Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words will scar me for life.

Every morning just before leaving for school, I would always take a long glance in the mirror at myself. I would stare for a few seconds, long enough to ask myself, "what's so bad about me?" Mom would drop me off at school and I would sit anxiously in class waiting for recess, not because I wanted to play, but because I didn't want to face my fears. When I was in elementary school, I was an outcast because my parents were divorced. I had two separate families. To my peers, I wasn't good enough to be "liked by both parents at the same time" or so they would say. Sounds crazy, right? When I was younger, bullying seemed horrible at the time, but now, it has become that much worse.
Today, more than 5.7 million of America's youth are estimated to be involved with bullying. Whether it is being a bully, being a target of a bully, or both, 30% of teens experience what I experienced everyday. Children that come from families with little to no emotional support tend to lash out at other children resulting in bullying. Research done by the Youth Violence Prevention Center shows that the number one reason for bullying is that kids just "don't fit in." This meaning anything from a child's clothing, to their physical features, to even family situations like I dealt with. Bullying has appeared in schools in several different forms such as physical contact, verbal threats, and spreading gossip. Studies show that most bullying takes place during recess or at times when adult supervision is not around. In that case, we need to keep a closer watch on children not just at school, but at playgrounds, parks, and even on the internet. Like me, children are scarred by their peers far too often. Incidents that happen in their childhood and teen years will remain a part of them for the rest of their lives.