going to school because they fear bullies and being bullied. He had grown so sick and tired of how common it was for children to deal with bullies both in the playground and at home while online. That’s why he decided to challenge the public to stand up to bullies and help protect other children.
To do that, Bandeira recruited four children. One was smaller than the others and given a backpack and a soccer ball as props. Three older boys were then hired to act like bullies to the younger and smaller child.
Bandeira set up his social experiment at a public park to get as much activity and awareness as possible. He wanted people to notice the scene and have an opportunity to respond to it, all while being filmed by a hidden camera. He filmed three different scenarios putting three different adults in the opportunity to stand up and face down the bullies.
He held the incident near the park playground, in a grassy area, and on the sidewalk near the park. As mentioned, an adult was near all three scenes.
Bandeira wanted to know how the adults would react. Would they ignore the bullying or would they get involved and stop it?
A mom was the first person tested by the social experiment. She was with her kids at the park. She watched as one of the older “bullies” picked up, the younger one’s bag and threw it over the park. Then she watched as they stole his soccer ball.
This mom was not willing to let the bullying continue. She stood up and marched over to the “bad boys.” She confronted them for picking on the smaller child.
Bandeira redid the experiment with two more adults. The first was a woman on her phone while the second was a man texting away on his tablet.
In the video below, you can see how these two react to the social experiment. The result may surprise you.
Bullying is a real problem in the United States. It increases teen suicide rates and leaves children afraid of school.
Stand up to bullies if you can.
