What is Bullying and How to Deal With It
There are four different types of bullying out there – physical, verbal, covert or hidden bullying and cyber-bullying.
When I was in school, I mostly received verbal bullying. My parents didn’t know about it since I mostly ignored it and I didn’t say anything back to those that were verbally bullying me. Parents should know the meaning of bullying so at least they’ll know what’s going on and give some tips to their children if they don’t know what to do.
Types and Meanings of Bullying:
- Physical Bullying consists of hitting, kicking, tripping, pinching, pushing or damaging property.
- Verbal Bullying comes in forms of name calling, insults, teasing, intimidation, homophobic or racist remakes or even verbal abuse.
- Covert or Hidden Bullying is designed to harm someone’s social reputation or cause humiliation by lying and spreading rumors, mimicking unkindly, encouraging others to socially exclude someone.
- Cyberbullying is either overt or covert bullying behaviors using digital technologies such as nasty gossip or rumors, imitating others online or using their log-in ID, deliberately excluding others online.
There are some tips that children can use when they are targeted by bullies:
- Ignore verbal bullying – When I was in school and I’m talking with a friend, I see or hear teasing that are aimed at me but I usually just ignore them and continue my conversation since the teasing was getting old because I had it for a while then.
- Walk away – This is what I would do if I’m by myself and walking to classes or waiting for a friend. The teasing would stop (it did for me as soon as I hit 11th grade – I had the teasing since middle school) if you just calmly don’t look back at all.
- Look for friends – If I hadn’t done this, I wouldn’t have the friends that I have today.
If you are being cyberbullied, here are some tips that can help:
- Block senders
- Make another profile where you change your name and don’t put up your pictures so they won’t know it’s you
- Don’t talk back to them
- You can keep the messages and send it to a friend that could help you with cyberbullying
NHEG also has a radio show based on bullying which you can find here:
NHEG Radio Show: Bullying Part 1 Bullying Part 2 Bullying Part 3
In my opinion about bullying, bullying is such a mean thing to do. There’s a quote saying: “Don’t do unto others what you don’t want others to do unto you” by Confucius. Children should obey that quote as well as adults and the elderly.
Bullying can cause children to even commit suicide if it gets too hard to handle. Parents have to learn to see the signs of bullying or even talk with teachers. Children have to stand up for themselves and go with these safety tips.
Bullying is a harmful thing to do and is not a fun situation to be in. Making friends is better than bullying, no?
References:
www.ncab.org.au/parents/typesofbullying/
www.ncab.org.au/kids/whattodo/
