Relational bullies use our needs for acceptance and friendship against us as they manipulate and harm our social relationships. The victims of relational bullies may never come home battered and bruised, but the pain of being the victim nasty gossip and rumors or social exclusion is just as real and just as harmful. Relational bullying peaks during middle school and its perpetrators and victims are usually girls, and unfortunately - most of the time, the bullies get away with and adults never even learn about it. Learn more about relational bullying and about what you can do to make sure your child never becomes a victim.

All kids want friends and to be liked and accepted by their peer group. Relational bullies use this normal human need against their victims, using the power of the group as a tool to harm.

Relational bullies intentionally manipulate and damage the relationships of their victims. They do this through means such as rumor spreading, exclusion, gossip and ending friendships – and the hurt they create can be enormous.

Although physical and verbal bullying are easier to spot, relational bullying is just as harmful and its can be very difficult for parents and teachers to recognize, which is troubling, as research shows that girls are more likely to engage in relational bullying than in any other kind.¹

Examples of Relational Bullying

• Spreading rumors
• Sending unflattering pictures or messages through texts or on the internet
• Making friendship conditional (“You can come with us if you do…”)
• Gossiping
• Using negative body language around the victim, such as eye rolling when she talks
• Whispering about someone
• Making fun of the victim’s appearance
• Excluding the victim from a social group
• Revealing secrets
• Backstabbing

Who Is a Typical Relational Bully?

Relational bullying is most prevalent among girls in grades 5 to 8. Bullies are often popular and charismatic girls who are well praised by adults and rarely suspected as bullies. These girls use relational bullying typically as a way to decrease the victim’s social status as they increase their own.

Relational bullies choose this type of harassment knowing that it is very unlikely that they will get caught and sanctioned for their behaviors.² In some cases, girls report using relational aggression simply to create drama and excitement, and in other cases, girls go along with relational aggression out of a fear that if they stand up to it, they’ll be next in line as a victim.³

How Harmful is Relational Bullying

Although victims of relational bullying come home with no cuts and bruises, the internal harms of social bullying are just as great, and the long term consequences can be severe.

Research shows that victims of relational bullying are:

• More likely to bring a weapon to school⁴
• More likely to display antisocial behaviors later in life
• More likely to be depressed and to feel anxiety
• More likely to have lower self esteem
• More likely to miss school (160 000 students stay home from school every day in America to avoid relational bullying)
• More likely to consider suicide⁵

What Can Be Done about Relational Bullying?

While it’s very hard for parents and other concerned adults to put a spot to bullying they can’t even see, there are things that parents can do to raise children who are less likely to get involved with relational aggression, either as bullies or bully victims.

• Talk to your children about bullying, even before it happens. Help them understand what bullying is and how to recognize it when they see it; and help them to be the kind of bystander that puts a stop to bullying in others
• Encourage children to get involved in clubs, sports and other activities at school. Students that get involved in school are less likely to be victims of relational aggression, possibly because their self esteem is less linked to social status and more to achievements in school and in extracurricular activities
• Encourage children to make friends with others based on interests, rather than based on popularity or social status
• Explicitly teach empathy and forgiveness, and model these traits yourself in the home
• Talk to your child about their friends, and remind her that friends should act nice, and that people who act mean to you are not your friends
• If you learn of relational bullying, talk to the school, so they can get involved in protecting the victims
• Help relational bullying victims move past the hurt by getting them involved in counseling or in group support meetings⁶

Image Copyright: Lenifuzhead

It used to be that bullying stopped after school – and once kids and teens were safely home, they could have at least some respite from the harassment endured during the day. Unfortunately, in today’s 24/7 connected society, bully victims get no relief as their tormenters continue the attack around the clock through tactics such as vicious emails, the distribution of unflattering photos or videos, online gossip spreading and many others.

Cyber Bullying is serious harassment that can cause serious consequences, including an increased risk for mental health conditions like depression or anxiety, lowered self esteem and an increased risk of substance abuse and school drop-out. Learn more about the ‘hows’ and ‘whys’ of cyber bullying and learn what you can do to make it stop when it’s happening to you, or to someone you love.

Cyber bullying is best defined as when a person or a group of people repeatedly use communications technologies to harass, gossip about, threaten, humiliate, or otherwise bully a victim.

Although harassment can occur as an isolated incident, for this cyber harassment to qualify as cyber bullying – the harassment, taunting or threats must occur repeatedly, over a period of time, and the bully or bullies must have the intent to cause harm or pain to their victim.

Cyber bullying can occur over email or IM, through texts or pictures or videos sent over mobile phones, on social networking sites, like Facebook or Twitter, on anonymous chat rooms and on internet forums. Some examples of common cyber bullying tactics include:

• Creating a fake Facebook page for another person – complete with correct name, unflattering photos and correct contact info.
  
• Spreading anonymous rumors about a certain person on internet forums or in local chat rooms
  
• Sending bulk emails or texts to pass unflattering or private pictures or videos of a victim
  
• Hacking into a victim’s social networking account to post disturbing or sexually explicit comments on the profiles of others
  

Who Does It?

While we sometimes hear disturbing accounts of adults cyber bullying teens and even children – in most cases, the bullying is done between people of a similar age group.

Cyber bullying is most often perpetrated and aimed at teens and preteens during the last years of middle school and the first years of high school.¹

What Are the Consequences of Cyber Bullying?

While in the past bully victims could at least get some respite from the harassment while at home, today’s victims are at the mercy of their bullies 24 hours a day – 7 days a week, and in addition to that, the audience for cyber bullying can be much larger than a few classmates laughing on the playground, in some horrific cases, cyber bullying videos have become internet hits and been seen by millions.

The consequences of cyber bullying can be lasting and severe, and can include:

• An increased risk of depression
  
• Lowered self esteem
  
• Physical health problems
  
• An increased risk to use and abuse drugs or alcohol
• An increased risk of school truancy or school drop out
  
• An increased risk to do poorly at school
  

Obviously when consequences can be as severe and life changing as drug or alcohol abuse, school non completion or an increased risk of mental illness – cyber bullying cannot be tolerated as a normal part of today’s teenage experience and parents and teen bystanders need to do all that they can to minimize the occurrences of online harassment.

How to Deal with a Cyber Bully

Dealing with Cyber Bullies

• Talk to your parents, your teacher or another trusted adult for help. You do not deserve to be harassed in person or online and you do not have to deal with this situation alone.
  
• Do not respond online. Cyber bullies are looking to get a reaction out of you, and by getting into an online fight, you’re giving them exactly the kind of drama and excitement they’re going for. You can take steps against those that harass you online, but you won’t likely have much success through a direct peer to peer battle.
• If your password has been compromised, make sure to reset all of your passwords. If a fake profile has been created in your name, contact the hosting site to ask that it be taken down.
• If you can, block emails, IM’s or texts from those that harass you
  
• Save the evidence of harassment. Keep a file to store copies of harassing emails, texts or comments. This evidence can be important in proving the ongoing nature of the bullying.
  

What Can Parents Do to Help?

• Talk to your kids about the importance of online privacy and the need to keep email and social networking site passwords safe and confidential – even amongst close friends.
  
• Stress the importance of logging out of email and social networking accounts when finished on shared computers. To a bully - access to your email or social networking account is an invitation to do a lot of damage.
  
• Stay involved in your child’s life. Since much of life today occurs online – this means that you as a parent need to know what your child does in the online universe!
  
• Talk to your child about acceptable behaviors online (they are the same as acceptable behaviors offline) and encourage your child to share with you should they experience anything unsettling while on the computer.
•  If your child is the victim of persistent bullying, limiting the times they are allowed to use their computer or cell phone while at home may be a way to enforce a daily break from the abuse. It’s not a perfect solution nor should it be all you do, but giving a child a few hours a day of mandated breathing space can really make a positive difference²
  
• Remind teens that sharing personal or even explicit photographs with a trusted boyfriend or girlfriend can lead to devastating cyber bullying should those photos ever get rebroadcast
  
• If the perpetrators are known to your child, you should try talking with teachers and school officials about what’s going on. Most schools have strict anti-bullying polices in place and most of these cover bullying that occurs during and after school hours. In general, you’ll have much better luck working with school officials than you will should you try confronting the parents of the bully or bullies directly.
  
• Teach your kids the importance of good bystander behaviors. Bullies thrive on the approval of an audience and when bystanders openly disapprove of bullying tactics, the bullying is likely to stop. Teach your children to act out against bullying by refusing to pass along mean-spirited or gossipy forwarded messages, adding positive comments to the refute negative comments on a bully victim’s social networking page or by reporting the bullying behaviors to a trusted adult.³
  

When is Cyber Bullying a Crime?

Sometimes cyber bullying crosses a line from mean-spirited (but unfortunately legal) harassment and turns into a criminal matter. Call the police if:

• You receive threats of violence online
  
• You are under 18 and are being harassed by an adult online. In most jurisdictions, this is known as cyber stalking or cyber harassment and this is a criminal offense that can result in jail time for the perpetrator
  

In many jurisdictions, cyber bullying crimes are prosecuted under existing bullying statutes – but this is changing as more states adopt specific rules of conduct for online activities. The laws can be complicated, so when you think you may be the victim of a crime, the best thing to do is to contact the police or prosecutor’s office, and let them decide whether or not they can proceed with pressing charges.

Image Copyright: Wentongg

Bullying is common, but it’s not harmless; in fact, children who get bullied can experience consequences like depression, social anxiety or low self esteem that can last all the way into adulthood. If you or someone you love is getting bullied, you need to make it stop. Read on to learn 9 proven ways to deal with bullies.

Although how you deal with your bully will depend greatly on your age, personality and general situation, there are some common techniques that are proven effective in dealing with bullies.

Dealing with a bully? Here are some expert approved strategies for getting a handle on your bully problem:

1. Get Adults, Peers and/or Authority Figures Involved

If you’re a grade school kid, then there is no reason for you to try to deal with your bully problem on your own. Tell a trusted adult, such as one of your parents, a teacher or a school counselor about what’s going on and let them help to put a stop to the situation. Make sure you get them to understand how upset the bullying makes you feel and that it’s an ongoing occurrence.

Most schools have anti-bullying policies and strict sanctions for those that engage in bullying, but these policies can only work when school officials are made aware of a problem that’s too often obscured within the dark reaches of the playground.  If you’re a teen or adult, you may also want to let someone in authority know of the problem, especially if the bullying becomes or threatens to become violent. While it can be difficult, for authorities to put a stop to verbal bullying, violence is another matter, more black and white, and therefore more easily dealt with. Research shows that in most cases, bullying stops or reduces greatly when authority figures or peers get involved in the situation.¹

2. Don’t React

Don’t give a bully any satisfaction. Bullies behave cruelly in the hopes of getting a reaction, so when you react with anger or aggression - fear or tears - you are simply giving the bully what he or she wants and increasing the likelihood of future incidents. Walk away from the bully, and try to keep you emotions in; even if you’re raging inside. It’s boring to pick on someone who gives you nothing to work with in return, so by minimizing your reaction you hopefully take all of the fun out of it for the bully and reduce the odds that he or she will repeat the bullying.

3. Act Confidently

Bullies like to pick on easy targets and they’re great at reading body language and looking for weakness, so by looking more confident and assertive, you may be able to deter some bullying. Some ways you can look strong and confidant on the outside (even if you don’t feel like that on the inside) are by holding your head up high, walking straight and tall, looking people in the eye and responding to people with a loud and clear voice.

4. Don’t Get Violent

Although we are told that bullies are cowards and that by confronting  them with violence they’ll simply back down, the truth is that reacting to bullying with violence in return may not end your problems, and if you’re unlucky, it may even make the bullying worse.When you react to bullying with violence you’re sending a clear message to the bully about just how upset you are by the bullying – and that’s exactly what the bully wants! By getting violent, you’re increasing the likelihood of further bullying. Additionally, once you get violent there’s no way to know how things are going to turn out. You may end up getting hurt, you may hurt someone else more than you meant to and you may end up getting in a lot of trouble.

5. Try to Avoid the Bully

There’s no sense in walking straight towards trouble if you can help it, so if you can avoid or minimize interactions with someone who’s giving you trouble, so much the better. If someone picks on you on your walk home from school, then try a different route. Also, try to always have a friend or two around you when you know you’ll have to come in contact with your bully.

6. Have Verbal Comebacks Prepared

If you feel up to it, try preparing and practicing some verbal comebacks to your bully’s taunts and teases in advance. Coming back with a quick retort to something your bully says lessens the power of her words and makes you seem like less of an easy target for next time.

7. Keep Your Self Esteem Up

There’s no denying that being bullied can really bring you down- after all, that’s how bullies want you to feel, so to counteract this negativity, you need to increase the positive in your life by taking part in things that make you feel great. Get involved in sports, the arts, music or whatever else you enjoy and do well and make friends with like-minded people who respect and admire you for who you are and what you do well.

8. Get Help When You Need It

In some situations, there’s just nothing you can do. When bullying gets violent or threatens to get violent, do whatever you have to do to get yourself out of the situation as quickly as possible. Do not listen to your bully’s commands, just run away to a safe place and try to get help.

9. In Extreme Situations – Change Your Situation

If nothing’s working and you can’t make the bullying stop, then you may want to think hard about changing your situation to get away from the bully. If you’re bullied in school and the administration is powerless to stop the attacks and the bullying is making it difficult for you to feel safe and happy while learning, then it might be time to consider whether moving to another school might be the best idea.

Image Copyright: Uwe Herman

Being a bully victim can lead to feelings of hopelessness and even to serious depression, and research shows that people who get bullied are at an increased risk to also have suicidal thoughts and to engage in self harm. Make sure you know the warning signs of suicide and be ready to intervene if necessary, to stop what is usually a very preventable tragedy.

Being bullied is associated with an increased risk of experiencing anxiety and depression and a strongly increased association with suicidal thoughts and self harm behaviors.^1,2

If your child is or may be a victim of bullying, you need to make it stop, but you also need to be aware of the increased suicide risk that goes hand in hand with bullying and be vigilant for the warning signs that can indicate an impending suicide attempt.

According to the American Psychological Association and The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, warning signs that may indicate suicidal thoughts include:

• Talking about suicide, even in general terms, or seeming focused on thoughts of death and dying
  
• Showing changes in sleeping or eating patterns
• Giving away cherished belongings to friends and family
• Showing a drastic change in habits and behaviors
• No longer wanting to engage with friends and family
• No longer seems to get pleasure from activities that were previously enjoyed
• Making a will
• Increases drinking or drug use
• Starts engaging in risky behaviors
• Stops caring about how she or she looks³
• Acquiring a gun or other means to commit suicide
• Visible signs of depression, such as a persistent sadness, pessimism and sense of hopelessness⁴

People who have made previous suicide attempts and people who have just experienced a major loss are also at increased risk.Most people who attempt suicide suffer from depression – which is a very treatable mental health disorder.

If you, or someone you love, is feeling suicidal call National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255). This is a federal government service and they will connect you with a local suicide prevention team in your area.

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Playground bullies grow up and sometimes become workplace tyrants. If you’re the victim of bullying at work you need to make it stop, before your health, well being and career potential is adversely affected. Learn more about how to recognize both overt and covert forms of bullying and learn how to handle a workplace bully to make the harassment stop.

Workplace Bullying = Repeated and targeted harassment at work that is intended to demean, humiliate or intimidate.¹

Although when we think of bullies and bullying we typically envision playground scenes and children – the unfortunate reality is that bullies are found in all age groups and the workplace can be a perfect environment for bullies to inflict harm on their victims.

For the harassment and aggression you experience at work to qualify as bullying, it must:

1. Be repeated and sustained: bullying occurs when aggression is targeted at you repeatedly, over time
2. Occur between people with differing degrees of power: Bullies typically attack people with lower work or social status or employment level – or those who are for any other reasons less able to defend themselves from attack
3. Put your health, safety or career at risk – Bullying is systematic and it’s intended to do you harm

Examples of Workplace Bullying

Workplace bullying sometimes occurs as obvious harassment and is sometimes more covert.

Some examples of overt bullying include:

• Teasing, belittling or consistently making a person the victim of mean-spirited jokes
• Abusive language
• Behaviors that are designed to humiliate or frighten - screamed critiques of performance by a boss, for example
• Intentionally presenting materials that are designed to cause offense (materials against a religion, for example, or sexually suggestive materials)
• Overt sexual intimidation or assault
• Overt violent intimidation or assault
• Threats
• Spreading mean gossip or rumors about the victim

Some examples of more covert bullying include:

• Giving an employee an impossible task or deadline, or a task that is obviously beyond their abilities or experience
• Dumping an excessive quantity of work on a subordinate and demanding its completion
• Assigning a meaningless, demeaning or unrelated task
• Not letting an employee gain access to the resources needed to complete an assigned task
• Writing unfair or inaccurate employee assessments
  
• Blocking deserved or normal career advancement
  
• Not offering equal access to training or other resources
• Tampering with personal belongings
• Intentionally isolating someone at work²

Bullying at work only rarely turns violent, in fact research suggests that only about 10% of workplace bullying involves physical assault.³

Not sure if you’re getting bullied or not? Then use the ‘reasonable person’ test. Would a reasonable person consider the behaviors you’re experiencing acceptable? If not - then it’s bullying.⁴

Also ask yourself:

1. Are criticisms of performance reasonable or justified, based on an objective assessment of the performance?
2. Are you performing at work up to an acceptable standard? – If you are failing to meet expectations at work, then repeated criticisms of your performance may not be bullying, and may be accurate and objective management.
3. Are criticisms constructive? Bullies aren’t trying to help you – they’re trying to hurt you, so if you’re getting constructive criticism, then you may not be getting bullied.⁵

Workplace Bullying – What’s the Harm?

Most of us spend a majority of our waking hours at work and with workmates, so it’s hardly surprising that bullying at work leads to significant personal and professional consequences.

Victims of workplace bullying are at risk to experience:

• Significant stress – even post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
  
• Depression
  
• Anxiety
• Sleeping disturbances
• Headaches
  
• Digestive problems
• Lowered immune function
• Social problems outside of work stemming from the pressures at work
  

But it’s not only the individual being bullied that suffers – studies show that bullying in the workplace leads to demonstrable reductions in the quality and quantity of performed work. Work environments which allow bullies to operate are at risk for:

• High staff turnover and resultant higher training costs and lowered productivity
  
• Staff taking more sick days
  
• Legal process and investigative costs associated with dealing with bullying complaints (or lawsuits)
• Energy spent dealing with and coping with bullying is taken away from work efforts
• Teamwork within the work environment is adversely affected⁶
  

Bystanders to bullying in the workplace also experience increased stress.⁷

So What Can You Do to Make the Bullying Stop?

There’s no one perfect recipe for thwarting workplace bullies, and the success you’ll have in putting a stop to the abuse may depend on the willingness of your organization to listen to your concerns and work with you to deal with the situation. In general, however, here are some steps that the experts suggest you take when dealing with a bully at work:

• Ask the bully to stop their behaviors. Tell the perpetrator that their behaviors constitute unacceptable bullying and ask them clearly to stop.  You may wish to have a supportive co-worker, a superior or a union representative at your side when making your statement to the bully. Once you’ve made your statement and labeled the behavior, do not get involved in debate over it - just walk away.
  
• Keep a journal detailing incidences of bullying. Negative behaviors are only considered bullying acts when they are systematic and repeated over time. By keeping a journal, with documentation when possible, which itemizes bullying behaviors over time – you build your case against the perpetrator. For your journal to be taken seriously, try to keep it as factual as possible. Record dates, times and specifics of the events and list witnesses who can corroborate your descriptions.
  
• Report the bullying to your supervisor. If the bullying is perpetrated by your supervisor, then move up to the next level in management. If your concerns are not taken seriously, continue to move up to higher levels of management.⁸
  

If the bullying involves violence, threats of violence or sexual assault, you need to put your personal safety first and make a complaint with the police.

While your natural impulse might be to try to get even with the bully, anything negative you do against the bully makes the situation more difficult for management to sort out. Instead of being a clear-cut case of bullying, it can begin to look like two workers who can’t get along and who are both behaving poorly.

In most cases, workplace bullying isn’t a crime. However, if you are bullied based on your race, sex, religion, country of birth or disability, you may be able to sue over a violation of your protected civil rights.⁹

Image Copyright: Meridith_Farmer

We tend to associate bullying with the behavior of children and not adults, but the same dynamics from social circles in middle school and high school are perpetuated amongst a high percentage of adults. Overcoming bullying requires both internal and external changes.

Bullying is a form of psychological and emotional abuse that may incorporate veiled or clear threats and/or other forms of aggression. Overcoming bullying in our adult lives requires a change from within. If we choose to berate or otherwise reject ourselves for the abuse bestowed upon us in the past and/or present, then making positive change remains unattainable.

 Step 1. - Silence Your Inner Bully

We want to be more assertive with those who treat us poorly, yet we cripple ourselves with self loathing. We subconsciously rely on maladaptive forms of control – our self abuse becomes greater than the abuse inflicted. We focus not on the injustice inflicted but upon our failure to right it. This serves a function: As long as we are redirecting negative emotions back at self, we will not face our external fears.

Were we to direct our energies outward, we would behave powerfully. Sadly, most of us do not trust ourselves to be powerful. We fear loss of control and expect things to only get worse as a direct result. This is due in large part to context. In our adult lives, bullying most often occurs in the workplace, in our partnerships and in our social circles.

The Perils of Coping Alone

Left to our own devices, we embrace black and white thinking. All we see is fight or flight, stay or go, stand up or take it. We tend not to seek support and guidance because we are lost in the shame and humiliation of being a target for bullying. No matter how much we learn and grow and become; we still feel like the last kid picked for dodge ball. That feeling of being exposed and vulnerable was instilled and remains.

We fear further retaliation if we tell. In this light, going to our work supervisors or Human Resources feels like telling the teacher. Going to a marriage counselor feels like seeking an unlikely ally. Sharing with mutual friends feels like teenage drama. Our propensity to allow emotions to dictate decisions leaves us crippled.

Depersonalizing helps:

• If we were to imagine someone we cared about in our shoes, we would urge them not to go through this alone. We would have empathy for them and wish to be a support. If we choose to take the advice we’d gladly give to others, we allow ourselves to reach out.

The Value of Soliciting Support 

When we choose to expose our fears by holding them up to the light of an objective observer, they appear very different than they do when they exist only in our mind. Options and reasonable courses of action become apparent. Our employers, our clinicians and those who truly care about us – each of these people have moral, ethical, and even legal mandates to uphold. Their outrage on our behalf is affirming but their willingness to support us is what we need to draw from and incorporate.

The Importance of Documenting

Bullying in any context can be difficult to prove, which is why we urge those experiencing it to document each occurrence. We seek to identify what happened, when and where it happened and who witnessed the event. The act of writing about something makes it more “real.” It allows us to cease minimizing our experiences and it makes denial all but impossible. Seeing our struggles in black and white allows us to see a progression and/or pattern of behavior and the dynamics that perpetuate it.

Never React Always Respond

Our greatest downfall in moments of being bullied is that we react in a manner that is geared towards avoiding or at least minimizing harm instead of seeking resolution. We have a tendency to endure until we cannot tolerate a single moment more and then become explosive or implosive. This undermines our ability to use our voices and to be taken seriously. In this manner, we set ourselves up for further humiliation.

• The more we consciously choose a course of action, the less stress we experience in each interaction because we have already determined how we will respond. Alleviating this pressure is not a product of rehearsing exactly what we will say or do; it’s more often the choice to be true to ourselves.

Sometimes life really is a matter of choosing the “lesser of evils.” We are reasonable people in unreasonable situations dealing with an unreasonable person and our goal is to find ways to get them to be reasonable. Dealing with unreasonable people requires a different approach than what we use with everyone else.

Our goal must be to create boundaries and set limits. Boundaries are as simple as saying to someone, “Here is what I am willing to do/tolerate and here is what I am not.” Limits are clarifying and specific, “I can work until six pm but not 7pm as you request. Or, “I am willing to work overtime this weekend but I cannot commit to doing this in the future.”

In general, the more anxious and fearful we are, the more we talk and the less effectively we communicate. Using an “economy of words” is our most effective strategy. Saying things simply and directly ensures to the greatest degree possible that we will be understood.

When All Else Fails - Plan Your Exit

If we cannot achieve resolution with those who bully then ultimately we must make difficult choices regarding not only our own best interest but also how we will cope. If it’s an option to leave a position or relationship in which we’re experiencing bullying, by all means do. If it’s not an option then consider and plan the changes that need to occur for it to become an option. Either way we must be sure to integrate active personal supports – good people who will affirm our worth and the truth that not only do we have nothing to be ashamed of, but also that we have a responsibility to be fair to ourselves.

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Bullying is serious and harmful and unfortunately all too common. Is your child a victim of bullying at school? If you answered with a no; are you absolutely sure that you’re right? Learn about the warning signs of bullying and be ready to spot it and intervene early when necessary.

Although you’d always want your child to tell you about getting bullied so you could help put a stop to it, too often, children remain silent about what they experience out of the house and suffer alone with some very un-childlike burdens.

Bullying is a common experience for our children - about 1 in 3 kids will be the victim of bullying during childhood¹ - but though ‘normal’ in its frequency of occurrence we should never think of being bullied as a normal or necessary part of the childhood experience. Bullying is dangerous and the victims of bullying suffer serious consequences that can, in some cases, persist into adulthood.

Research shows that when authorities and peers get involved, the bullying usually stops², but too often, parents don’t even find out about the bullying until great damage is already done. Learn the warning signs that point towards a bullying problem and you’ll be ready to intervene much quicker and you’ll save your child a lot of unnecessary pain and suffering.

Warnings Signs of Bullying

In no particular order

• Suddenly losing interest in school or suddenly developing an aversion to going to school
• Coming home from school with ripped clothing or missing possessions
• Coming home from school with cuts and bruises that aren’t easily explained away
• Suffering from insomnia, nightmares or bedwetting
• Frequent stomach aches or headaches
• Comes home from school starving, as if she hadn’t eaten lunch (bullies may extort food or lunch money from their victims)Suddenly starting to talk very badly about peers at school
• Comes home from school bursting to use the bathroom (as if he’d been too scared to be alone in the school bathroom and at the mercy of a bully)
• Having few friends at school, or no friends at all
• A sudden decline in school performance
• Taking an unusual route to school Seeming anxious about school, or when asked about school
• A sudden change in overall mood – becoming more withdrawn, sadder, etc.

If you see your child’s behaviors displayed within the list above, get informed about the realities of bullying and talk to your child about what’s really going on. You can’t fight your child’s battles for her, but there are some battles no child should have to fight at all. If you find your child does endure.

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For most GLBT students, bullying and harassment are as much a part of the school day as math or science – and this is a tragedy, because research shows that not only are bullied GLBT teens more likely to drop-out out of school and far more likely to commit suicide, research shows that the trauma of high school endures, and that GLBT students who were heavily bullied in their teens grow into young adults who are far more likely to be depressed or anxious, or to contract an STD. Learn more about LGBT bullying and learn what schools can do to put a stop to it.

Sadly, studies show that a majority of LGBT youth get harassed at school because of their sexual orientation.

According to the 2009, National School Climate Survey of middle and high school youth, because of their sexual orientation:

• 80% of LGBT youth were verbally harassed at school within a year of being surveyed
• 60% had felt unsafe at school within a year of being surveyed
• 40% had experienced physical harassment at school within a year of being surveyed
• 20% had experienced physical assault at school within a year of being surveyed¹

How Serious Are the Consequences of LGBT Bullying?

LGBT youth are at greatly increased risk of long term physical and mental health problems, and even death, due in part to the bullying and abuse they suffer throughout their school careers.

According to Mental Health America, GLBT Teens:

• Are 200% to 300% more likely to commit suicide than heterosexual teens
• Are far more likely to suffer academically, because of the abuse they receive at school -  22% of GLBT teens say they’ve skipped school during the last month because of concerns for safety
• Are far more likely to drop out of school – 28% of GLBT won’t finish high school, which is three times the drop-out rate of heterosexual students²

And it’s not just GLBT teens who suffer from bullying based on sexual orientation. According to a Seattle Safe Schools Anti-Violence Report, for every 1 student who reports being bullied for being LGBT, 4 heterosexual students report being bullied for being perceived as gay or lesbian.³

Although many GLBT find that bullying and abuse diminishes as they move beyond the school years and into young adulthood and adulthood, unfortunately, the consequences of school aged bullying don’t drop away as quickly.In one study, LGBT young adults who reported high levels of bullying and victimization during their high school years were:

• 560% more likely to report having tried to kill themselves than LGBT young adults who reported more minimal bullying in high school
• More than twice as likely to be clinically depressed as young adults than those who were victimized less frequently
• More than twice as likely to have contracted a sexually transmitted disease by young adulthood⁴

Clearly, as children and teens LGBT youth suffer an unacceptable amount of bullying and victimization and the consequences of this harassment can be tragically high (suicide) and long lasting (depression into adulthood, etc.)

What Can Schools Do to Put a Stop to LGBT Bullying?

If you’re a LGBT student who’s getting bullied, you should know that you don’t have to take the abuse and you don’t deserve the harassment. To find out more about steps you can take to deal with a bully, read “Dealing with a Bully.”But beyond the individual level, research shows that school policies can make a huge difference in minimizing the amount and harms of LGBT bullying, and if your school or your child’s school doesn’t yet have effective anti LGBT bullying policies in place – lobbying for their implementation could make an enormous difference.

According to the Gay Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) 4 things schools can do to squash LGBT bullying are:

1. Have an anti bullying policy, and in that bullying policy to specifically name and address bullying against LGBT students. As well as against students based on race, gender, disability etc. Schools that do not categorically forbid taunting or verbal abuse based on sexual orientation as good as condone it.
   
2. Require all staff to get trained in GLBT bullying, so that they can recognize and put a stop to sexual orientation bullying on the spot.
3. Support student initiatives to deal with LGBT bullying, such as by allowing the formation of Gay-Straight Student Alliance clubs and through other measures
4. Teach respect and tolerance in the classroom⁵

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Bullying is never trivial, but in some cases, such as when bullies harass people based on gender, race, or disability, bullying becomes an enforceable civil rights violation and schools that fail to address such bullying are in violation of civil rights and discrimination law.

According to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, serious harassment that is based on sex, country of origin, disability, race or color is a violation of federal anti-discrimination laws (many states also prohibit against discrimination based on sexual orientation).

Schools or school districts can be in violation of anti-discrimination laws of when harassment which is based on race, color, country of origin, sex or disability results in a ‘hostile environment’ and when this harassment is encouraged, tolerated, ignored or even not sufficiently dealt with by school employees.

• Harassment is considered to create a hostile environment when it is repetitive and persistent and severe enough to interfere with the bullied student’s ability to participate in and benefit from education, school services and any and all school activities.
• Schools must address any harassment they find out about, or harassment they should reasonably know about. If incidents of harassment are widely known of by students and faculty, then the school is responsible to address these.
• When school officials learn of harassment, they must take prompt steps to investigate the incident and to ensure that the harassment does not continue.
  
• The school is responsible to end the harassment, whether or not the bullied student has asked for help or identified the perpetrators of the harassment.
  
• Any steps taken to protect the bullied person from repeated harassment should not penalize the victim. For example, if separation of students is a solution, the victim should not have to change her class schedule or withdrawal from activities.¹

Bullying is serious, its consequences can be long lasting (or deadly) and we all have a responsibility to put a stop to it whenever we can. Schools that take the initiative can do a lot to stamp out bullying. If you’re worried about bullying at your child’s school and think that the bullying may constitute a civil rights violation, then school officials may be compelled by law to take action.

To find out more, or to report a civil rights violation, contact the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights or call their hotline at 1-800-421-3481.

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Learn more about what makes bullies tick and why they act as they do. You may be surprised to learn that most bullies are popular, have high self esteem and bully to increase their own social status.

Although we often hear that bullies target others because they themselves have low self esteem, research consistently demonstrates this to be false. Bullies, it seem, tend to have an average or higher than average perception of self worth and a more than average number of friends.¹

So why do they do it then?

Bullies like to feel powerful and in control, and an easy way to achieve feelings of power is by dominating a weaker person.

Research shows that the two primary reasons why bullies bully are:

1. To feel powerful and in-control and to gain social status by demeaning those with lower social status
2. Because they haven’t learned healthier ways to interact with others or because their bullying behaviors have been rewarded and entrenched²

Character Traits of Bullies

While bullies, as human beings, are a diverse lot, people who engage in bullying behaviors tend to share some common character traits. Bullies tend to:

• Be aggressive, with peers, parents and teachers etc.
• Think aggression is a good thing and they become aggressive with very minimal provocation
• Do not handle frustration well
• Be more immature and less responsible than their peers
• Engage in small acts of violence frequently (hitting, pushing, etc.)
• Lack empathy for others (find humor or pleasure in the misfortunes of others)
• Do not accept responsibility for their actions
• Demand attention from others
• Have difficulty obeying rules and regulations
• Show contempt for people
• Male bullies tend to be larger than their peers, in many cases, female bullies are smaller than average.³

Why Bullies Bully

Bullying is a learned behavior. Some of the reasons why people engage in bullying include:

• Having role models at home who model violence or bullying
• Getting rewarded for aggressive and bullying behaviors
• Being unable to handle frustration – a child who cannot handle their inability to perform in some way academically may make themselves feel better and more in-control by later bullying a weaker classmate
• Being the victim of a bully – people who are the victims of bullies are themselves more likely to learn bullying behaviors and repeat the pattern on those weaker than themselves
• The bully is being abused or neglected at home
• The bully has a mental health disorder, like a personality or conduct disorder ⁴
  

Signs That Your Child is Bully

Are you worried that your child might be a bully?

Just as being bullied can lead to long term health and mental health consequences, bullies too tend to fare more poorly over the long run, such as having a high likelihood of developing a criminal record by young adulthood, so it’s important that you intervene quickly if your child is bullying and help him or her learn more constructive ways of interacting with others. Some warning signs that could indicate that your child is bullying others include, your child:

• Is hot tempered and always needs to win at everything or always get her own way
• Speaks dismissively or insultingly of others in the peer group (losers, idiots etc.)
• Is frequently violent or often in trouble for fighting
• Has extra money or belongings that can’t be explained
• Has trouble accepting responsibility for her actions and blames others for her failings*
• Is aggressive towards you and other adults and frequently breaks the rules of the house
  
• Displays little sympathy or empathy to other kids who are getting picked on
• Is very quick to get insulted or feel offense
  
• Likes to hang out with kids who are younger or not as strong as he is⁵

Helping Your Child to Overcome Bullying Behaviors

If you think or know that your child is bullying another, it’s important, for everyone’s sake, that you intervene and put an end to the harmful behaviors. To learn more about what you should do and how you should do it, read: My Child Is a Bully – What Can I Do

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No parent wants to imagine their child as the playground bully, but if you learn that your son or daughter is a possible bully, you have to take it seriously and you need to take steps to make sure the bullying stops. Bullying hurts not only the victim, the aggressors are also at risk of long term harms - such as an increased risk of substance abuse, poor academic performance and even an increased risk of a criminal record. Fortunately, just as bullying is a learned behavior so too can it be unlearned. Here are a few tips and strategies that can help you to help your child overcome their bullying ways.

You hate to imagine your child acting like a bully, but if it’s happening, you have to take it seriously and take immediate steps to make sure the behavior stops, after all, it’s not only those bullied who suffer long term consequences from bullying, those who mete out the aggression are also at increased risk of long term problems, such as increased risk of getting in trouble with drugs or alcohol and an increased risk of getting in trouble with the law.

According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration, (SAMHSA), if you find out that your child is a bully, here what you should do:¹

Do not discount reports of bullying and resist the impulse to blame others for your child’s bullying. Investigate any reports of bullying and try to get to the bottom of what exactly is going on. You need the facts and you need the truth, so make sure to investigate and question with an open mind (this can be difficult, as your first impulse is likely a protective impulse.)

Talk to your child about bullying and make sure she understands that bullying is not acceptable.

Try to get your child to explain to you why he bullies other kids.

Spend more time getting to know your child’s friends and observing your child and his or her friend’s interacting.

Make sure you set a good example in the family. Bullying is generally about power and contempt, so make sure you handle power-imbalance situations in your life as you’d want your child to handles like situations on the playground.

Practice role playing different interactions, so that your child can learn healthy ways to interact with peers and can hopefully learn to better understand how being bullied makes others feel.

Make the consequences of any future bullying well known. Discipline is important, but be careful to avoid overly harsh or corporal punishment, as these types of punishment are thought to increase a child’s likelihood to bully others.

Encourage your child to participate in more structured sports or activities as ways to harness aggression in a more positive way and to achieve success in ways other than through bullying.

Develop an ongoing working relationship with school officials, to ensure that bullying behaviors do not reemerge over time

Teach Empathy

Research shows that one reason for bullying behaviors is a lack of empathy. Bullies do not or cannot put themselves in the shoes of the person they torment and this lack of empathy makes it much easier to continue with aggression over time.²

A number of experimental school programs are attempting to stamp out bullying by teaching empathy in the classroom³, but you can encourage and teach empathy at home and within the family too. To boost your child’s empathy, try:

• Encouraging your child to do some volunteer work with those less fortunate than herself
• Modeling empathy with others yourself
• When you observe another person in discomfort or in conflict, encourage your child to try to imagine what the other person is feeling and the reasons behind his or her actions
• Children who don’t have adequate feelings of attachment with their parents or caregivers are more likely to lack feelings of empathy, so make sure you spend lots of quality and focused time with your children, making sure they know they are loved and valued. After all, if you don’t have the time to teach your children how they should live, you can’t be surprised when they pick up aggressive qualities from peers, TV shows, video games or other sources.

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Bullying is learned behavior and it can be learned in the home. Here’s how to help your child reject violence and unhealthy aggression.

While bullying behavior stems from a combination or personal and environmental factors, there is no denying that bullying is a learned behavior and that much of what children learn comes from the home and family. Children are also much better copying the behaviors that we as parents display than the behaviors that we teach with our words.

Want to raise a child who won’t grow into be a bully?

According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration (SAMSHSA) to reduce the odds your child will become violent¹, make sure you:

Deal with any substance abuse in your family. Children who grow up in a home with substance abuse are more likely to become violent.

Make your home a violence free zone. Children who are the victims of violence in the home and even those who witness violence in the home are twice as likely to commit a criminal offense and more likely to start getting in trouble at younger ages than kids raised in homes without violence.

Make your child feel loved and make sure you get and stay involved in your child’s life. A lack of warmth and involvement in parenting raises the risks of violence and bullying.

Make sure you set appropriate limits and discipline when needed. Overly permissive parenting can result in increased violence, but likewise, overly harsh and corporal punishment is also associated with an increased risk of violence. Encouraging your child to be tough and hard, especially for boys, and permitting acts of aggression teaches further aggression and increases the likelihood of violence and bullying. These children are being taught to integrate self esteem and self concept with a need for power, control and aggression.

Make sure your child never suffers emotional, sexual or physical abuse.

Things that you can do to further reduce the risks of your child becoming a bully include:

• Helping your child to develop a positive expectation for social situations
• Making sure you and your child have a warm and healthy relationship and encouraging healthy relationships between your child and other adults (grandparents, friends of the family, etc.)
• If possible minimizing your child’s exposure to community crime and drugs (this can require relocation, and may not always be possible)
• Helping your child to develop a love of learning and reading and encouraging school performance
• Helping your child to develop competency and achievement in positive activities (such as sport, art, music etc.) so that they can achieve reward and recognition for doing ‘good’
• Teaching your child that bad behaviors carry consequences²

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An overwhelming majority of bullying incidents happen in front of peer bystanders – but no adults. Research shows clearly that when bystanders speak out against the bullying the bullying usually stops within seconds, but in an overwhelming majority of incidences, and for a number of reasons, bystanders do nothing to help. Learn more about the role bystanders play in the perpetuation of bullying and learn how you can teach your child to put a stop to any bullying she sees, while making sure she stays safe.

There are lots of reasons why kids don’t get involved when they witness an incident of bullying.

They may be worried about getting victimized themselves, they may not believe that they have the power to do anything or they may just not know what to do. But kids who passively observe bullying are harmed by it, just as the victims are harmed, and in truth, bystanders are a lot less passive and a whole lot more involved in the situation than they might, at first glance, appear to be.

Fortunately, kids that are taught how and encouraged to help the victims of bullying can do a great deal to reduce incidents of bullying, while staying safe themselves.

Why To Get Involved

There are 2 great reasons for kids to get involved when they see bullying as bystanders:

1. Firstly, studies show that 85% of bullying incidents get witnessed by other kids and no adults¹, and that 57% of the time, when one or more bystanders intervenes in an incident of bullying, the bullying stops within 10 seconds.²
2. Secondly, kids who witness bullying but who don’t intervene are at risk for a lot of the same types of problems experienced by the bullying victims. Bystanders can feel guilt, fear and anxiety and these feelings can be long lasting and harmful.

Why Kids Don’t Get Involved

Most kids know bullying is wrong, but most kids don’t get involved when bystanders witnessing an incident of bullying. Reasons kids give for not getting involved include:

• Being afraid of retribution from the bully
• Being afraid of becoming a victim of the bullying too
• Not knowing what to do
• Not believing that anything they could do would have any positive results
• Not liking the victim
• Liking the bully
• Thinking it’s none of their business
• Don’t want to tattle, don’t want to be labeled a tattler
• Don’t believe that adults could stop it
• They enjoy watching the bullying
• The bully is more popular
  

The Different Types of Bystanders

Most bullying occurs in front of peers, but bystanders, for the most part, are less passive and more involved than they might seem. Some different roles bystanders play in the perpetuation of bullying are:

• Henchmen or assistants to the bully – these bystanders don’t start the bullying, but once it’s going on, they get involved in support of the bully
• Supporters – these bystanders support the bullying but they do not get actively involved in its perpetration
• Passive supporters – these bystanders support and like the bullying but do not display any open support
• Disengaged onlookers – these bystanders show or feel neither support or opposition to the bullying
• Possible defender bystanders – these bystanders don’t like the bullying and feel like they should stop it; but don’t
• Defender bystanders – these bystanders take a stand and get involved in defense of the victim, against the bully³

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Bullying is probably more common and more costly than you realize. Here are some numbers and statistics that demonstrate just how large the problem is, and just how serious its consequences.

Here are some numbers that illustrate the scale of the problem and the enormity of its consequences.

Bullying Statistics:

According to the Department of Justice, 1 in 4 kids will be bullied or abused this month and in the Journal of the American Medical Association it is reported that 30% of kids admit to being a bully, a bully victim or both.

When students kill other students (such as in school shootings) the perpetrators are twice as likely to have been the victims of bullying.

According to the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, both bullies and bully victims are at an elevated risk for loneliness, poor school performance and substance abuse.¹

Bullying is most prevalent during the last years of elementary school (peaking at about grade 8) and continuing into the first years of high school.

The most common form of bullying is verbal (name calling) with violent bullying the least common.

Violent bullying rates decline as students move into higher grades.

Children with disabilities are at an increased risk to experience bullying. In one study, 62% of children with autism were bullied at least once a week.²

Gifted children, like children with disabilities are also at an increased risk to be bullied. IN one study, more than  two in three gifted kids reported being victimized and more than a third of those victimized said they had experience violent thoughts and fantasies in response to their bullying.³

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, students aged 12 to 18 who are being bullied are more likely to skip school, class or extracurricular activities due to a fear of a bullying incident. Of those being bullied, within 6 months of being asked, 7% of students skipped school, 7% skipped class and 6% skipped extracurricular activities.

Among students aged 12 to 18, bullied students were 4 times more likely to bring a weapon to school than non bullied students and 5 times more likely to have been in a fight within the last 6 months.⁴

In 2002, the US Secret Service concluded that many incidents of school shootings were directly linked to bullying experiences.

160 000 kids stay home from school each day to avoid a bully.

60% of boys who were classified as bullies between grades 6 and 9 have a criminal conviction by the age of 24, and by that age, 40% have 3 or more criminal convictions.

Between 15% and 30% of students are involved in cyber-bullying. Girls are twice as likely as boys to be involved.⁵

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