As you’ve learned in previous weeks,bullying is a repeated, aggressive behaviour where a person or group of people hurts another, either physically or emotionally. These situations are often complex and can significantly impact a person’s ability to cope. Bullying makes teens feel unsafe at school and miserable when they return home. With so much communication between teens via social media and other online platforms, teens who are bullied rarely get a break.
Did you know…
Most estimates suggest that around 1 in 5 ( approximately 20%) students are bullied. This statistic is consistent across several countries, suggesting that bullying is a worldwide problem. Males are more likely to experience physical bullying, whereas females are more likely to be the victim of rumour spreading and verbal bullying. Bullying often occurs in school classrooms, hallways, stairways, bathrooms, locker rooms, cafeterias, and on the school bus. In addition, a lot of bullying nowadays happens online or via text messaging (called ‘cyberbullying’). Often, teens experience a combination of face-to-face and cyberbullying.
Students often report they are bullied for things like their physical appearance, race, cultural or family background, gender, or religion. Sadly, students who have a physical and/or intellectual disability, specific learning disability, or other developmental condition (e.g., autism) are at a higher risk of being bullied. So too are students who have a diverse sexual orientation or gender identity and identify as LGBTQI.
Students who are bullied report negative effects on their emotions, relationships with family and friends, school performance, and physical health. As we’ve discussed, bullying is linked to a range of mental health conditions, including low-self esteem, depression, and anxiety. Bullied teens also have higher rates of self-harm and suicidal thinking.
As you can see bullying is not a small thing. Bullying happens frequently and it solves nothing. If you see, hear, or directly experience bullying, stand up, speak out and report it! Together we can overcome this issue. Let’s look more closely at how we can do this…
