As a way of coping with being bullied, a 9-year-old boy from Blue Springs, Missouri, says he has written and released a song to cope with the trauma, the New York Post reports.
Kamryn Henderson, a third-grade student, said he's been bullied both at school and online so much that he enrolled in a new school.
“If I cried, then I would get bullied more,” he said in an interview with KMBC News.
The third-grader said his breaking point was when one student referred to him as “trash.”
“I looked at my phone again and I’m like, ‘I’m not trash,’” he said. “That’s not true. That’s not true at all.”
The incident prompted the young musician to write “Look Within Yourself.” He later filmed himself singing and playing the song on a ukulele, sharing it on YouTube.
“You’re beautiful and special if no one ever tells you,” he sings. “You don’t have to change a thing for someone else. Just look within yourself. Just look within yourself.”
“Sometimes bullies will tell you that you’re not good enough or you have to change who you are,” he wrote in the video's caption. “Be you. Don’t worry about the other stuff. Hope you like the song and please like and subscribe!”
The student said he dedicated the song to bullied children, especially his sister, who's been teased at school. Henderson told KMBC News that his ultimate goal is to appear on Broadway.
His mother, Chloe Cooper, said she’s proud that her son has found a way to show resilience.
“When you listen to the song, you can hear that confidence. You can hear that he’s happy with who he is,” she said. “He’s kind of saying to the world, ‘This is me.’”
Reports of grade school students being bullied and harassed while at school continue to rise, Blavity reports. In a separate case, Tarhiya Sledge, a student at a Tennessee middle school, was 12 years old when she died in her home of an apparent suicide. Her family said her cries for help against bullies went unanswered by school officials.
Scientists say they are working toward understanding what leads young people to commit self-harm and researching ways to diagnose and treat children experiencing suicidal thoughts.