How does bullying affect child development

What Is Bullying | StopBullying.gov

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.

Types of Bullying
Where and When Bullying Happens
Frequency of Bullying

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

Where and When Bullying Happens

Bullying can occur during or after school hours. While most reported bullying happens in the school building, a significant percentage also happens in places like on the playground or the bus. It can also happen travelling to or from school, in the youth’s neighborhood, or on the Internet.

Frequency of Bullying

There are two sources of federally collected data on youth bullying:

The 2019 School Crime Supplement to the National Crime Victimization Survey (National Center for Education Statistics and Bureau of Justice) indicates that, nationwide, about 22% of students ages 12–18 experienced bullying.
The 2019 Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) indicates that, nationwide, 19.5% of students in grades 9–12 report being bullied on school property in the 12 months preceding the survey.

How to Prevent Bullying | StopBullying.gov

Parents, school staff, and other caring adults have a role to play in preventing bullying. They can:

Help kids understand bullying. Talk about what bullying is and how to stand up to it safely. Tell kids bullying is unacceptable. Make sure kids know how to get help.
Keep the lines of communication open. Check in with kids often. Listen to them. Know their friends, ask about school, and understand their concerns.
Encourage kids to do what they love. Special activities, interests, and hobbies can boost confidence, help kids make friends, and protect them from bullying behavior.
Model how to treat others with kindness and respect.

Help Kids Understand Bullying

Kids who know what bullying is can better identify it. They can talk about bullying if it happens to them or others. Kids need to know ways to safely stand up to bullying and how to get help.

Encourage kids to speak to a trusted adult if they are bullied or see others being bullied. The adult can give comfort, support, and advice, even if they can’t solve the problem directly. Encourage the child to report bullying if it happens.
Talk about how to stand up to kids who bully. Give tips, like using humor and saying “stop” directly and confidently. Talk about what to do if those actions don’t work, like walking away
Talk about strategies for staying safe, such as staying near adults or groups of other kids.
Urge them to help kids who are bullied by showing kindness or getting help.
Watch the short webisodes and discuss them - PDF with kids.

Keep the Lines of Communication Open

Research tells us that children really do look to parents and caregivers for advice and help on tough decisions. Sometimes spending 15 minutes a day talking can reassure kids that they can talk to their parents if they have a problem. Start conversations about daily life and feelings with questions like these:

What was one good thing that happened today? Any bad things?
What is lunch time like at your school? Who do you sit with? What do you talk about?
What is it like to ride the school bus?
What are you good at? What would do you like best about yourself?

Talking about bullying directly is an important step in understanding how the issue might be affecting kids. There are no right or wrong answers to these questions, but it is important to encourage kids to answer them honestly. Assure kids that they are not alone in addressing any problems that arise. Start conversations about bullying with questions like these:

What does “bullying” mean to you?
Describe what kids who bully are like. Why do you think people bully?
Who are the adults you trust most when it comes to things like bullying?
Have you ever felt scared to go to school because you were afraid of bullying? What ways have you tried to change it?
What do you think parents can do to help stop bullying?
Have you or your friends left other kids out on purpose? Do you think that was bullying? Why or why not?
What do you usually do when you see bullying going on?
Do you ever see kids at your school being bullied by other kids? How does it make you feel?
Have you ever tried to help someone who is being bullied? What happened? What would you do if it happens again?

Get more ideas for talking with children - PDF about life and about bullying. If concerns come up, be sure to respond.

There are simple ways that parents and caregivers can keep up-to-date with kids’ lives.

Read class newsletters and school flyers. Talk about them at home.
Check the school website
Go to school events
Greet the bus driver
Meet teachers and counselors at “Back to School” night or reach out by email
Share phone numbers with other kids’ parents

Teachers and school staff also have a role to play.

Encourage Kids to Do What They Love

Help kids take part in activities, interests, and hobbies they like. Kids can volunteer, play sports, sing in a chorus, or join a youth group or school club. These activities give kids a chance to have fun and meet others with the same interests. They can build confidence and friendships that help protect kids from bullying.

Model How to Treat Others with Kindness and Respect

Kids learn from adults’ actions. By treating others with kindness and respect, adults show the kids in their lives that there is no place for bullying. Even if it seems like they are not paying attention, kids are watching how adults manage stress and conflict, as well as how they treat their friends, colleagues, and families.

Harassment - no! How to raise self-confidence in a child | Child health | Health

Where do evil children come from? Who is to blame that the world around has become so cruel? What can be done to ensure that your child does not become either an aggressor, or a victim, or a silent witness to bullying? These topics were discussed at the online forum "Infourok", which was attended by well-known psychologists, educators and public figures.

Teacher, Academician of the Russian Academy of Education (RAO) Shalva Amonashvili is sure that it is not fair to accuse children of cruelty, since bullying occurs as a result of the mistakes of adults - teachers and parents.

Closeness, not distance

Parents should not shrug off the responsibility of raising their children. Nevertheless, the role of the school in the formation of the personality of the child is enormous. No wonder Academician D.S. Likhachev said: “Where there are good teachers, there are good students.”

According to Shalva Amonashvili, the main thing in the prevention of bullying at school is to love children and be able to be friends with them. Education must precede learning. According to the great teacher J. G. Pestalozzi: "A child succeeds twice as much in love."

The teacher should not keep a distance with the students, but develop a spiritual community. Then the children themselves will tell about their troubles and joys. “Love children so that they love you,” advises Sh. Amonashvili.

Teacher Evgeny Yamburg believes that pedagogy should be eventful. This means that the teacher should not oppose himself to the students, but always be with them, and in the class there should be as many joint events as possible - trips, excursions, school performances, volunteering. A common cause and a common goal bring together. nine0003

“My first teacher”

Many mothers and fathers are sure that a good teacher is one whose children follow the lead. This is a huge misconception. Physiologist, psychologist, doctor of biological sciences, professor, academician of the Russian Academy of Education Maryana Bezrukikh spoke about an experiment that was conducted in a Moscow school, where admission to the 1st grade was going on in four parallels at once. One of the teachers was just like that - strict, authoritarian. It turned out that the children who got into her class were ill 4 times more often. nine0003

“Choose not a strict teacher, but a kind and interested one,” advises Mariana Bezrukikh. – And pay attention to the psychological state of children. It is alarming if the student began to fall asleep badly, eat poorly and lose weight. If this happens, all the bells should be rung.”

Where a parent goes wrong

M. Bezrukikh considers school bullying a situation of chronic stress that has a negative impact on the development of the child's brain. “When bullied, neuroanatomical changes occur in the brain that impair memory, attention, perception, and thinking. And bullying lays a negative program for the future. Due to the excess of cortisol, which is released for a long time under stress, a person will begin to consider any trouble as a disaster. nine0003

It is necessary to protect a child from violence not only from outside, but also within the family. One of the types of domestic aggression is the so-called speech attacks, when a parent “reprimands” his son or daughter, sometimes without choosing expressions, while he / she does not have the right to object. Another type of domestic violence is boycott. And since children always take an example from their parents (especially of their own gender), then, as adults, they will practice the same aggression in their family.

Instead of threats, blackmail and manipulation, it is better to use an agreement in which the rights and obligations of the parties should be clearly defined. If you need something, ask, but don't demand. nine0003

Not pretending to be a victim

“A victim of bullying is a person with low self-esteem, oriented to the opinions of others. He always tries to be good, correct, ready to sacrifice everything in order to be recognized as such, - says psychologist Marina Spirande to . - He has a high level of anxiety, even if the victim walks around with a blank look and tries not to show any emotions.

Children, like animals, perfectly recognize anxiety, and it provokes them to aggression. Teenagers also gather in packs and poison the weak according to the principle of natural selection. nine0003

Important

Studies by American scientists have proven that the image of the victim carries one important sign - bad posture. In the United States, there was even a slogan: "Straighten your back - don't be a victim." Safety coach Sergei Kiselyov is sure that feeling like a victim is not only a psychological, but also a physical condition, and he advises that you definitely send your child to sports (preferably swimming or acrobatics).

How to keep your child safe from bullying

Learn to communicate openly

Speak out your feelings, don't hush them up. Say, for example, like this: “Yes, I’m angry with you now, don’t touch me yet, I’ll go cook dinner, and then, when I calm down, we’ll talk.”

Stop controlling everything

Total parental control - the same violence as excessive demands on the child. When expecting something from children, age physiology must be taken into account. At 6-7 years old, the baby cannot show the ability to self-regulate and strong-willed efforts. But at 9-10 is already capable of it.

Move away from passive aggression

Do not suppress anger yourself and do not teach this to your child. Children who always and everywhere try to be good lose their sense of personal boundaries. And such a person unconsciously provokes the aggression of others. Of course, this does not mean that it is permissible for a child to yell and throw objects. Teach him to show aggression in a socially acceptable way. For example, the game of "chants" helps (go somewhere and yell to your heart's content). Or you can get a whipping dummy. Or give it your all in sports, in dance. nine0003

Develop emotional intelligence

Family trips, joint watching of films, performances, discussion of books, attending trainings will help.

Get socialized

Enroll your child in sections, circles, send to the camp.

What are the Family Prerequisites for School Bullying – News – IQ Research and Education Portal – National Research University Higher School of Economics

Parental behavior often affects the involvement of children in school bullying, employees of the HSE Institute of Education showed in an article. The perpetrators of bullying often come from families in which it is customary to bring up children harshly and neglect their needs. The victims of aggression are often schoolchildren who are overly controlled at home, but do not provide emotional support. nine0003

Demonstration of strength

Bullying is one of the most acute problems in school life. In a teenage environment, among classmates, fights, bullying, threats, blackmail, slander often occur. One or a group of students are intentionally and regularly harmed: physical, psychological, social, and the forces of the bully (aggressor) and the victim are obviously unequal. The authors of the article, Head of the Antisocial Behavior Prevention Laboratory of the HSE Institute of Education Artur Rean and Laboratory Researcher Maria Novikova, explain:
One of the main goals of the offender is to assert himself in the class, to demonstrate superiority among peers.

The victim often feels helpless. Bullying usually occurs with the support or non-interference of other students.
Bullying can be direct - in the form of violence, intimidation, etc. - or indirect (gossip, slander, etc.). However, any kind of aggression has consequences. Schoolchildren subjected to harassment withdraw into themselves, experience an inferiority complex, and study worse. nine0003

Summarizing the results of about 80 studies of adolescent bullying in different countries of the world shows that on average 35% of students regularly experience this phenomenon. According to the international monitoring of the quality of education in schools PISA, Russia demonstrates fairly high levels of victimization. 27.5% of students experience bullying on a regular basis, of which 9.5% frequently experience bullying (compared to OECD averages of 18.7% and 8.9%, respectively).

In countries where anti-bullying programs are widespread (Great Britain, Scandinavian countries, USA), rates of adolescent aggression are indeed decreasing. What is important is the very fact of intolerance to bullying, its social unacceptability. This is also evidenced by the Russian study. If it is not forbidden to mock and insult in the school team, then the aggressor can gain popularity and impose his style of behavior on others. And that only fuels the bullying. And vice versa: in those classes where teenagers and teachers condemn aggression, there are fewer attacks and fights. They are not seen as a decent way to solve problems, and bullies are not perceived as leaders. nine0003

Factors of aggression

Among the reasons for bullying, researchers name, for example, a high level of mistrust in society (teenagers perceive the world as a hostile environment), attacks from parents and teachers, problems in the family, age-related crises (teenage riots), learning difficulties and communication and bad habits (smoking, alcoholism, etc.).

Arthur Rean and Maria Novikova focused on family factors of aggression. These are:
the structure of the family system (hierarchy or more democratic relations between older and younger family members, the interaction of siblings - brothers and sisters, etc.),
Parenting style (e.g. authoritarian or softer),
Father and mother behavior (including degree of involvement in child rearing),
Family communication style (closedness or frank discussion of problems),
Parents' socioeconomic status: their level of education, income, employment.

The work of Rean and Novikova is based on the results of Russian and foreign studies of school bullying.

The context of aggression

The psychological situation in the family largely determines the child's involvement in school bullying, the authors emphasize. Thus, the aggressors are often children from families with power imbalances. For example, parents suppress and bully children. Or so behave older brothers / sisters. This relationship model is brought into the classroom by the students. There they try to lead the power hierarchy. nine0003

Examples of domestic violence also spur aggression. According to some reports, among those who became a bully (the initiator of bullying), there are three times more of those who witnessed or suffered physical aggression in the family.

However, as other works show, aggressors grow up in families that are more prosperous emotionally, in contrast to children who have become victims of bullying. The latter usually live in families in which there is no close emotional contact between relatives: distant relationships predominate. For example, it is not customary to share experiences. The assessments of the family climate turned out to be higher among the initiators, and not among the victims of bullying. The aggressors considered their parents' behavior to be more predictable and the home environment to be more positive. nine0003

Risk group

Researchers note that the victims of bullying are often children from families with an emotional imbalance, as well as a mismatched parenting style (these factors are interrelated). For example, "father's lack of involvement is often accompanied by mother's overcontrol," Rean and Novikova explain.

But another scenario is possible. The risks of victimization are higher for those children who are criticized and controlled by both parents. At the same time, criticism is rather formal in nature: the father and mother scold the student without delving into the problem itself, that is, without helping to solve it. “For example, a student is criticized for having entered into a conflict, having a fight with one of his classmates,” explains Maria Novikova. - At the same time, parents do not delve into the essence of the problem: what was the situation, what caused the conflict, who initiated it. They just say, for example, that “good kids don’t fight,” and that’s it.” nine0003

Particularly disturbing is the fact that children themselves take a passive position in relation to bullying. They believe that any action they take is likely to worsen the situation. “There is a feeling of powerlessness, the so-called learned helplessness, when a person is sure that he cannot influence the situation in any way and his suffering will continue indefinitely,” the researcher comments. “This can contribute to the emergence of suicidal thoughts and intentions.”

Victimization can also be associated with a lack of separation (psychological separation) from parents, with too "close involvement of the child in relations with all family members." The older brother or sister in this case is regarded in two ways. On the one hand, relations with them are quite close. On the other hand, the potential victim regards siblings as people who have power over them. As a result, the manifestation of negative emotions here looks dangerous or inappropriate. Such experiences are repressed. This has negative consequences, psychological trauma can stretch for many years. nine0003

Mother and father

According to a number of studies, Bullies of both sexes have difficulty communicating with their parents. But victimization is also associated with difficult relationships with mother and father.

Thus, overprotectiveness on the part of the mother creates the risk of becoming a victim of school bullying for boys. For girls, they arise from the cold and hostile attitude of the mother. Conversely, “maternal warmth and a favorable family climate reduce the intensity of psychological consequences, in particular depressive symptoms, in children who have already been bullied,” the authors add. nine0003

Destructive “behavior of mothers that hinders children's mastery of social roles characteristic of their gender,” the researchers emphasize. For example, a mother, trying to protect her son from injury, can in every possible way limit his mobility, forbid him to run, jump, sometimes break his nose (for example, in a brawl), explains Maria Novikova.

The role of the father is also ambiguous. So, they can teach aggression – directly or indirectly: by behavior, judgments, etc. 5.5% of cases of aggression among such students). nine0003

For younger schoolchildren, predictors of aggression, according to a number of studies, are:
a situation where the father retrospectively assesses his wife's pregnancy as highly stressful for him,

the father's hostility towards the child in his early childhood,
too harsh upbringing, including boycott , physical punishment, etc. The father can constantly “appeal to the way “real men” behave, although this is a very limited behavior model that is not suitable for all situations of raising a child,” the researcher comments. nine0003

Communication at home

If the family has good communication, the risk of victimization (or feelings of bullying) for the child is lower. And vice versa, in families with the so-called “separated communication profile” (when people are closed, there is little psychological support for each other, etc.), it is more difficult for children who have been bullied. It is not customary to discuss experiences in such systems. And if there is communication on these topics, then it does not take place in the mother-father-child triad, but in the dyad, that is, between the child and one of the parents or with both, but separately. nine0003

According to research, parents or siblings often associate violence with the victim's behavior: "I provoked myself, can't communicate, didn't succeed with classmates, couldn't fight back, etc." As a result, the child closes, does not share experiences with loved ones. In this case, bullying is more difficult to stop.

Socio-economic framework

Children from poorly educated and poor families are more likely to show aggression, but they themselves often become its victims. “A socially disadvantageous context—low levels of education, income, and family cultural capital—is a predictor of a more rigid and inconsistent parenting style,” the researchers explain.