What is bullying?
Bullying is broadly defined as an act of repeated aggressive behavior in order to intentionally hurt another person, physically and mentally. Bullying can be physical (hitting, kicking, pushing, slapping and all forms of physical abuse), verbal (teasing, name calling, threatening and spreading rumor). It includes sending hurtful or scary messages on phone calls, SMS text or e-mails (Cyber bullying). Physical bullying is probably one of the easiest to identify because it often produces physical evidence like bruises, black eyes, cuts, and torn clothes.
Children who bully may see it as fun, enjoy feeling powerful over others, often have violent family back ground, have high energy levels, enjoy conflict, have been influenced by aggressive “ model” (in real life and/or in movies or on TV), have difficulty following rules, and easily frustrated. Bullies usually pick on children who seem easy to hurt. Children can be picked on who are stressed either at home or at school, have a disability, struggle with school work, lack social confidence.
A number of different factors have been identified which contribute to bullying problems. Family, individual and school factors all contribute.
Education in the family household is important. Permissive and unable to set limits on children’s behaviour, rule of discipline inconsistent, modeling of aggressive behavior at home, and lack of parental guidance may encourage inappropriate behaviour in children such as lack of empathy for others orhave difficulty following rules.
Children are educated with love and full attention together with a warm environment surrounding them, will probably has exceptional behaviour. They will also love, respect, and pay attention to other people. On the contrary, children who are educated with criticism, scolding, and insults during childhood will be more inclined to be aggressive. It also arouses hatred in the heart of children and the child gets angry quickly with every body. If this behaviour is allowed to grow in the children’s life, children will be susceptible to bullying or will become a bully.
The school climate can also be a cause of bullying. Many accidents that make some children lonely and unhappy happen at school without being known by teachers. For example, a few students feel fear coming to school because their friends refuse to play with them anymore and have started saying horrible things about them. Targets usually report to teachers, but sometimes teachers ignore supervising the real situation. It will make targets frustrated and upset. Furthermore, the bullies will increase their activities to bully another child, especially the smallest child in the class with a weak character.
What happens if an adult ignores the behavior of children whereas they know that their kids are being bullied or their child is bullies? Can the children realize and correct their manner by themselves? All forms of bullying are harmful to the bullies, the victims and witnesses. It can have long lasting effects on children’s behavior, and their emotional and social development, which sometime lasts into adult life.
Victims of bullying typically are very unhappy and suffer from fear, anxiety and low-self esteem as a result of their bullying. They may try to avoid school, and to avoid social interactions, in an effort to escape the bullying. Then, some victims are so distressed that they will become ill. If the bullying patterns are allowed to continue unchecked, there are long-term consequences for the victims. Over a period of time, their self-esteem can be affected and a few children may become depressed or in extreme cases, even attempt suicide.
The serious long-term outcomes for bullies are also important to recognize. The bullies who have been exposed to constant harshness from on early age tend to become more aggressive, stubborn and careless. Over time, the manners of bullies become dangerous if nobody take cares of them. For instance, they might use drugs, alcohol or tobacco because they want to show their power that is actually covering up for their disappointment in life.
Another important but often overlooked group of children who are affected by bullying are those children who are neither victims nor perpetrators of bullying but who a see bullying happening to their peers. They will not take the initiative to bully themselves, but will follow a bully’s lead in helping to harass and victimize a particular child in their class or school. All children, including witnesses, are negatively affected when bullying occurs.
There are many effective strategies for both parents and teachers who wish to stop
bullying. An important starting point is to realize that much bullying occurs without the knowledge of teachers and parents, and that many victims are very reluctant to tell adults of their problems of bullying. They may be ashamed to be a victim, and they are afraid that adults can not or will not help to resolve the situation. They may have been threatened with retaliation if they talk about it to adults. Some important strategies in stopping bullying are: providing good supervision for children; providing effective consequences to bullies; using good communication between parents and teachers; providing all children opportunities to develop good interpersonal skills; and creating a social context which is supportive and tolerant.
By Nurtati Moniaga.