Bullying

What is bullying?

There are many different definitions for bullying, but they all pretty much say the same thing. Bullying is the unwanted and aggressive behavior between people that involves a power imbalance. This unwanted aggressive behavior has to either have the potential to be repetitive or be repetitive. The power imbalance that causes this behavior does not have to be real. This imbalance can be many things, such as physical strength, embarrassing information, popularity or just the want to control and harm others. When most people think of bullying, they think of school children. Bullying does not just happen to children it can happen to adults too.

Understanding What Bullying Is

You can not just read the definition of bullying to understand it. Its textbook definition of ‘unwanted and aggressive behavior’ often leads people to believing that bullying is just a physical act. The use of the word 'aggressive' is often used to convey a physical action. Bullying is more than just hitting someone or knocking them down. Calling people names or trying to degrade them is also bullying, as is trying to stop people from interacting with them. The action of bullying is a “very durable behavioral style (P. 2018)”, this is because most of the time the person bullying gets their way. At least at first, they do. Something that is hard for people to understand is that bullies are made, not born. Most people are not born inherently evil. They learn how to be evil through the actions of those around them. They learn through the actions of others how to behave; if they see their parent hitting to reprimand, then they are learning that hitting solves problems.

Types of Bullying

In the beginning, there were three main types of bullying; verbal, social and physical. Verbal bullying is someone using language; both speech and written; to cause harm to someone else. This type of bullying includes teasing, name-calling, inappropriate sexual comments, and threatening to cause harm. Next comes social bullying, which can also be called relational bullying. This type of bullying is when a person sets out to hurt another's reputation or relationships. For example, leaving someone out on purpose, telling other people not to befriend someone, spreading rumors, or embarrassing someone in public. The last type is physical bullying. This is when you purposefully either hurt a person’s body or their possessions. This includes hitting, spitting, taking or breaking someone's things, making mean or rude hand gestures, and pushing. Most bullying is started because of someone's appearance or social status.

In more recent years, with the increase in technology, they have added a fourth group, cyberbullying. This type of bullying includes social media and text messages. Technology has become so advanced that messages can be sent instantly. People are never without their phones, so they can always get messages. This advancement means there are more ways to bully.

History of Bullying

Although it may not have been called bullying, it has been around since the beginning of time. During the reign of Elizabeth I her council was pushing her to marry. They believed that a woman couldn’t run a kingdom without a male. Her council wanted her to choose a husband the moment she became queen. They stated that she needed both a king and someone to produce a male heir. People within her own kingdom wanted to rebel because they thought a woman couldn’t rule. In that time period cultures all across the world, excluded women simply for being female. This is a form of bullying. Excluding someone on purpose is a form of social bullying. This exclusion of women, the poor, and people of different cultures or religions can be found all throughout history.

Another historical example is the reign of Hitler. Hitler held the belief that those of a certain coloring or religion were better than others. He bullied Jewish people to the point of killing them, to try and control the population. Purposefully hurting others and trying to control others are forms of bullying. In America’s history, we have persecution of both people of color and people of different sexual orientations. America’s civil war came as an effort to get rid of the bullying of African Americans. To this day we are still fighting some forms of racism and other discrimination. In the past, and in certain areas, it is legal to not provide someone with a product or a job based off a person's sexual orientation. This is bullying. Excluding someone from something based on a difference that can’t be controlled is bullying.

Cyberbullying

In today's modern world, cyberbullying has become a huge problem. There are dozens of different sites where people post about every minute of their lives. This era of oversharing leaves us wide open to criticism. Both adults and children are criticized and bullied for what they post. From youtube videos to facebook post, everybody is looking to see how many likes and comments he or she can get. So how do people bully over the internet? It can be something as simple as someone sending someone else a message that says ‘your so ugly, no one would miss you if you were dead’ or it could be something more complicated like just posting criticism about someone's decisions. Most cyberbullying happens between kids and teens. Kids are constantly posting selfies and videos of themselves doing the latest trend. Kids then comment on these posts. Kids are mean on a regular base, but with this twenty-four-hour access, it means there is no safe haven from bullies.

Pranks

Pranks are something everyone has done and or experienced. They can be fun for everyone, but they can also be harmful. Many kids don’t know how to tell the difference between what is funny and what is bullying. There is a fine line between being funny and making people laugh and hurting peoples feelings. For example, mischief night, also known as the night before Halloween, is full of kids running around playing pranks. Well, these pranks that they think are funny are actually harmful. When you egg someone's property it can leave a permanent mark, and that can cost a lot of money to fix. Some people are even afraid to go out on mischief night; they are fearful of kids attacking them as a prank. Making someone fearful isn’t funny and it certainly isn’t a prank. It is bullying. A lot of kids don’t see or don’t want to see that what they are doing is bullying. It can take something happening to them for them to realize what they are doing is harmful.

Hazing

Hazing is something that happens a lot in colleges. Sororities and Fraternities use hazing as part of their initiation ritual. If you survive then you are a member, if you don’t then you are shunned. Over the decades hazing has been used in Sororities and Fraternities, many of the students involved have been killed or seriously hurt. This has caused colleges to shut down or keep tight control over their ‘houses’. The colleges can’t always control them though. The hazing still happens it is just behind the scenes and this can be more dangerous. When the hazing is 'illegal' it can cause more fatalities because people are afraid to call for help.

Hazing is definitely a form of bullying. It is using your ability to control the initiates to force them to do things that are humiliating or harmful to themselves or others. There is a fine line between torture and fun. Initiations can be fun, like having to do an obstacle course. It is easy for an Initiation to turn into a hazing, each year people want the initiation to be bigger and better. Eventually, you run out of safe ideas. That is when it turns into things like who can drink the most or do the most dangerous stunt. This idea of ultimate control to the point of forcing harm is bullying; most people just don’t realize it.

Roles People Play

People play more roles than just the person bullying and the person being bullied. Everyone in the area also plays a role. People can play an active as well as a passive role when it comes to bullying. There are both direct and indirect roles. The kids who bully are a direct role; they are the ones directly involved in the bullying. These people need support to change, someone to address their behavior and what has caused it. Another direct role is the kids who are bullied; these are the ones who are targets of those who bully. They may need help learning how to respond to being bullied, not responding violently towards others or themselves.

Indirect roles are roles that involve watching the bullying. There are the ones who assist. They may not start the bullying, but they encourage those that do. Sometimes they even join in. Then there are the kids who reinforce; they give the bully an audience which provides support and encouragement. After that are the Outsiders; these are people who are separate from the actual act of bullying but do nothing to reinforce or stop it. Although they do not do anything to help the bullying, they do give an audience which provides support. These people tend to want to help the person being bullied but don’t know how. Lastly are the people who defend. They actively try to help the person being bullied whether by defending them or comforting. More often than not people play more than one role.

Repercussions

Thousands of people, both children and adults, wake up worried or scared about going to work and school. In general, someone can handle being bullied once or twice, but what people can’t handle is constantly being bullied. When kids are being bullied, it can not only affect their school work but also their health. When bullying occurs at school, it can make a child fearful of attending school. This can cause them to lash out, pretend to be sick, and a lack of concentration. The stress of worrying can cause stomach pains and diarrhea. If bullying is happening in a common, area like a cafeteria, it can cause a child to avoid those areas. In the case of the cafeteria, this avoidance causes hunger. Bullying can also cause low self-esteem, depression, anxiety, and thoughts of suicide. All these effects can happen to both adults and children. Another common effect of bullying is the creation of another bully. Those who are being bullied can easily slip into the role of bully. This can happen more often with children than adults, as children are still learning who they are. They see the behavior as appropriate or they want others to feel what they are feeling.

Punishments

So what do you do about bullying? How do you stop and prevent it? Your reaction needs to be catered to the who, when, and at what age. Whom are you dealing with? With younger children, you need to teach them the difference between right and wrong. Talk to them about how they would feel if bullying happened to them. Children need to be taught that there is no excuse for bullying. No matter what is happening to you, or in your life, you can’t be a bully. As a child gets older you can talk about the consequences; what happens to those who are bullied. When talking doesn’t work you can turn to community service or writing papers about bullying. It may even be necessary to do things like in school suspensions. With adults, it’s different, you can talk to them but that may not do anything. Bullying isn’t technically illegal, although it can turn into harassment and abuse. You can’t give an adult a suspension from work just for being mean. The best thing to do is tell superiors or ignore the bully. Generally, if you ignore a bully, they go away. If everyone is ignoring them, then he or she has no one to bully. If it turns into harassment or abuse you can always go to the cops.

Conclusion

At the end of the day people, no matter their age, need to be held responsible for bullying. There is no kids will be kids, boys will be boys, or its just words. Parents need to be held responsible when their children bully. They need to reprimand and punish their children or they need to let the school do it. In order to be able to punish and prevent bullying people have to understand what bullying. People need to be informed on how people become bullies and how to properly prevent bullying. Kicking kids out of school isn’t the answer but doing nothing isn’t the answer either. In order to prevent bullying, you have to find and address it at an early age. When kids who bully grow into adults who bully, today's society doesn’t do anything to stop them. Short of them beating the life out of someone, adult bullying is seen as non-existent. Not only do we need to address bullying in schools but also in adults. There need to be real consequences for adults who think they can bully other adults and kids.

References

American Psychological Association. (n.d.). Bullying. Retrieved from https://www.apa.org/topics/bullying/

Lyness, D. (Ed.). (2013, July). Dealing With Bullying. Retrieved from https://kidshealth.org/en/teens/bullies.html

P. (n.d.). (2018) Bullying. Retrieved from https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/bullying

StopBullying. (n.d.). The Roles Kids Play in Bullying. Retrieved from https://www.stopbullying.gov/what-is-bullying/roles-kids-play/index.html

StopBullying. (n.d.). What Is Bullying. Retrieved from https://www.stopbullying.gov/what-is-bullying/index.html