What is Bullying?
Bullying can take various forms and occur in different settings. Here are five examples of different forms of bullying:
1. Verbal bullying:
This form of bullying involves the use of hurtful words, insults, name-calling, or teasing to belittle or humiliate someone. Examples include making fun of someone’s appearance, intelligence, or social status.
2. Physical bullying:
Physical bullying involves the use of physical force or aggression to harm or intimidate others. Examples include hitting, kicking, pushing, or stealing someone’s belongings.
3. Social bullying:
Also known as relational bullying, social bullying involves manipulating social relationships to isolate, exclude, or spread rumours about someone. Examples include spreading gossip, intentionally ignoring or excluding someone, or damaging someone’s reputation.
4. Sexual bullying:
This form of bullying involves unwelcome sexual comments, gestures, or advances. It can also include spreading explicit or inappropriate content without consent or engaging in sexual harassment.
5. Cyberbullying:
Cyberbullying is bullying with the use of digital technologies. It can take place on social media, messaging platforms, gaming platforms, and mobile phones. It is repeated behaviour, aimed at scaring, angering, or shaming those who are targeted. Examples include:
- Spreading lies about or posting embarrassing photos or videos of someone on social media
- Sending hurtful, abusive, or threatening messages, images, or videos via messaging platforms
- Impersonating someone and sending mean messages to others on their behalf or through fake accounts.
Face-to-face bullying and cyberbullying can often happen alongside each other.
But cyberbullying leaves a digital footprint – a record that can prove useful and provide evidence to help stop the abuse.
Together you will start to build an open relationship where you can communicate and be part of their online adventure. Visit www.socialkids.co.za today.
Emotional and Psychological Damage
It’s important to note that bullying can cause significant emotional and psychological harm to the victims.
Types of Bullies
Virtually all schools have problems with bullying and there are many programs on the subject available to learners and parents. However, there are different types of bullying.
- You have the big type of bully who is not well socialised and tends to bully younger children.
- You have a child who is unhappy at home, attracts friends who have the same issues, and then end up forming gangs, who ultimately bully learners at the school or end up with gang fights.
- And then, as I’m sure most of us can remember, there was always a child in the class who just didn’t fit in and was given a hard time by the rest of the class.
What about the Victims?
Strangely, there are no programmes regarding victims.
Bullies tend to target victims, and often these victims have not been well socialised and have difficulty in dealing with the world of the playground.
Victim
For instance, you might find a six-year-old who is uncertain of himself, being teased by some of his classmates. He bursts into tears and says he’s going to tell his mother. The mother then approaches the school insisting that the parents of the bullies need to be brought to book.
If this happens, the chances of the victim being fully accepted by the group diminish and his school life might turn into a nightmare.
Worrying Trend
In this day and age, where children don’t have to have friends but can connect with other children via social media and gaming, means that they don’t have to physically and emotionally attach to other human beings and as a result may create their own subculture.
I have a theory that cyberbullies were themselves victims, but by remaining anonymous nobody ever finds out who they are.
The Parent’s Role
The Parent’s role is to equip their child with the skills needed to confront all challenges that Life will throw at them on their journey to adulthood – and this includes Bullying and cyberbullying.
The Problem with Compassionate Parenting
Of great concern is the so-called new age of Compassionate Parenting where parents are given the message that they need to always be there for their child. This has resulted in a huge number of children who are being over-protected, molly-coddled and / or over-controlled. In other words, they display the following tendencies:
- They mix far too much with adults
- They are never allowed to sleep out at friends
- They are never left alone at parties
- Their mothers do far too much for them, especially with things that they should be doing for themselves, such as dressing themselves, playing on their own, making their school lunch, running their bathwater, and much more
- They’re often bored unless watching TV or engaging with digital games and social media
- They have poor social skills and may become the target of bullies
- They have poor social skills and may become bullies.
In other words, without realising it compassionate parents are encouraging their child to become helpless, by allowing them to opt out of challenges and become far too dependent on their parents’ doing things for them which they should be doing for themselves.
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