MAHANOY CITY — Mahanoy Area Middle School students learned Monday how bullying can affect them, not only during their school years but into adulthood as well.
A program called “Beware What You Share” was presented to about 300 students in grades five through eight by magisterial district judges Christina E. Hale, Frackville, and Stephen J. Bayer, Tamaqua.
Bayer said the program touched on various aspects of bullying, including how bullying can affect not only the life of the bully but also the life of the victim.
Both Bayer and Hale discussed the law and how it applies to bullying as well as the consequences such actions can cause.
“We are here to try and give them as much information as we can, information they will hopefully take with them and use,” Bayer said.
Kate Orsulak, Mahanoy Area intervention counselor, said the school continually tries to educate children in all grades, kindergarten through 12, about various things that can affect their lives, one of which is bullying.
Orsulak said that with the various computer avenues available such as Facebook and Snap Chat, cyberbullying has become more common and poses a danger to both young children and high-schoolers.
She said that Mahanoy Area also takes part in the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program, a nationally recognized program in which children meet monthly to discuss bullying, learn the ramifications of being a bully and learn what bullying does to the victim.
Bayer said that he and Hale wanted to stress the dangers of being a bully.
“We are here to hopefully make them think about the dangers because most young people think this cannot happen to me,” he said.
Hale said the Mahanoy Area session is the seventh she has presented — four in North Schuylkill and one each in Shenandoah Valley and Saint Clair Area.
“I touch on abusing Facebook and Snap Chat as well as sexting,” Hale saId. “Young children don’t often have the impulse control and foresight to think about what their actions will do to them down the road.”
Bayer said that both he and Hale agree that the topic of bullying is important enough to take time out of their district court schedules to speak to the students and, hopefully, educate a few of them.
“If we reach even one or two of the 300 or so here today it will be worth it,” Bayer said.
Hale said she feels it is her duty, as well as the duty of others in the law enforcement and judicial communities, to educate the public, especially children, on cyberbullying and how social media is making it easier for these “bullies” to find and harass their victims.
“Cyberbullying is probably one off the must relevant issues in their lives,” she said.
Mahanoy Area Middle School Principal Michael Heater said it is an ongoing challenge to educate children about the dangers that today’s society presents to them and how being responsible, especially dealing with bullying and cyberbullying, can ruin their lives.
“We hope that by reaching out we will let them (the children) know how bullying can and will affect them, not only at the age they are at now but possibly well into adulthood,” he said.