How Bullying Affects Victims

Some people may even say that bullying can often be seen as a good thing in a child’s development and not just as a gateway to self-harm. The act of bullying, despite leading towards many negative repercussions, can introduce children to rather early, but harsh, lessons that not everybody in life is going to treat them as nice as they think. David Derbyshire’s article, “Why it’s not bad to be bullied,” states that that the mutual detestation of two individuals can actually help students in developing things such as healthy social and emotional skills, as well as sometimes having an even bigger impact on their development towards making friendships.”(Derbyshire, “Why it’s not bad to be bullied”). Even though the study did not suggest that it was healthy to be the victim of bullying, it also found that negative experiences, such as bullying, could teach children about conflict

To begin this essay, it is essential to define some key terms. The Nature-Nurture debate argues whether our behaviour is as a result of our biology (such as our genes or neurochemistry), or if our behaviour arises from learning from others. For the purpose of this essay, a bully is defined as “a person who uses their strength or power to hurt or frighten people who are weaker” (Oxford Student’s dictionary, 2007). It is essential to investigate why bullying occurs and how to prevent it as bullies as well as their victims are likely to develop mental health problems. Children and adolescents who bully often develop increased levels of negative mental health outcomes in adulthood, as shown in Copeland, Wolk & Angold et al’s (2013) study; 9.4%

* 28% of children bullied in schools are 12 to 18 years old (Boske, & Osanloo, 2015). - There is an urgency to better understand the immediate and long-term impact bullying may have on children’s development because incidents may go unreported and the impact of bullying is often unidentifiable or invisible. The concern lies knowing most children spend at least 30 hours a week in school (Boske, & Osanloo, 2015).

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.

Many people believe bullying is a part of growing up. Some believe every kid will experience bullying at one point or another in life. The time is not taken to think about how it might affect an individual in the future. Bullying shows to affect people’s mental and physical health overtime. When someone is bullied overtime it would have a larger impact on their later life. Bullying can deteriorate both an individual’s mental and physical health in a alarming way. The community should help to learn and provide information on identifying bullying and the affects of bullying. Bullying is extremely toxic to an individual, it may later negatively affect physical formation and function of the brain and how an individual may deal with stress. As a society this topic needs to be more discussed.

Bullying is a problem that is on the rise in society; however, many individuals have a distorted view of what bullying entails. Usually when someone thinks of bullying, they assume that it is a standard part of a child’s life. This view, on the contrary, is erroneous. Bullying is actually abnormal behavior, many times, leaving victims with a dismantled self identity. Since some people do not understand the consequences of bullying, the actions of the bully often go unnoticed and are perceived as “kids being kids”. The issue of bullying goes deeper than that nevertheless. Despite the erroneous views that many individuals hold towards bullying, it is still a distortion of normal behavior in children.

Bullying has been recognized as a risk factor in improvement and personal growth of children and adulthood. It is a form of hostile conduct in which an individual engages to cause another individual harm or distress (Kirves, & Sajaniemi, 2012).. Therefore, it is vital to be able to detect signs of bullying in order to stop further consequences, such as self-harm, and suicide. Children who have experienced bullying become hopeless, anxious, have low self-efficacy, and have recurrent negative thoughts (Kirves, & Sajaniemi, 2012). Research in bullying has also concluded that children who bully other children are more prone to become anti-social and engage in criminal activity (Kirves, & Sajaniemi, 2012).

Bullying in schools in America is extremely common. Most experts attribute this to children having been exposed to violence in society. Being a victim of bullying has serious long-term consequences. Introvert and recluse children who are victims of bullying are apt to be immersed in depression and poor self-esteem. Some of these victims are more likely to either

Bullying is an undesirable, antagonistic conduct among not only school aged children but also adults. People who are bullied may have serious and long-term problems. Bullying has become more prominent throughout the years, increasing the suicide rate in the U.S. to 24.5% since 2003. (Hey U.G.L.Y, 2006) This results in approximately 160,000 individuals stay home from school or work each day because they are afraid or feel threatened by bullies. (Hey U.G.L.Y, 2006) Approximately 4,400 lives are lost each year due to bullying. (Hey U.G.L.Y, 2006) A nationwide survey was done throughout public schools and private schools in 2014 to find out how many students actually considered suicide due to bullying. (Hey U.G.L.Y, 2006) 15% of students reported

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 conducting 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.

Bullying is a pervasive problem among children and adolescents, and may take various forms including physical (e.g., hitting), verbal (e.g., name-calling), relational (e.g., social isolation), or occurring in cyber space. Previous studies have consistently shown that depression is associated with exposure to bullying. Bully-victims, a group of individuals who are both bullies and victims, are a distinct group at highest risk for psychosocial problems.

Most studies on bullying focus on the negative aspects, pointing to the extreme cases such as when the victim commits suicide. However, there is another side of the story (lead-in statements). Bullying can be beneficial, more so for the victim than the perpetrator (thesis). The perpetrator is playing into a predictable pattern of using power to seek social status and psychological control, or perhaps as a result of mental illness as Wente points out. Focusing too much on the reasons why bullies do what they do, researchers, parents, teachers, and children have forgotten to focus on the most important issue: how to turn bullying into a positive (stance). Bullying is not going away; it is something that adults do to each other and it seems to be built into social patterns and modes of communication universally. "The anti-bullying crusade has been around for years. Yet, kids still torment kids as much as ever even more than ever, now that they can do it around the clock in cyberspace," (Wente). Human nature is mean. By viewing bullying from the perspective of self-empowerment, it becomes possible to mitigate the many problems that bullying causes without resorting to useless interventions such as legislation, policies that are overly tough on bullies, or on assumptions about the victims. Bullying can be an opportunity for growth and maturity, for positive psychosocial development, and for self-esteem building (essay map).

The issue of bullying became a concern in the United States after researchers found that many school shootings were a result of students wanting to get revenge for being a victim of bullying. It first appeared that they were loners or individuals who set out to hurt others for their own satisfaction, but they were actually finally standing up for themselves. Bullying can cause students to lose their identity and feel useless. Students who are victims of bullying become depressed and may suffer from psychological issues. Many students that are being bullied suffer from low levels of self-esteem, anger for not standing up for themselves, or hopelessness. The behavior of bullying can destroy another

How does bullying affect victims. Bullying can cause’s victims to go into a depression, think suicidal thoughts, and can have an effect on one's self-esteem. Bullying often occurs when people have been bullied themselves as a child so the individual feels it is ok to allow another person to feel the pain that they once experienced.

At some point in our lives we have either bullied, been a victim of a bully, or known someone that’s been bullied. It affects how we encounter the next person, and how we approach our future. I was very touched by this story and it crushed my heart. The child wanted to fit in so bad, and accepted ridicule just to have friends. How can the kids look in another child’s eyes and not see their hurt? Andy had a hard, rough life and I’m sure when he went to school he forgot about the problems he had to face alone. The “popular” boys found amusement in picking and making a mockery of Andy. Who really is the coward? In my personal opinion the coward are the boys who wronged Andy and the leader of the boys who knew it was wrong from the start.