Blogpost #7:Peer Rejection

When you see a kid on the playground sitting along on the swing while others were playing in front of him/her, what is your opinion about the kid? he/she seems to be lonely and uncomfortable outside. The kid is experiencing the pain of "peer rejection". What is peer rejection? Peer rejetion is a social rejection occurs when an individual is delibrately exluded from a social relationship or social interaction for social rather than practical reasons.

I remember that there was this prom night when I was a senior high school student, I saw one of my schoolmate that he was alone sitting on the chair no one is sitting beside him and no is asking him for a dance. He was just sitting there having a long face. On my opinion about him is that he must be having a hard time socializing to someone or he was bullied when he was young. I felt sorry for the guy because of what people and I heard that the others told me that his behavior was really aggressive like he gets angry easily so that no one wants to be friendly to him and he's suffering from autism.


On this study, I read two articles about peer rejection. I read this article called "Consequence of Peer Rejection" by J.L Cook. The author wrote about how people behave after being rejected,bullied or ridiculed by others. Cook made an example that Charles Andrew Williams attempted to bring a gun in school and shoot his schoolmates in the washroom because he told to the teachers and securities that he can't take it anymore by being bullied and humiliated by others in school, so he killed two people and injured 11 people. However, the cops came they saw that he was kneeling and trying to kill himself but he ran out of bullet so the cops arrested him.

 According to Cook that "Peer rejection is a powerful force in adolescent life, especially when the person being rejected is also ridiculed, harassed, or bullied."

 He was trying to say that when a person who is experiencing peer rejection could possible can misbehave from the society and if the person is being bullied, harassed, or ridiculed can be the cause of misbehaving him/her.

When I heard that why people misbehave because of their childhood life. According to my research, I read this article called "Early Behavior Problems Cause Peer Rejection, Friendlessness And May Lead To Depression And Loneliness In Adolescence" by Andrea Browning. This article tells that kids beyond 6-12 age can possibly to experience peer rejection and getting the results of misbehavior,anxiety, depression or distress.

According to Browning that "Specifically, children who are rejected in elementary school are more likely to be lonely as adolescents, while children who lack friends in early grades -- a critical time for developement of close, reciprocal relationships -- are more likely to be lonely and depressed as teenagers."

She was trying to say that kids are now being depressed as teenagers because they the same situation of being rejected and bullied by others or he/she was being rejected by a teacher for giving him/her a lower grades.

When someone tries to bully you, instead of fighting back try to talk to him/her that what could be the reason why they bully you. Then if you find his/her reason, try to apologize if you did something wrong to him/her but if the bullying is irrational, try to ignore the situation and leave. If the bully beats you up, try not to fight back and after being beat up report to the authorities that you were bullied and beat up because fighting back is like you're making the problems bigger.

Bully are just so immature because they have experienced of being rejected so try to understand them because they just want to victim others to misbehave. When you get bullied try to think that you're better than him/her like study hard or make your own goals because the best revenge for the bully is to remain silent.

I remember the time that I got bullied from my classmate that I should give him my lunch money or else he'll defame me or embarassed me and I really got a huge pressure on him, but I came to the office and report the situation immediately and he was called from the office and got expelled on what he was doing to me. Four years later after I graduate in high school, I saw him on the street asking someone for some change and I really got my attention from him that he has no place to go for the future so I gave him my last coin and leave him behind.

The thing is when you get bullied or rejected, try to be wise on yourself because the more you put a pressure from rejection or bullying it will cause you misbehaviors and depression.