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Bullying

What is bullying?

In order to be considered bullying, the behavior must be aggressive and include:

  • An Imbalance of Power: Kids who bully use their power—such as physical strength, access to embarrassing information, or popularity—to control or harm others. Power imbalances can change over time and in different situations, even if they involve the same people.
  • Repetition: Bullying behaviors happen more than once or have the potential to happen more than once.

Bullying includes actions such as making threats, spreading rumors, attacking someone physically or verbally, and excluding someone from a group on purpose.

There are three types of bullying:

  1. Verbal bullying is saying or writing mean things and includes:
    • Teasing
    • Name-calling
    • Inappropriate sexual comments
    • Taunting
    • Threatening to cause harm
  2. Social bullying involves hurting someone’s reputation or relationship and includes:
    • Leaving someone out on purpose
    • Telling other children not to be friends with someone
    • Spreading rumors about someone
    • Embarrassing someone in public
  3. Physical bullying involves hurting a person’s body or possessions and includes:
    • Hitting/kicking/pinching
    • Spitting
    • Tripping/pushing
    • Taking or breaking someone’s things
    • Making mean or rude hand gestures

Who is impacted?

Bullying can impact children’s short- and long-term physical and emotional development, school performance, and mental and physical health. There are negative consequences for everyone involved in bullying, so it is important to support everyone, including children who bully, children who are bullied, and children who witness bullying.

  • Children who are bullied are more likely than those not bullied to experience depression, anxiety, and low self-esteem. They also are more likely to be lonely and want to avoid school.
  • Children who bully others are at higher risk for more intense anti-social behaviors like problems at school, substance use, and aggressive behavior.
  • Children who witness bullying experience increased anxiety and depression regardless of whether they supported the bully or the person being bullied. Bystanders may experience stress related to fears of retaliation or because they wanted to intervene but didn’t.

How do I know if my child is being bullied?

  • Your child might not want to go to school.
  • Your child might have anxiety about going to school.
  • Your child might have frequent headaches, stomachaches, other non-specific complaints.
  • Ask your child if he is being teased or ask open-ended questions like, “What is school like at lunchtime or recess.” These are times when bullying is prevalent.

What do I do when I find out my child is being bullied?

  • Talk with school officials so that supervision can be increased and intervention can be made if necessary.
  • Teach your child not to give in to the bully’s demands. This will only fuel the bully’s fire. Teach your child to walk away while staying calm. Teach your child to be assertive by making eye contact with the bully and telling the bully to leave him alone. Try acting out the scenario with your child to help prepare them for interactions with the bully.
  • Do not teach your child how to fight back physically. This could cause your child to get in trouble at school or cause one or both children to get hurt.

Keep in mind that all children should be aware that bullying is not socially acceptable. Even if your child is not a victim, help them understand what bullying is and how they can help other children by telling an adult if she sees another child being bullied.

Prevent Bullying. Find additional resources at:

October is National Bullying Prevention Month
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