Bullying

Bullying is a type of violence, assault and harming of committed from a person or a group of people against a person or more who are less powerful, physically or mentally. It has many forms like physically hurting other people,  sexually harassing them, or any other violent way. Bullies depend on spreading fear and threatening upon their victims. A bully can be done in any place attended by various numerous people, schools for example. 

Examples of bullying :

There are various types of bullying which include the following:

Oral bullying: It consists saying offensive words  to other people, or calling them very bad names and labels that they don’t like, or threatening them.

Physical bullying: it is hurting people by hitting them, hurting their bodies, or pushing them hard.

Social bullying: It is emotionally hurting others, making them feel lonely by making them avoid having  friends, and relegating them from having any social relationship. 

Bullying in personal and romantic relationships: It is hurting others by spreading lies and rumors that damage their reputation, which causes others to stay aloof from other people.

Cyber bullying: It is bullying committed by using blogs, phone texting, online games, and other tele communications devices and applications by saying or doing violent things to hurt others.

bullying :

Direct bullying: involves hitting, pushing, pulling hair, stabbing, slapping, biting, scratching and other acts that show physical assault.

Indirect bullying: involves threatening the victim of social isolation, that would happen by: threatening to spread rumors about them, refuse to socialize with the victim, bully others that interact with the victim, criticize the race, colour, religion and disability of the victim, and their clothing. 

Bullying at schools: 

Dan Olweus  -the one who started researches about bullying at schools- defined bullying as: the intentional negative acts from a student, or more. It happens by hurting other students frequently all the time, and those negative acts can be words, like: threatening,  teasing, insulting, shouting, or physical abuse, like: hitting, pushing and kicking. It also can be hurting others psychologically, like: frowning at others faces, inappropriate signs intentionally, cutting them off the group, or refusing to listen to what they say. 

Moussa and Mohammad Farhan also defined bullying as: the child that harassees, scares, threatens, or hurts others, that doesn’t have the same strength as them, scares other children at school, and forces them to do as he/she wants by shouting at them and threatening them.

Bullying has been in the world for a considerable long time, and it has very bad consequences. There is a research for Coy (2001) named "Bullying at Schools" shows the about (160.000) students, daily, run away from school because of the bullying committed against them by their fellow students, or their teachers. And that issue is disastrous for what psychological effects it causes for people, and sometimes it may lead to suicide and depression. Another research done by Erling (2002) named "Symptoms of Depression and Suicidal Thoughts", as the research was done on 2088 Norwegian student. The results showed the students who commit bullying, and the  students who face bullying are the ones who have the highest stage of the suicidal thoughts stages.

Furthermore, researches assured that people who commit bullying are a previous bullying victims, and they commit bullying because they want to pretend to be strong and though to protect themselves. Besides,  they can't make friends and build social relationships, so they use bullying; to be feared by other kids and fellow students at school. However, bullying can also be resulted from teachers and school itself.

Effects of bullying:

• A person may use force, and his/her nice and friendly personality turn to be violent and aggressive , as a result become a bully himself/herself.
• A person may oversleep or does not sleep enough.
• A person may have emotional instability 
• A person may have a bad temper, or angry all the time.
• A person may lose their appetite for food and does not eat, or eat all the time. 
• A person may have anxiety, discomfort, and fear signs on their faces. 
• Psychological, emotional and behavior changes may happen to the victim of bullying.
• A person may feel depressed, lonely, isolated from the social life and also does not join any activities at school because of the bad effect of bullying on him/her.
• A person may think of suicide. There is a strong connection between suicide and bullying, as a lot of suicide cases happened as a result of bullying and harassing the victims.
• A person may not care about their appearance, grades and home works.

Some Solutions for Bullying: 

We may be able to solve bullying, by using somethings and ways, like:

• Strengthen the self-confidence of the child.
• Raise kids properly without using violence.
• Take a good look at the kids and their behavior 
• Build a friendship between parents and their kids, and find a warm family atmosphere for them.
• Make policies at schools to cease bullying and punish those who commit it. 
• Help the bully and the victim by therapy after showing them to a specialist, and boost their self-esteem. 

Translation: Heba Dwekat

Edits: Reem Al-Azzam