Bullying is frightening and harmful to children and young people.
The Anti Bullying Alliance defines bullying as:
- Emotionally harmful behaviours such as taunting, spreading hurtful rumours and excluding people from groups
- Physically harmful behaviours such as kicking, hitting, pushing or other forms of physical abuse.
Bullying can take many forms and individuals have different experiences. From what children and young people have told us, they consider it bullying if:
- It is repetitive, wilful, persistent
- It is intentionally harmful carried out by an individual or group
- There is an imbalance of power, leaving the person who is bullied feeling defenceless.
There are three main types of bullying these are:
- Physical
- Verbal
- Indirect (spreading rumours, excluding someone).
Types of bullying
Racist bullying
A person is targeted for their affinity to a group. Racist bullying hurts not only the intended victim but also their family and friends. Incidents can include:
- Verbal abuse - name calling, racist jokes, offensive mimicry
- Physical threats or attacks
- Wearing provocative badges or insignia
- Racist literature or songs
- Racist graffiti
- Name calling, derogatory assumptions or generalisations about race, culture or religion.
Homophobic bullying
This is the unfounded fear or hatred of people on the assumption that they are lesbian, gay or bisexual. It can also include the unfounded fear or hatred of transgender people. It is a particular type of bullying which is related to a person's sexualtiy or assumed sexuality. Homophobic insults are commmon within the playground and can socially exclude people, leaving them in fear of attack or ridicule. Incidents can include:
- Looks and comments about appearance or phyiscal development
- Abusive name calling about the person or relation or friend
- Sexual innuendos and propositions
- Gestures and mimicking
- Pornographic picture or graffiti
- Rumour spreading
- Isolating and excluding from social groups.
Cyber bullying
Mobile, internet and wireless technologies have increased the pace of communication and brought benefits to users worldwide. But their popularity provides increasing opportunity for misuse through cyber bullying.
Research commissioned by the Anti Bullying Alliance identifies seven categories of Cyberbullying;
- Text message bullying - involves sending unwelcome texts that are threatening or cause discomfort
- Picture/video clip bullying via mobile phone cameras - used to make the person being bullied feel threatened or embarrassed, with images usually sent to other people.
- phone call bullying via mobile phone - uses silent calls or abusive messages. Sometimes the bullied person's phone is stolen and used to harrass others, who then think the phone owner is responsible. As with all other mobile phone bullying , perpetrators often disguise their numbers.
- Email bullying - makes use of email to send bullying or threatening messages, often with an invented pseudonym or using someone else's name to pin the blame on them.
- Chat room bullying - involves sending menacing or upsetting responses to children/ young people when they are in a web based chat room.
- Bullying though instant messaging - is an internet based form of bullying where children and young people can be sent unpleasant messages as they conduct real time conversations on line
- Bullying via websites - includes the defamatory web logs (blogs), personal websites, on line personal polling sites, social networking sites.
Other examples of bullying
- Physical aggression - hitting, kicking, tripping up, spitting, taking or damaging property, use of threats or force in any way, intimidation or demands for money or goods
- Verbal - name calling, insulting, teasing, jokes, mockery, taunting, gossip, secrets, threats, reference to upsetting events
- Non verbal - staring, body language, getures, posturing
- Indirect - excluding, ostracising, rumours and stories, emails, chat rooms, messaging, phones, notes, texts, rude gestures or faces
- Sexual - touching repeated exhibition, voyerism, sexual propositioning, verbal personal comment
- Disability intolerance - name calling, exclusion, taking over for a person, mimicking, physical overpowering, laughing at difficulty
Some indicators of bullying
Sometimes a change of behaviour can be a sign of bullying. Parents and adults need to be alert to the possibility that bullying is occuring. The following signs could be indicators and should be investigated with sensitivity:
- Sleep or appetite problems
- Behaviour is immature, for example tantrums, thumb sucking
- Bed wetting, soiling
- Withdrawn, moody, clingy, aggressive, uncooperative, non communicative
- Difficulty in concentrating
- Aches, pains, cuts, bruises without adequate explanation
- Complaints about illness especially on a morning
- Stealing money or small things
- Requesting money for no acceptable reason
- Missing the school bus on purpose, leaving late for school
- Getting detention
- Droppping activities
- Best friends no longer calling
- Seeming upset or moody when using computer chat rooms
- Demanding designer clothes, latest moblie
- Asking to change school
- Clothes ripped, dirty or missing
- Arriving home hungry
- School work deteriorating.
For more information on anti bullying visit one of the following websites for information:
For advice regarding cyberbullying please click on the document below;
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For local support contact Anti Bullying North Lincolnshire on 01724 296629