BULLYING
Bullying is unwanted, aggressive behavior among school aged children that involves a real or perceived power imbalance. The behavior is repeated, or has the potential to be repeated, over time. Both kids who are bullied and who bully others may have serious, lasting problems.
In order to be considered bullying, the behavior must be aggressive and include:
- An Imbalance of Power: Kids who bully use their power—such as physical strength, access to embarrassing information, or popularity—to control or harm others. Power imbalances can change over time and in different situations, even if they involve the same people.
- Repetition: Bullying behaviors happen more than once or have the potential to happen more than once.
Bullying includes actions such as making threats, spreading rumors, attacking someone physically or verbally, and excluding someone from a group on purpose.
What Every Parent Needs to Know.
Bullying by Gender
Girls are more likely to be victims of bullying than boys. In fact, the 2016 report from the National Center for Educational Statistics said 23% of females and 19% of males have experienced bullying at school.
However, males are more likely to experience physical harassment.
Types of Bullying
There are three types of bullying:
- Verbal bullying is saying or writing mean things. Verbal bullying includes:
- Teasing
- Name-calling
- Inappropriate sexual comments
- Taunting
- Threatening to cause harm
- Social bullying, sometimes referred to as relational bullying, involves hurting someone’s reputation or relationships. Social bullying includes:
- Leaving someone out on purpose
- Telling other children not to be friends with someone
- Spreading rumors about someone
- Embarrassing someone in public
- Physical bullying involves hurting a person’s body or possessions. Physical bullying includes:
- Hitting/kicking/pinching
- Spitting
- Tripping/pushing
- Taking or breaking someone’s things
- Making mean or rude hand gestures
- Bullying can continue if no action is taken and is often hidden from adults.
- Bullying can happen during or after school hours, on the playground, school bus, or in your neighborhood.
- Bullying is harmful! It should not be brushed asied as a “normal” part of growing up.
- When bullying is motivated by bias against the student’s race, national origin, religiou or ethnicity it is discriminatory harassment. It is a legal issue, and schools have an obligation to try to stop bias-based bullying.
Where Bullying Occurs
Even though technology makes anonymous bullying easier, most aggressive behavior still happens on school property. The most common location, as reported by the National Center for Educational Statistics in 2016, is hallways and stairwells—maybe because there are fewer adults present in these situations. Other common bullying locations are inside the classroom, in the cafeteria, outside, on the school bus, and in the bathroom or locker room.
Bullying Effects and Prevention
Bullying has plenty of harmful consequences for the victim, ranging from poor school performance to anxiety and depression. The National Center for Education Statistics says that bullying negatively impacts the victim’s perception of themselves in 19% of cases. It also affects their relationships and school work (in 14% of cases) and physical health (in 9% of cases). Victims tend to be prone to stomachaches and headaches, for example. Bullying might also be a factor in someone’s decision to commit suicide.
If you see or experience bullying, the best course of action is asking the bully to stop. Otherwise tell a trustworthy adult about the incident—which 43% of bullied students have done, according to the 2016 report from the National Center for Educational Statistics.
Many times, the bully will stop their aggressive behavior after being confronted by a peer or authority figure.
Parents should also teach kids about the harmful effects of bullying, and instill the value of treating others with respect.
CYBERBULLYING
Bullying and substance abuse are often connected because emotional issues are at the root of most teen substance abuse.
The widespread use of technology, such as cellphones and computers, has created a new type of bullying called “cyberbullying” which can be especially destructive to the self-esteem of the person being bullied.
Most people have experienced some form of bullying, and others — even if they don’t want to admit it — have participated in the bullying of others.
Bullying is aggressive, deliberate and unwanted behavior involving a real or perceived imbalance of power. Bullying is common and easy to spot amongst school-age children but also exists to varying degrees in the adult world.
Teen bullying has many consequences and one of them is an increased risk of teen substance abuse.
Other problems include an increased risk of mental health problems and physical health complaints. Some consequences of bullying are permanent and last into adulthood
Overwhelmed
Being targeted by cyberbullies is crushing especially if a lot of kids are participating in the bullying. Sometimes the stress of dealing with cyberbullying can cause kids to feel like the situation is more than they can handle.
Powerless
Victims of cyberbullying often find it difficult to feel safe. They feel vulnerable and powerless. Typically, this is because the bullying can invade their home through a computer or cell phone at any time of day. They no longer have a place where they can escape. To a victim, it feels like bullying is everywhere.
Additionally, because the bullies can remain anonymous, this can escalate feelings of fear. Kids who are targeted have no idea who is inflicting the pain—although some cyberbullies choose people they know.
Humiliated
Because cyberbullying occurs in cyberspace, online bullying feels permanent. Kids know that once something is out there, it will always be out there. They feel exposed.
When cyberbullying occurs, the nasty posts, messages or texts can be shared with multitudes of people. The sheer volume of people that know about the bullying can lead to intense feelings of humiliation.
Worthless
Cyberbullying often attacks victims where they are most vulnerable. Targets of bullying may feel intense dissatisfaction with who they are. As a result, targets of cyberbullying often begin to doubt their worth and value. They may respond to these feelings by harming themselves in some way.
For instance, if a girl is called fat, she may begin a crash diet with the belief that if she alters how she looks then the bullying will stop. Other times victims will try to change something about their appearance or attitude in order to avoid additional cyberbullying.
Vengeful
Sometimes victims of cyberbullying will get angry about what is happening to them. As a result, they plot revenge and engage in retaliation.
This approach is dangerous because it keeps them locked in the bully-victim cycle. It is always better to forgive a bully than it is to get even.
Disinterested
When cyberbullying is ongoing, victims often relate to the world around them differently than others. For many, life can feel hopeless and meaningless.
They lose interest in things they once enjoyed and spend less time interacting with family and friends. And, in some cases, depression and thoughts of suicide can set in. They may also feel disinterested in school.
Cyberbullying victims often have much higher rates of absenteeism at school than non-bullied kids.2 They skip school to avoid facing the kids bullying them or because they are embarrassed and humiliated by the messages that were shared.
Their grades suffer, too, because they find it difficult to concentrate or study because of the anxiety and stress the bullying causes. And in some cases, kids will either drop out of school or lose interest in continuing their education after high school.