Bullying happens almost everywhere. It can happen in school, the park, in your neighborhood, in church or your place of worship or possibly even at home. Since your child spends a lot of his time in school, I'm sure you are interested to know more about school bullying.
How do you know when your child is a victim of bullying in school?
Before I answer that, let me first define what bullying is. Bullying is the habitual abusive treatment of one child against another. It involves force or coercion. Bullying usually shows imbalance of power. This could be imbalance in social status or physical strength.
There are different kinds of bullying that could happen to your child.
1. Physical Bullying. This type of bullying involves physical contact. The bully hits, kicks, slaps or punches his victim. These attacks are usually coupled with threats that if the victim tells authorities, something more will happen. Getting stuff from the victim also falls under this type. For example, getting your child's pencil everyday without returning is considered bullying. Being asked to do 'errands' is also physical bullying.
2. Verbal Bullying. This type of bullying involves calling the victim names or making him the butt of jokes. For boys, the common problem is being called a 'sissy'. For girls, usually has something to do with physical attributes like being 'flat-chested'. Verbal threats, jokes or aggressive attacks do not necessarily have to be directly about the victim himself. It could also be against his family, friends, race or religious affiliation.
3. Emotional Bullying. This type of bullying involves spreading rumors or stories against a person. Exclusion from groups also falls here. The idea here is to make you feel bad or unaccepted.
4. Cyberbullying. This involves attacking the victim through the use of technology like the internet or cellular phones. Your child can be attacked through email, blogs or social networks like Facebook. When threats are sent to you through emails or social network messages or even through SMS or texting, that is considered cyberbullying. Sending indecent pictures to you is also the same.
Now, how do you know if your child is a victim of bullying in school. Look for the following signs.
1. physical manifestations like bruises and cuts
2. coming home with his uniform or school stuff broken
3. some of his school items are always lost
4. losing interest to go to school
5. asking you to transfer him to another class or to another school
6. if he usually walks to school, he would all of a sudden change his route or ask that you walk him to school
7. scores in exams are getting lower and lower
8. looking depressed, withdrawn, lacking in self-confidence
9. always feeling ill in the morning
10. showing aggressive behavior (much like that of a bully)
11. suddenly avoiding the internet - not logging on to his Facebook account which he likes to do before
12. gets startled when his cellular phone rings
With these, I hope you'll be able to see if your child is a victim of bullying in school. In my next blog, I'll discuss what you should do if you see some of these signs present in your child.
1 comment:
Thank you for posting this! This is very helpful. Yes I agree that bullying happens every but I do believe that it is more rampant at school. The idea of my children being harmed, bullied or taunted is not something anyone wants to consider. Last month, I found an article by anationofmoms about a service that can protect your family via your cell phone. And, at the bottom there is an opportunity to enter a drawing for 6 months of that service just by liking them on Facebook. You might find it interesting: http://anationofmoms.com/2011/08/protect-your-family-giveaway.html
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