Understanding the four different types of bullying
Here is how you can identify the different types of bullying and if your child is a victim.
November 18 marks International Stand Up to Bullying Day.
Bullying is a repeated aggressive behavior where one person (or group of people) in a position of power deliberately intimidates, abuses, or coerces an individual with the intention to hurt that person physically or emotionally.
Many parents are concerned with protecting their children from bullying, especially since it is so prevalent.
Bullying can have a lasting and devastating impact on your child and affect their emotional well-being.
Some children might suffer from depression, anxiety, or have an eating disorder due to bullying. In bad cases, some even take their own lives due to bullying.
According to Preventing Bullying organisation, bullying must include all three of these characteristics:
1) Intentional - the behavior was aggressive and a deliberate attempt to hurt another person
2) Repeated - these aggressive actions occur repeatedly over time to the same person or group of people
3) Power imbalance - the person bullying has more physical or social power than the child or children being bullied
The Stop Bullying government site states that there are three types of bullying - physical, social, and verbal.
It defines verbal bullying as saying or writing things that are intentionally meant to harm someone. These can include - teasing, name-calling, inappropriate sexual comments, taunting, and threatening to cause harm.
Social bullying or relational bullying is defined as hurting someone’s reputation or relationships. Examples are - leaving someone out on purpose, telling other children not to be friends with someone, spreading rumours about someone, and embarrassing someone in public.
Physical bullying, on the other hand, involves hurting a person’s body or possessions by either hitting, kicking, pinching, spitting, tripping, pushing, taking or breaking someone’s things or making mean or rude hand gestures.
There is also cyber bullying which is defined as bullying that takes place online and includes sending, posting, or sharing negative, harmful, false, or mean content about someone else.
Children who are experiencing bullying might start to isolate themselves or become aggressive. Look out for more signs of bullying by reading this article: 'How to tell if your child is being bullied'.
To deal with bullying, the first step is to advise your child that if he or she gets bullied, she needs to speak out, either talk to you as a parent or someone else who is older that they trust - which might be a guardian, sibling, or a teacher. The second step is to stay in safe areas where they won't be with the bully alone until the issue is taken care of.
Also assure your child that you will do everything in your power to keep them safe. Don't take what they are telling you lightly.
Image courtesy of iStock/ @Inside Creative House
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Image courtesy of iStock/ @Inside Creative House