Understanding Bullying and Its Effects on Children

“Bullying is defined as, intentional actions repeated over time that harm, intimidate or humiliate another person” (Olewus 1993). For those who are bullied, 13% of students experience physical bullying whereas 37% of students experience verbal and social bullying. Children that are subjected to bullying have shown higher signs ofbeing susceptible to depression, and engagement of self inflicted harm as well. Not only are there physical effects of bullying but academically as well.

For those who are bullied, they have experienced poorer grades as well as a higher likelihood of being absent too.

Bullying certainly has an effect on a students ability to perform but that carries over into their personal life quite drastically as well. Suicidal behavior is seen at significantly higher rates for those being bullied and for those who involved in school shootings nearly 3 out of4 perpetrators were previously bullied as well. A common misconception to bullying is that it happens behind the scenes and not noticeably in public.

However, in most recent cases ofbullying, nearly 85 percent of cases involve witnesses as well. In cases involving children, reports have shown that students from 8 to 11 years old have reported that half who witnessed an event were likely to report. Whereas children in grades 1 through 6, roughly the same age range as before reported 25% of bullying’s that occurred on school playgrounds, These numbers found, compared those actually intervening to those who would say they would. The results show that children in this age range heavily outweighed their probability of acting compared to actually intervening.

Get quality help now

Sweet V

Verified

Proficient in: Bullying

4.9 (984)

“ Ok, let me say I’m extremely satisfy with the result while it was a last minute thing. I really enjoy the effort put in. ”

+84 relevant experts are online

Hire writer

Many schools and institutions have aimed an additional component of bullying to bystanders.

A heavy emphasis on parents, teachers and bystanders have been placed in certain schools on the role and importance of bullying intervention and would often reward outstanding or brief intervention as a preventative measure, According to a study done by the “KiVa Program” had shown no real life significant change in intervention to those involved in such curriculum. Albeit an intervention rate of 37% was discovered, a marginally higher number compared to schools that don‘t incorporate such a program. Identifying and differentiating reactions to bullying have been difficult to conduct, however many factors can be analyzed to help prevent a bullying episodes One of the leading factors is the child‘s degree to which they’re upset by bullying and can be a predicative measure to prevent and stop an episode from occurring.

One of the first goals to witnessing and intervening bullying is to group children in identifiable groups of “emotional” or “unemotional” reactions to bullying. Emotional groups had seen 43% of bullying intervention compared to 57% lack ofintervention from the ‘Unemotional Group’. Although little is known about children’s’ reactions to bullying in relation to the bystander effect. According to previous studies, those from the emotional group were 47% less likely to intervene to maintain a reduction in their own personal distress. Many factors beyond a child’s emotional state are needed to be able to theorize the catalyst for prevention to bullying.

Some of those factors include; gender, age, peer victimization, efficacy in confronting peers, emotional expressiveness, affective empathy. Of this criteria, studies have found that age and peer victimization had a negative prediction for intervention. Females, efficacy in confronting peers, emotional expressiveness and those belonging to the emotional group showed higher positive predictions for preventative measures. Lastly, those that are members of the Emotional group had been predicted to show the highest level of bystander intervention above all other factors For this experiment, the data had been collected in two different environments One being in a classroom setting, and the latter being in a controlled laboratory setting.

These studies were conducted with 4″‘ and 5’h grade participants since they are believed to be the most susceptible to bully and be bullied. Students had been shown bullying videos to expose them to the nature ofbullying first hand as a group. Where the two groups of emotional and unemotional students had watched together The goal the study was to investigate a child’s emotional and physiological reactions to the bullying videos and relate the discovered reactions to a child’s willingness to intervene during a bullying episode in school From the study, outsider predictions were upheld for a child’s tendency to intervening in relation to whether their in the emotional or unemotional group.

This study had upheld even further when you incorporate age, gender, efficacy in confronting peers, emotional expressiveness. From the findings, the emotional group had been observed as “upset” from episodes and less likely to intervene in order to stabilize their own emotional security. However after watching bullying videos, those students had shown levels of intervention while witnessing bullying which suggests that both positive and negative emotions can lead to adaptive action.

Bullying is a widespread epidemic across the world, and preventing and intervening is the main concern to stop episodes from happening. There is still many limitations and restrictions in placed to fully discover a child‘s inclination to intervening. From the study, a main platform to analyze whether a child can be classified as emotional or unemotional. Even within those categories many factors have been pressed to discover major factors in intervention. From the study, children who are able to relate and understand the power of bullying on an emotional state is the leading factor in a child’s likeliness to intervene and stop further bullying from happening.