Bullying Creates Emotional, Behavioral and Academic Problems for Children
I recently did a post on bullying in secondary school and how there is a cost to the schools, not only to the individual being affected. As many of us know, secondary schools aren't the only place for concern about bullying. Primary schools are also prime zones for bullies to push people around.
In my own life, I recall bullies in primary school as well as in high school. A hostile environment is not something anyone wants to be a part of, let alone a child growing up and learning about their own and other psyches, and the complexity of human life. As mentioned in the previous post, 10% of absent students attribute their missing school days to an avoidance of a negative environment brought on by bullying.
As with secondary school students, primary school students have to deal with bullies, meaning kids are going to be missing school here too. Some new research shows that 33% of boys and 25% of girls aged 8-9 years old have to deal with bullying on a weekly basis, and that is affecting their academic performance in a negative way.
The data was taken from a survey of 965 primary school children in Australia, but we can easily recognize how bullying will affect academic performance -- at least from missing school, let alone other factors of intimidation and mistreatment while in school that can affect concentration and learning. It's not just physical with hitting and pushing people around, but also verbal with teases and threats.
The largest negative effects on academic performance came from physical bullying, where children who suffer under such victimization are 6-9 months behind in academic performance compared to their peers.
Boys tend to get the most of the physical bullying, but both genders are affected by the verbal kind, like teasing and name calling.
People underestimate the negative impact of bullying on children, and even in later adult life. Bullying creates suffering for others where it's completely unnecessary. Only a psyche that is troubled and suffering will desire to be a bully and create pointless suffering for others. They want attention, or they want to cause suffering because they suffer, or they want to avoid being a victim by being an abuser, or they want to have power over others, etc. Whatever the reason, the bully needs to be stopped. Until that happens, they will keep dong what they do.
The consequences of bullying can affect mental and physical health or well-being. Being in a threatening and hostile environment and made into a victim has unpleasant results. When we lose control of our ability to affect our way of life, such as the ability to be free from harm, that can develop into mental health issues -- which much of the world population has as a result of being coerced and extorted by authoritarianism and statism. Depression and anxiety mount when things are wrong with our way of life.
Many people -- children or adult -- turn to self-harm such as cutting, or even suicide in order to escape the negative circumstances of their life where they can't gain control to set things right. This is why parental and community help in stopping bullies is important. Parents, schools and everyone needs to take a stand against bullying. The effects can last throughout life. Academic performance can affect our choices and opportunities in the future.
Bullying may only last for a certain time, but during that time our lives can be greatly affected. And even after the bullying stops, the psychological imprint and trauma is done, which can reverberate in later life. Some of us need more help to heal and overcome the wrongs others have done against us.
Glad to see a good story on this subject. Children are in the care of the school while in school and it should be the schools responsibility to provide protection. My niece was routinely punched by other children because she was overweight. The school refused to stop it, causing her long term damage, in my opinion the school system should be sued and be held financially responsible.
I agree that schools should provide protection for the children under its care.
I was called deirdy weirdy in school and was mercilessly bullied. It wasn't until I went to secondary school, run by nuns who didn't tolerate bullying, that I actually managed to get any education. I'm not religious but I must say that convent school meant I was bullied only twice daily on the school bus. I did manage to get through it, but not completely unscathed.
Shit like that is fucking retarded. What the hell are these moronic adults doing. Great society being by coward adults who won't stop violence in raising children. Unbelievable. Thanks for the feedback.
What would you suggest to do, to stop bullying? I know from my own experience, of being picked on since elementary, they didn't stop until I learned how to fight back. It took me until grade 9 to figure it out. And once I started hitting back, the girls stopped fucking with me. I wish I would have done it sooner instead of being so quiet and afraid of them. Me being quiet, skipping school, and just hoping it would stop, didn't work a damn bit.
Yes, if no one else wants to get involved, such as those stronger and more knowledgeable like adults, to engage in psychological work with a suffering psyche, then as a child or even adult we are often left with base physical reciprocity to redress wrongs and put them in their place. Force is used to stop violence, a lawful act. Standing up is always required, great on you for doing it! Thanks for the feedback.
You're very welcome. So, if I may ask, how did you deal with your bullies?
I was never a strong boy, only a few scuffles. I use my mind to talk more than to fight physically ;) Not that I was mr. moral at all times growing up either.
That's really cool because the tongue is stronger than the teeth... <3 My tongue always seemed to land me into more trouble, I don't think I was using it properly LOL!
Hehe, that's funny, and good analogy ;)
I think bullying is totally unacceptable and children bullying other kids should absolutely be controlled and put in place, even if that means they need to be punished! They are hurting the other kids emotionally and damaging their future. However, I also think parents and teachers need to understand why the kids might be bullying others - is it because they are insecure, or afraid, or hiding their weakness behind the mask of a macho-man? If so, they need help sooner than later. Karma is a boomerang and life can whip you in a way that may make us regret things we did in the past.... Better to realize now, than repent later. Once again, great post @krnel !!
Yes, getting to the issue, into the psyche of the bully, is required. That's how people actually stop because they want to. And that change has to come from within. Suspensions can happen if they don't want to introspect and learn about their own suffering. Thanks for the feedback :)
Great point!
I see the problem of bullying as a symptom of our outdated education system. One of the reasons for that is the one-fits-all doctrine that most schools follow, there will be students that trail behind who hate the people who are good in the subject for raising the bar so high. There will be also the people at the top who feel held back by the once who "just don't get it". This naturally causes friction between subgroups of a class. The constant grading and testing in general is extremely unhealthy to the mind of children.
To fight the sympton I think we need to start with the victim there is a natural instinct to attack people that appear weak and in retreat. There are three things that are able to prevent getting bullied or at least soften the impact:
Be physically strong - nobody will want to escalate the situation or thread you with physical violence if they know you are a decent fighter
Be good with words - if you can laugh about the jokes made about you and you can deliver jokes or smart comebacks, you are able to avoid most of psychological impact those words have on you
Have friends/be likeable. I was bullied by some of my friends so befriending a bully might not always work but it still levels the playing field quite a bit. But even if you are just a group of nerds, people will still think twice before messing with a whole group of people and even if they do your peers are there to soften the trauma "that bully is an idiot, he is only mean to you because he envies you"
To be clear I see the cause for bullying in our system and human nature, I dont want to blame the victim. I just think we need to make bullying a less successful concept, this is made tougher when you see a lot of successful people, ie politicians and businessmen, behaving like textbook bullies.
Indeed, good point. Talking about morality can have that effect as well, where don't like you because they don't measure up ;) Friends help a lot indeed to prevent being targeted in the first place. I was flagged for my moral content, then why I spoke up against it I just got flagged on all posts. Not many friends so not much support to stop it. Money drives ppl more than standing for whats right here. Yeah bullying is somewhat normalized in the power hierarchy structure in many areas, like corporate and political thinking as you say. Thanks for the feedback.
I wonder if we can trace this back to our Roots - Homo Sapiens was the first of the Homo genus to conquer the world. Up until then we scattered, retreated, etc. One theory of why we were able to do this is we developed superior weapons (advanced projectiles) and we co-operated with unrelated individuals because of our genetically determined propensity for this. [1]
Maybe this is why Facebook has over a Billion members?
Unfortunately TV and the Internet now has modified desire to co-operate extensively, creating, in my opinion, more self-centred'ness and much less of the Co-operation we had for most of our almost 3 million years as 'humans' on the planet.
Even considering only the time since we started the Agricultural period, we pursued Competition over Co-operation - aggression over pacifism, and I believe that is contributing to much of the Bullying we see today.
Recalling my Primary and Secondary school days, nothing like that I can recall in the lower grades and cliques certainly formed in High School, with perhaps an occasional temper flare, but no continual berating, name calling or bullying per say.
TV was new to the world in those days, and the Internet had many years to go before hatching.
[1] Curtis W. Marean - professor at the School of Human Evolution and Social Change at Arizona State U. and associate director of the Institute of Human Origins (ASU)
Yes good points. Trying to win over someone else, where one doesn't want to lose, and engages in mistreatment of others in order to make sure one wins, is part of the bullying psychology. "If I'm not the winner, then I'm the loser", so you dominate all encounters to we the "Winner" is a self-deluded mindset, and that makes everyone else the loser. Cooperative competitiveness, where mistreatment isn't done, is a viable alternative. This can even foster win-win or win-win-win scenarios. Not everything needs to be looked at as a win-lose dichotomy.
My dad grew up in the 60s when TV first came out, but there was bullying and fights then too. What era are you referring to?
Thanks for the feedback :)
What era? Well although we were relatively poor compared to our neighbours, we had a TV where they all came to watch Queen Elizabeth II's coronation in 1953. Perhaps in the 50's there was less bullying? would be nice to research some stats....
I have always strived for a win-win in business, with the occasional win-win-win.
So how best to change the world to Co-operative competitiveness? Seems to me the profiteers have a distinctive upper hand...
Yeah, they have the upper hand. How to change it? Changing minds first, then behavior can change. What lacks from humanity is always education. We're always busy with the rat race, survival or "enjoying" life to bother with thinking and trying to ameliorate our own lives or the future for those to come.
For me, the shittiest part of it is that bullies aren't actually that way as a result of being bullied themselves. That rationale was a huge help to moving past scars left by my own bullies, but it turns out it's simply untrue.
Instead recent findings indicate they are just hereditarily more aggressive, and seek an outlet for that aggression by bullying. This aggression actually winds up improving their performance in the business world and other areas of life.
http://www.today.com/parents/study-bullies-have-higher-self-esteem-social-status-lower-levels-t36271
http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20160822-why-bullying-is-such-a-successful-evolutionary-strategy
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/bullies-have-higher-self-esteem-social-success-study-finds-1.3173387
Is that a fucking downer or what
Yes, it's not universal, I had an "or" section or 3-4 things, but there are more as well:
Not all are perpetuating abuse they suffered. Many are very confident, and like power over others. They don't need to have been bullied as they do to others. Become the dominant one and other assume the submissive position that permits. So dominant minds overbear on those who let them do what they do. That is a way to climb up in society and "success" hehe, by climbing over others in a dichotomous relation of dominator-submissive. That's one aspect. I'm not sure if that's what the articles were talking about, but I wanted to give my take on it ;) Thanks for the feedback.
It parallels very closely the social structure of apes if you think about it. Chimps and gorillas in particular.
I'm glad you're bringing this issue to light. Many people need to realize how much of an impact bullying has on kids and adults. It's an issue that needs more attention and more initiative. It's also important for parents at home to realize this, especially if they are the one's causing the abuse. These incidents have long-term effects, and the sooner everyone realizes that, the sooner we can fix it.
Absolutely. Facing the problem and addressing it.
Good story , we have to care for our kids.
Please follow me @patricksanlin and upvote. Thanks
Good piece, we also have the social media bullies... Probably bullies are part of society fabric, we either cave in under their pressure or grow beyond their pressure. We can have a case study here and see how folks handle the pressure of being bullied here. It can give us some insights of the past, did the change from the person they were as a child or developed their own coping mechanism... there is a saying "Once a man and twice a child"
Wow