They say sharing is caring but does it always show care and compassion? Many people encourage each other to share their opinion but sometimes this could be painful for others. Stupid. Ugly. Dumb. Useless. Moron. Gross. Unwanted. Freak. Mean remarks such as these are said each day by people of all ages. This is, whether you believe it or not, verbal bullying. Verbal bullying is when an individual uses cruel words to gain power of someone else. It is a shame how this even exists but it can be controlled and, hopefully, one day bullying will no longer exist.

Verbal bullying is very common in other types of bullying such as physical bullying and cyberbullying. Most bullies say something rude before physically hurting them too and cyberbullying includes insulting and threatening a person using electronic communication. Without the offensive words, bullying wouldn’t be as painful as it is for the victim and sometimes for the bully too. Later on the bully might regret everything they did to hurt the person and live a miserable life filled with guilt. Even though the human brain is remarkable and intelligent, it is quite easy to get fooled by the repetition of insults. After a long time hearing the bullies say untruthful things, the victims may develop self esteem issues, depression, anxiety and other problems.

This method of hurting someone not only affects the bully and victim, but the people who may witness it though verbal bullying is harder to detect since the person bullied is usually weaker than or threatened by the bully so they are unable to inform someone of the issue. When someone makes fun of someone else because of their looks, what they like, etc., an individual that could have the similar interests or features could get offended and start feeling ashamed of something that they used to enjoy or have. That could become a huge problem because they may develop self esteem issues too depending on what the bully has said. Also a person that was a victim of bullying or saw someone getting bullied is likely to turn into a bully too and that is terrible.

Research by Fight Crime/Invest in Kids reports that 60% of boys who bullied from first grade through ninth grade were convicted of at least one crime by age 24 and 40% had three or more convictions by age 24. Less bullies mean less crimes thus many of the crimes that include murder would decrease and I believe the number of suicides would change drastically if people complimented more than insulted because people would feel happier.

All in all, be careful of what you say to others because it can be dangerous. Trying to gain power over someone by using cruel words is extremely pathetic and it could cause very serious problems. Everyone should take full responsibility of their words and if a someone's got nothing good to say then they might as well keep their comments to themselves. I hope to see a future with less bullying and more kindness.