Childhood Bullying And Adulthood

Bullying is defined as the prolonged malicious act of harming peers by abusing their own--or an existing imbalance of--power, and has become one of the most common sources of trauma among adolescents. One report shows that one of three children were victims of bullying during some point in their life, and that 10-14% of all adolescents were victims of chronic bullying for at least six months prior to participating in the survey. Children who were victims of bullying are also found to be at a higher risk of diagnoses for anxiety disorders and depression during young and middle adulthood. These victims are reported to be more likely to have lower levels of general/physical health, and lower educational acquirements than young and middle-aged adults who were not bullied (Wolke & Lereya, 2015). Because bullying is such a prominent problem, citizens, policymakers, and social scientists alike, should feel or have some social and moral obligation to address, and hopefully avert bullying. The state of bullying, and how it is enacted, is constantly changing and adapting to social frameworks. Because bullies can adapt to social changes and regulations, we, as a society, should be equally adaptive in how we perceive, address, prevent, and punish bullying.

Bullying has always been a very common issue in schools, but not easily recognized or taken care of. It was not until the increased number of s hootings in the 1900's and suicides that attention was brought into bullying in schools or “schoo l-bullying” (“School Bullying” 1). Today bullying impacts up to thirty percent of middle- to high-schoo l students (“School Bullying” 1). Whether or not bullying is more dominant in one’s life i s dependent on the age group: bulling general starts in early preteen years, but subsid es before adulthood.

One of every seven kids from primary school to high school has either been a bully or a victim. An estimated number of 160,000 kids of all ages miss school daily because of bullying (makebeatsnotbeatsdown.org). Teen activists want to put an end to bullying because of: low self-esteem, negative and suicidal thoughts, and abuse. Except, what then happens to the bully? The bully: gets off with a warning - which cannot be good enough sometimes, the bully could also come back and continue to bully the victim, finally there can also be consequences.

The current paper is a review of the literature on the effect of bullying on adolescent development. There are a range of definitions of bullying but the most widely accepted one is the definition put forth by Olweus (1978), who was one of the first to apply a system wide successful intervention in Norway. He states

Childhood bullying has increased over the years. Due to the increase, there are a lot of children who suffer from bullying. Bullying experiences can lead to many health risk. Traumatic experiences often play a major role in shaping psychological functioning. (Espelage, Hong, & Mebane, 2016) gives the readers a better understanding of how childhood bullying can linger through adulthood and cause mental health risk. (Espelage 2016) was a single case study located in the Midwest that consisted of 482 college students. The students completed a survey which measured childhood bullying, and current levels of psychological functioning. While completing the survey the students were measured in six different ways. The first measure was socio-demographic (Espelage 2016), which consisted of race/ethnicity, age, gender, and grade level. Second, (Espelage 2016) implemented history of bullying victimization by using the university of Illinois victimization scale. The third measure was poly victimization, (Espelage 2016) used the adult retrospective version of the juvenile victimization questionnaire. The fourth measure aimed towards depression and anxiety; (Espelage 2016) used the brief symptom inventory-measuring psychological symptoms in community, medical, and psychiatric samples (Derogatis 1993). The fifth measure, measured post traumatic stress by using the short PTSD rating interview (Espelage 2016) (Conner & Baudson 2001). Last, (Espelage 2016) measured missing data by using a

Some reasons why children might bully someone include, thinking it might be fun or that it makes them feel popular or cool. They might feel insecure or they might have a lack of confidence or are trying to fit in with a group. In 2004 a study of bullying behaviors in 5,749 boys and girls, showed that overweight and obese school-aged children were more likely to be the victims and offenders of bullying behaviors than their normal-weight peers. Stereotypically, both male and female children report bullies making fun of the way they look, dress or talk. (Espelage, Dorothy L., and Susan M. Swearer. 2004.) However, males are more likely to report being physically harmed through punching or kicking, whereas girls are more likely to be left out,

during their development from their childhood to their early adulthood. Sourander et al. (2007) studied the association between bullying and being a victim of bullying at an early childhood age of 8 and the mental disorder impact it has later in early adulthood. Some 2,540 boys born in 1981 were selected for the study. Information regarding bullying and being victims of bullying were captured from their parents, teachers and other children at the age of 8 or in 1989. Than further information was gathered on the subject during their life at the ages of 18 and 23 thru military registry information. Based on univariate logistic regression, children that only bullied frequently showed antisocial personality, issues with substance abuse, and mental

To give a clear understanding of the various concepts and theories the effects of bullying and/or being bullied can have on people during their adult lifespan.

Bullying is no longer a phenomenon for just teens, preteens and parents. An article in Psychology Today defines bullying as a “distinctive pattern of deliberately harming and humiliating others.” It is now a major concern for seniors and their families. The fastest growing segment of the population is people over 84! Many of them use senior centers or live in senior communities. Bullying among seniors in these situations has been an issue for some time but unfortunately is on the rise. Close to 20% of seniors who use or are in facilities face some type of bullying, harassment, social manipulation, controlling behaviors or ostracism by their peers.

Many of us believe it is the younger age group that is bullied most often, we think this because they are still in the stages of growing up. However, according to “Age Trends in the Prevalence of Bullying” (2007), “bullying affects kids ages 11-15, they have also noticed, once the teen hits ninth grade bullying begins to peak.” (p. 1) The article “Bullying Statistics” (n.d) claims teens in sixth through 10th grade are likely to be involved in activities related to bullying (para. 2).” The definition of bullying according to Merriam Webster (2016), is to frighten, hurt, or threaten (a smaller or weaker person) (p. 1).”

Childhood bullying has recently been considered a serious public health problem. Little research has been conducted regarding the predisposing factors involved in childhood bullies. Existing literature suggests that the child’s early home environment is strongly correlated with the development of anti-social behaviour. The research paper “Early Cognitive Stimulation, Emotional Support, and Television Watching as Predictors of Subsequent Bullying Among Grade-School Children” (2005), hypothesizes that (1) early cognitive stimulation, (2) early parental emotional support, and (3) early viewing of television within the household are predictors of bullying behavior, while controlling for baseline bullying (Zimmerman et al.,

Bullying is something that happens all the time to kids and adults. Bullying is aggressive behavior depending on what happened, how often it happens and who it happens to.

Now I understand how being bullied can be a very traumatic experience. Children can be very cruel in the things they say and do.  While watching the video above it really saddened me that Nadia felt that the only way to deal with being bullied was to receive plastic surgery. Personally, I don’t know how I would deal with this situation as a parent. On one side, I would want my child to be happy and not have to deal with constant bullying. But I would also want them to feel as though they are beautiful and accept the way they are. The only part of the video that truly bothers me is when the surgeon offer Nadia other procedure other than pinning back her ears. I felt that he should have only done the procedure that Nadia asked for. By offering

The definition of bullying victimization is most often attributed to Daniel Olweus; who defined bullying victimization as an act in which a person is exposed to negative actions that are intended to inflict physical, mental or emotional distress (Olweus, 1994). One of the most significant consequences of bullying victimization is the observation that it occurs most often in repeated cycles that can affect the long-term emotional stability of the victim (Nansel, Overpeck, Haynie, Ruan, & Scheidt, 2003 ). Studies indicate that bullying victimization experiences often leave victims prone to defiant or delinquent behaviors, poor school performance, and anger or aggression problems (Nadel, Spellman., Alvarez-Canino, Lausell-Bryant, & Landsberg;

Bullying is a problem that affects individuals from all age groups, but mainly widespread among adolescents. It includes behaviors that focus on making someone else feel insufficient by mocking or harassing them. Bullying involves using physical violence, emotional harassment, and verbally belittling speech. It entails active actions with the intention of ostracizing another person (Howard, Flora & Griffin, 1999). Physical harassment is a form of bullying where the bully attempts to dominate another teenager physically (Stevens, 2010). It consists of punching, kicking, and other physical harmful activities, which are used to introduce fear in the victim and possible coerce them to do something (Howard, Flora & Griffin, 1999). Verbal bullying entails using demeaning language to destroy another person’s self-image (Stevens, 2010). Bullies who use the verbal techniques tease a lot and use sarcasm to hurt others’ feelings or humiliate the other teen especially in front of their friends or age mates (Thornberg et al., 2012). On the other hand, bullies who aim at getting another person to feel isolated use emotional techniques (Espelage & Holt, 2001). The bully uses this strategy to make other teenagers exclude the person being bullied. Today, cyberbullying is also becoming a very real problem for most teenagers. This type of harassment can be particularly devastating because the victim cannot find any safe place in the virtual