Respectme - What is bullying behaviour?

What is bullying behaviour?

What is bullying behaviour?
The impact of bullying

There are many different definitions and theories on what constitutes bullying. respectme understands that it is not always easy to narrow down behaviours into a definitive statement that will cover all actions and situations. It is important, however, to recognise and acknowledge bullying behaviours so you can identify them when they are happening.

Bullying behaviours can include:

Being called names, being teased, put down or threatened
Being hit, tripped, pushed or kicked
Having belongings stolen or damaged
Being ignored, left out, or rumours spread about you
Receiving abusive text messages or emails
Behaviour which makes people feel like they are being bullied
Being targeted because of who you are or who you are perceived to be

This is not an exhaustive list, there may be other behaviours that can be classed as bullying.

Children and young people can experience bullying for a variety of reasons; where they live, their sexuality, gender, disability, the colour of their skin, what clothes they wear or what team they support.

The one thing that these have in common is difference or perceived difference - some children and young people don't see or understand diversity, they still only see difference.

Adults can often find the distinction between these behaviours difficult to establish, but it's every adult's responsibility to ensure that children and young people live in, learn in and play in an environment where bullying behaviour does not take place. We need to recognise that children and young people are, by their very nature, open, giving and loving, emotional and difficult, non compliant - just the same as everyone else - but we need to make sure that they can be all of these things as safely as possible.

What about impact?
It is important to take into account the impact that the behaviour is having on the child or young person. Bullying is behaviour which leaves people feeling helpless, frightened, anxious, depressed, demeaned. Actions can affect people in different ways and this should be taken into consideration. If you are unsure if behaviour is bullying, look at the effect it is having on the child or young person. For more information on impacts, please see below.

Is intent required?
Every bullying incident should be looked at individually. In some cases, children or young people may not be aware that their behaviour is actually bullying. They are perhaps modeling behaviours of other adults or children and young people, not understanding that the behaviour is wrong because they have never been taught otherwise. In these circumstances, the intent to bully may not be present but the impact and effect on the person being bullied will be no less because of this. It must be explained to the person bullying that their behaviour is unacceptable and why.

Does the behaviour have to be persistent?
The issue with persistence is that the behaviour has to take place more than once, when the impacts of bullying can be prevalent after one incident.

Bullying does not need to be taking place to have an effect on the mental health and well-being of any child or young person. For those who have been bullied, the fear and anticipation of further bullying can affect a child's ability to be themselves and interact with others in a healthy fashion. The bullying behaviour and potential impacts on the child or young person should be addressed as they arise.

Children will tease, fall in and out with each other, have arguments, stop talking to each other and agree and disagree about what's cool and what's not. This is a normal part of growing up and should be distinguished from bullying. However, in an environment where this behaviour is left unchecked it can lead to bullying, making those being bullied feel afraid, uncomfortable and unsafe in their environment.

The impact of bullying

Although the long-term impact of bullying can be severe, there are a number of immediate effects that day-to-day bullying can cause that we must be aware of.

Fear: Fear, anxiety, low mood and self-worth, suffering school work, poor performance at school or in leisure activities, nervousness and general change in personality can also stem from bullying and can lead to the impacts highlighted above. That’s why we must challenge changes in the behaviour of children and young people, however small they may seem, to ensure that any underlying issues are uncovered and addressed.
When bullying goes undetected or is allowed to thrive in an environment that isn’t safe, the long-term effects can be severe and devastating.

Truancy: One of the major impacts of bullying is school attendance. A recent survey in England and Wales, carried out by Beatbullying estimated that 36 % of children and young people truant as a direct result of bullying - that means that one in every three children who are missing school today is doing so because they are being bullied. (Beatbullying, 2006). But would you want to go to a place where you knew you would be subjected to physical, verbal or emotional abuse?

There is also a clear link between truancy and criminal and anti-social behaviour. There is a risk that young people who are missing school because they don’t feel safe can end up involved in more serious behaviour as a result.

Similarly, missing school or truanting regularly can impact on levels of attainment which will directly affect the opportunities available to children and young people in later life. If you can’t access employment or training you can quickly become socially excluded as a result. And it’s not only about the educational benefits of attending school, which are so critical, children and young people also benefit from developing social competencies that prepare them for adult life.

Eating disorders: How many times have we seen it; the young girl, or indeed boy, who has developed anorexia or bullimia after being called “fat” in the playground. A throw-away comment, perhaps, but one that can have lasting effects.

Violence towards others: Young people who have been constantly taunted, antagonised, physically, emotionally or verbally abused can quickly become the aggressor. Similarly, someone who doesn’t have the capacity to manage being told, “hit him back” or “beat her up and she’ll stop”, can find themselves with criminal records because violence becomes a way of solving problems in their adult life. This, in turn, can only lead to poor role modelling for future generations.

Suicide: The ultimate impact of bullying behaviour. Sadly there are too many stories of young people reaching a point where they feel the only answer is to take their own lives. We must give children and young people the capacity to talk or express themselves safely in order to try to address the anxieties and often mixed emotions they have.

No aspirations: A constant stream of negative, destructive comments can and do drive people down and they effectively lower or change their aspirations to ‘fit in’, or start to see themselves as people with low worth - nothing meaningful to contribute and zero confidence. Again, this can contribute significantly to social exclusion.

Self-harm: We know that children and young people use self-harm as a way of coping with difficult feelings and it can be a sign to look out for in relation to bullying. The individual is expressing\responding to difficult feelings and it’s the role of every adult to help them develop safer ways to deal with these feelings.

Depression: Depression is a word that’s often used to describe feelings of low mood or a lack of enthusiasm. Do we have an expectation that children and young people will act like this anyway: do we see it as part of the ‘moody’ teenager stereotype? And how can we make sure that we can distinguish between the two?

Bullying behaviour can and does make it hard to go to school, to go to clubs, to get out of bed in the morning, to talk to parents, to tell friends, so the person turns inwards to deal with it. This is something we need to be aware of when looking out for signs of bullying behaviour.

Bullying behaviours: We have all heard it said that people who bully were bullied themselves. And perhaps they were, maybe it was by parents, older siblings or other children and young people, but they have seen it somewhere and they have learned it from somewhere.
This is why role-modelling is so important – children who grow up hearing how parents or aunts and uncles acted at school or act in their workplace can impact on how they behave towards others in and out of school.