Children of all ages are still developing and hormonal, so they often don’t understand themselves why they are doing something or behaving in a certain way. Studies indicate that bullying peaks around ages 11 to 13 and decreases as children grow older. Children bullying is often a lack of emotional intelligence and lack of self-awareness which develops as they get older. A display of aggressive or abusive behaviour towards others which includes teasing and continuously making fun of others is a lack of empathy and awareness. Unlike a one-off joke perceived as being playful ‘banter’, when the behaviour is repeated this then constitutes as bullying. There is often a fine line between playful banter and bullying. Sometimes children fail to realise when they are crossing the line.

Bullying can happen during or after school. It can happen in the classroom, school building or playground without the teachers realising what is going on. It can happen on route home on the school bus, public transportation, on the neighbourhood streets. Too often children that are being bullied are embarrassed or too scared to alert teachers or their guardian about what is going on. They have been many reported cases in the UK and the USA of children committing suicide as a result of being bullied and both school and guardian at home had no clues.

Schools have a legal responsibility to safeguard against bullying and have policies and protocols in place to prevent and manage bullying. The governments in the UK and individual states across the USA, have anti-bullying campaigns throughout the year to bring awareness to identifying when a child is being bullied or when a child is displaying bullying behaviour.

Cyberbullying takes place on the internet via mobile phones, tablets and computers, through social media, email, text messages, online forums, gaming platforms and other online communities. It involves the bully sending offensive, rude, inappropriate messages, sharing harmful content or private information to cause public humiliation or embarrassment. The content can include images, memes or text. Cyberbullying is a serious offence and, in some instances, it is a criminal offence. It can be very damaging to a person’s reputation, because when content is posted on the internet, it is a permanent public record which can be accessible by organisations including schools, universities, businesses, sports clubs etc. Anyone searching online for information on an individual, are likely to see this information show up. So, cyberbullying is extremely dangerous because of the permanent effects it can have on someone’s life, affecting their employment opportunities, family and social life. It is also very easy for it to happen without anyone’s knowledge including the person who is being targeted. Often the bully with post things online anonymously without the person knowing until later when the damage is done. Once the something is available online it can be spread very quickly to different devices and on different platforms.

Bullying also happens commonly in the workplace. Bullying is not isolated to just children. Often adults and young people can bully one another as a result of envy, jealousy, being competitive, being judgemental, being discriminative, racist or prejudice. This can be because of how someone looks, how they talk or how they behave, what job they do, what qualifications they have or don’t have, where they live, where they were born, their financial circumstances, their marital status, their religion or circle of friends and many other possible reasons. Bullies are prone to finding any excuse to bully someone, no matter how nice or decent a person may be, they will find fault and a reason to dislike and bully them. In some cases, a bully may bully someone because they actually fancy them and don’t know how to admit it or correctly address the person so they resort to teasing or making fun out them with negative innuendos.

The short answer is no. Bullying is a learned behaviour that often starts with a child wanting to get its own way, and when they do successfully, they continue to repeat the behaviour to always get their own way. This type of behaviour typically starts at 2 years old, often described as the ‘terrible twos’. It is a behaviour that is allowed during adolescence that can turn into something habitual and dysfunctional if it is not addressed and handled early on. People bully because they think they can do what they want and get what they want without consequence. A pattern that they experienced during adolescents that follows them until their experiences are broadened and they build a new awareness of themselves, others and their environment. Bullies tend to display anxiety and paranoia, a false sense of importance, lack of empathy, hostility and anti-social behaviour. Because bullies are usually internally insecure they target people that seem passive, submissive, low self-esteem or insecure.

Signs of Bullying
There a various signals and types of bullying behaviour, these include:

• Verbal teasing – name calling, inappropriate sexual remarks, taunting, verbal threats and profanity
• Social exclusion – leaving someone out, singling out, telling others not to play or hang around with them, spreading rumours, intentionally embarrassing them in front of others
• Physically harming- hitting, kicking, purposely tripping them other, pinching, spitting, pushing them, pulling their hair, taking or breaking their possessions
• Psychological teasing – displaying mean body language, pulling mean facial expressions or making mean or rude hand gestures

How to Deal with Bullies
It is important for us all to be aware of bullying behaviour and what to do if we witness or experience it first-hand. It is especially important for parents, carers and school staff to become aware of bullying behaviour to better protect and safeguard children. It is important to make children aware of bullying and how they should report it when it occurs. Children should also be made aware of what to do if they themselves are being bullied and who they can talk to. It may be a school counsellor, a teacher, parent or carer, welfare officer or nurse. It is important that these policies and protocols are in place and communicated affectively to children, parents, carers and all school staff.

In school, bullying should be reported immediately to the heads of school and superintendents, school counsellors, class teachers, parents, carers and appropriate services. In the workplace bullying should be reported to line managers and business leaders. If bullying is life threatening the emergency services should be called immediately.

Here is a list of resources where you can talk to someone about bullying:

Childline (UK)
If you’re under 19 you can confidentially call, chat online or email about any problem big or small.
Email support service: https://www.childline.org.uk/get-support/1-2-1-counsellor-chat/
Phone support service open 24/7: 0800 1111

The Mix (UK)
Offers support to anyone under 25 about anything that’s troubling them.
Webchat service: https://www.themix.org.uk/get-support/speak-to-our-team
Phone support service 3pm – 12am, seven days a week: 0808 808 4994

Suicide Prevention (USA)
Webchat service: https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/chat/
Phone support service: 1-800-273-8255

CEOP (Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (UK) – you can report abuse to: https://ceop.police.uk/Safety-Centre/Should-I-make-a-report-to-CEOP-YP/

Facebook – report abuse to:
https://www.facebook.com/help/181495968648557/

https://www.cfchildren.org/blog/2020/11/when-bullying-is-racially-motivated-recognizing-it-for-what-it-is-and-supporting-kids-to-be-anti-racist-upstanders/

1. https://www.stopbullying.gov/bullying/what-is-bullying
2. https://www.stopbullying.gov/cyberbullying/what-is-it#frequencyofcyberbullying
3. https://www.youngminds.org.uk/young-person/coping-with-life/bullying/
4. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/bullying
5. https://www.cfchildren.org/resources/bullying-prevention-resources/

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