The Truth about Bullying: 7 Signs Every Parent Should Know
The fear of bullying can be very real for parents. You may not know how to recognize the signs and symptoms, or even what to do if your child falls victim. Social media has made it even easier for bullying to spread, and recognizing it can be even harder. Continue reading for an in-depth guide on the different types of bullying, the impact it has, how to recognize indicators of bullying, and what steps you can take as a parent.
While bullying can seem crushing and overwhelming, it’s important to remember that there are a multitude of supportive services available for you and your child.
What is Bullying?
Bullying is a repeated behavior where one person (or group of people) in a position of power deliberately intimidate, abuse, or coerce an individual with the intention to hurt that person physically or emotionally.
While bullying can happen at any point in someone’s life, it’s important to be aware of key developmental milestones for your child. These milestones can change their perceptions of themselves and others and can make the effects of bullying even more detrimental.
During school years, children refine their concept of themselves as individuals, organizing their observations of behaviors and beliefs into general dispositions. There are ages in which major changes occur, such as between ages 8 and 11, where social comparisons (judgments of their appearance, abilities, and behavior in relation to those of others) take a major role in how children see themselves. In middle childhood (between years 6 and 8), children begin to describe themselves in terms of psychological traits, compare their own characteristics with those of their peers, and speculate about the causes of their strengths and weaknesses.
These transformations in self-understanding have a drastic impact on self-esteem and can cause a constant change in their perception of self-concept: an ideal self that they use to evaluate and compare with their real self. When there is a discrepancy between the two, it can lower their self-esteem and create struggles with perfectionism and high expectations.
Parental support, as well as professional help, is incredibly important for self-development and helping children that are victims of bullying. School-age children who have parent-child conversations about past experiences are able to construct positive narratives about themselves and create more complex, favorable, and coherent self-concepts.
Types of Bullying
Peer victimization: Certain children become targets of verbal and physical attacks or other forms of abuse. Most bullies who engage in face-to-face physical and verbal attacks are boys, but a considerable number of girls bombard vulnerable classmates with verbal and relational hostility.
Physical bullying: Includes hitting, pushing, or damaging property. All physical attacks on a person or their belongings.
Verbal bullying: Includes name calling, insults, teasing, intimidation, homophobic or racist remarks, etc.
Social Bullying: Includes lying and spreading rumors, playing inappropriate jokes on someone to mock or embarrass in public, encouraging others to behave rudely to someone, etc.
Cyberbullying: About 20 to 40 percent of youths have experienced cyberbullying through text messages, social media sites, etc. Some examples would be girls attacking someone with words, or boys distributing embarrassing or private photos or videos. Victims are far less likely to report cyberbullying to parents or adults at school. In many instances, the cyberbully’s identity is unknown to the victim and the audience.
All types of bullying are related to rising anxiety, depression, and suicidal thoughts.
How to Recognize the Signs of Bullying
So, now that you know what bullying is and the forms it can take, how do you know if your child is being bullied or not? As a parent, it's important to be vigilant and proactive in recognizing the signs. Although there isn’t a single, universal answer, here are some common identifiers to look out for:
Changes in behavior: If your child's behavior suddenly changes, such as becoming withdrawn, anxious, or irritable, it could be a sign that they are being bullied. They may also exhibit signs of depression, such as a loss of interest in activities they once enjoyed.
Physical injuries: Unexplained bruises, cuts, scratches, or other injuries may be signs that your child is being physically bullied. They may try to hide these injuries or provide vague explanations for how they occurred.
Emotional distress: Your child may exhibit signs of emotional distress, such as increased crying, mood swings, or difficulty sleeping. They may also express fear and anxiety about going to school, or may try to avoid social situations altogether.
Changes in academic performance: Bullying can impact a child's academic performance. If your child's grades suddenly drop, or they express a lack of interest in school or reluctance to attend, it could be a sign that they are being bullied.
Social isolation: If your child suddenly becomes socially isolated, has few or no friends, or stops participating in extracurricular activities or events they once enjoyed, it could be a sign of bullying. Bullies often use tactics such as exclusion or spreading rumors to isolate their victims.
Changes in eating habits: Bullying can affect a child's appetite and eating habits. Your child may suddenly lose interest in food, skip meals, or exhibit changes in their eating patterns, such as binge eating or emotional eating.
Avoidance of certain areas or people: If your child is avoiding certain areas of school, such as the playground, cafeteria, or bathrooms, or if they are avoiding certain people, it could be a sign that they are being bullied by those individuals or in those locations.
It's important to keep an open line of communication with your child and create a safe space for them to talk about their experiences. If you suspect that your child is being bullied, it's important to take it seriously and take appropriate action, such as contacting their school or seeking support from a trusted adult or mental health professional. Bullying can have serious and long-lasting effects on a child's well-being, so addressing it early is crucial.
What Can You Do to Help?
There are a variety of interventions that exist to improve peer relations and psychological adjustment of children that have been rejected by their peers. Most involve coaching, modeling, and reinforcing positive social skills, as well as attending therapy sessions as an individual or as a family.
Interventions that change victimized children’s negative opinions of themselves and that teach them to respond in non-reinforcing ways to their attackers are helpful. Another way to assist victimized children is to help them form and maintain a friendship. When children have a close friend to whom they can turn for help, bullying episodes usually end quickly.
The best way to reduce bullying is to promote prosocial attitudes and behaviors in youth environments - schools, sports programs, recreation centers, and neighborhoods. Effective approaches include developing school and community codes against bullying, teaching bystanders to intervene, strengthening parental oversight of children’s use of cellphones, computers, and the internet, and increasing adult supervision of high-bullying areas in schools, such as hallways, lunchrooms, and schoolyards.
Promoting communication between you and your child opens the door for them to reach out to you if they are in trouble, if they are feeling sad or angry, and/or if they are victims of bullying. Sometimes children are afraid to tell their parents what they are going through due to insecurities, self-worth, and previous conversations with their parents in which they felt unsupported or not taken seriously.
Bullying is always serious and has a great effect on a child’s life, even as an adult.
Other helpful tips if your child is being bullied:
Help them remember their self-worth.
Teach them to stay safe, walk away from the situation, and to tell an adult they trust what happened.
Treat each other with kindness and teach them to do the same.
Surround them with love, affection, and support, and focus on their healing.
Reach out to teachers and school employees to be alert and call you if anything happens.
If necessary, get help from others outside of school, like a family therapist or a police officer.
Take advantage of community resources that can deal with and stop bullying.
Contact the offender’s parents and try to sort out the situation between the children.
Know when to remove your child from the situation, place, or school.
If you’d like to learn more about bullying and the resources available, you can visit stopbullying.gov, an antibullying website managed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. This website works to raise awareness of the harmfulness of bullying and provides information on prevention.
Therapy for Bullying in Raleigh, NC
Meeting with a therapist during this critical time in development can help prevent minor issues from becoming major ones. Our therapists engage parents and caregivers throughout the therapeutic process because research demonstrates that children gain the most from therapy when family members are active participants. Including the family allows the child to bring what they have learned home with them and practice it there. In doing so, the entire household benefits. Whether individual or family therapy, we have options for you and your family.
Book your appointment below with one of our child therapists in the Raleigh area to get started today!
