What is bullying?
Bullying is an intentional harmful behavior that hurts or humiliates a child physically or emotionally due to an imbalance of power. It can happen in school, in the community or online. This behavior is either repeated or can be a one-time incident.
National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) reports that in 2016, more than one out of every five (20.8%) students reported being bullied. Bullying threatens a child’s well-being and the ill effects are experienced by individuals, families, schools, colleges and society. The bullied child may feel intimidated, powerless, and humiliated by the aggressive acts of other children.
Research suggests that shy or anxious children are more prone to being bullied. It has been observed that very young children, who are passive and don’t protest or cry if others snatch a toy, become a natural prey for bullying.
Types of bullying
There are many different ways to bully. Some common ways include hitting, name-calling, extorting money, intimidation and spreading bad rumors. Bullies purposefully hurt someone, physically or mentally, who is less powerful than they are.
Here are the four common types of bullying and surefire remedies to deal with them:
Verbal Bullying
Definition: Verbal bullying refers to continuous name-calling, threatening, and making disrespectful comments about someone’s attributes (appearance, disability, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, etc.).
Example: When a child says to another child, “You’re really fat and so is your dad.”
Symptoms:
Check if your child:
- becomes moody
- shows withdrawal or change in appetite
- tells you something hurtful that someone else said about them and
asks you if you think it’s true
Steps to resolve:
- Teach your child to respect others. Demonstrate it through your own
behavior by thanking teachers, praising friends and relatives, being
kind to community helpers and others. - Stress self-respect, and help your kids to appreciate their strengths.
- Try and foster your child’s confidence and independence.
- Practice safe and constructive ways your child can respond to a bully.
- Brainstorm key phrases to say in a firm but not antagonistic tone, such
as “That wasn’t nice”, “Back off” or “Leave me alone”.
Physical Bullying
Definition: Physical bullying refers to repeated pushing, kicking, hitting, tripping, blocking and touching in unwanted and inappropriate ways.
Example: A child gets his shirt pulled down on the playground.
Symptoms:
Check if your child:
- avoids sharing their physical bullying experience with you
- shows any possible warning signs like unexplained scratches, cuts or
bruises, missing or torn clothes - complains frequently of stomachaches and headaches
Steps to resolve:
- Educate your child about getting help from the school by sharing their
bullying experiences with their teacher, principal or school counselor. - Establish open and casual conversation with your child by asking
what’s going on at school, after school or during activities. Based on
the responses, ask if anyone’s been troubling or hurting them. - Note the dates, times and details of bullying incidents, the responses
received from the people involved and the actions that have been
taken. - Do not contact the parents of the bully to resolve matters on your own.
- If your child continues to be physically hurt then lodge a complaint
with your local law enforcement for prompt corrective action. - While dealing with bullies, victims should try and protect themselves
by withdrawing themselves from the situation.
Relational Bullying
Definition: Relational bullying refers to purposefully preventing someone from joining or being part of a group, whether it’s at a game, sport, lunch table or social activity.
Example: A group of boys in a band keep talking about a weekend trip and sharing pictures, treating the one uninvited child as if he was invisible.
Symptoms:
Check if your child:
- shows frequent mood changes
- withdraws himself from peer groups
- shifts toward being alone
As compared to boys, girls are more prone to experience social exclusion, nonverbal or emotional intimidation. The impact of pain they experience can be just as intense or even greater than physical bullying.
Steps to resolve:
- Set a routine to talk with your child about their daily activities.
- Discuss and help them find things that make them happy and point
out their positive qualities. - Help and encourage them to focus on developing their talents and
interests in sports, arts, music, drama and other after school activities
that will allow them to build relationships outside of school.
Cyber bullying
Definition: Cyber bullying refers to criticizing someone by spreading lies, mean words and false rumors through e-mails, text messages and social media posts. Racist and sexist messages tend to create a hostile atmosphere.
Example: When someone tweets or posts, “John is a total loser, nobody should hang around with him.”
Symptoms:
Check if your child:
- has trouble sleeping
- spends more time online (texting or visiting social media sites)
- appears to be sad and anxious after being online
- begs to stay home from school
- withdraws from activities she once loved
Steps to resolve:
- Establish Internet safety rules for home and ask your child to abide by age-restricted time limits.
- Discuss and inform your child about how social networking sites or social media platforms work.
- Let them know the threats posed by the popular and potentially abusive sites and apps.
- Tell them to unfollow or unfriend the person who has posted any disturbing or inappropriate posts.
- Let your child know that you will be monitoring their online activities.
Discuss and inform your child about what information is inappropriate to share online. Instruct them not to:
– post photos or videos of others without their permission
– disrespect others online
– use social media to humiliate others - Instruct them that if they experience any cyber bullying activity, they shouldn’t engage and respond to it. Instead, they should inform you so that you can initiate proper action.
- If the cyber bullying escalates, register a complaint with your local law enforcement.
Source: https://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2017015