Bullying is aggressive behavior that seeks to intimidate and frighten children, even coercing children into doing things that they would not normally do. Some of the personalities of bullies include positive attitudes toward violence and dominating others to get their way. They also tend to have defiant attitudes towards adults and are upset easily (violencepreventionworks.org). Bullying takes on many forms including verbal, physical, social, and cyber. Several schools have put policies in place to reassure students along with supporting staff reinforcing their right to be a part of an educational community that is safe, secure and free from harassment or bullying. To assist with discouraging bullying, the U.S. Department of Education has released a free, two-part training toolkit designed to reduce bullying, for use by classroom teachers and educators (www.ed.gov).
There are many reasons “believed” for why children bully, but none truly substantiated because the information received usually come from victims. Some theories include influence of culture where winning, power, and violence are significant. As some children seek to gain attention by any means necessary, bullying behaviors are used for this purpose. Jealousy of peers may also be a reason why a child would bully others (http://www.bullyingstatistics.org/content/why-do-people-bully.html)
Verbal bullying is very common. Verbal bullying includes mocking or making fun of others, name calling, disrespectful or condescending comments, taunting or threatening to cause harm. Physical bullying includes hitting and pinching, spitting, taking or breaking someone’s, and belongings. Social bullying includes leaving someone out on purpose, to demoralize their social status and telling other children not to speak to or be friends with them, spreading rumors about them and embarrassing them in public. The latest form of bullying is cyber bulling. This form of bullying encompasses and magnifies verbal and social bullying. With the use of technological communication-cellphones, social networks and internet chat rooms and websites, rumors and gossip can travel “at the speed of light”, if you will. In this instance, even after leaving school and coming home children cannot escape bullying if they are using internet and cell phones (stopbullying.gov).
As a result of bullying, some children seem depressed when coming home from school and even experience trouble sleeping (violencepreventionworks.org). Parents should be watchful, as children may seem fearful to go to school. Bullying can have long lasting effects on children later in life. There have been findings with “relational victimization" in adolescence and depression and anxiety in early adulthood. This is because of the lasting effects and the memories that linger (articledoctor.com). There have been multiple incidents where children have saw no way out other than to commit “bullycide.” Bullycide is a term used when