Blog Post 2: Types of Bullying

Have you ever experienced being bullied? When you think about bullying what do you imagine? Punching, teasing, or hitting a weaker person?

According to the article by Charlie Bentson King from http://ezinearticles.com/,

"Bullying in schools is a national epidemic. It affects the ability of kids to learn and adapt socially. Victims develop social problems that affect them the rest of their lives and in extreme cases can lead to suicide. They frequently lose interest in school and become poor students and in some cases even drop out to avoid the abuse. We owe it to our kids to prevent bullying whenever and wherever we can. To accomplish this, schools need a bullying prevention program that can recognize behaviors and step in to control the situation before it becomes tragic. All kids deserve a place free of fear to learn. The first step in prevention is to understand the types of bullying."

He said that in order for us to prevent bullying is to be knowledgeable about it. I definitely agree because if we want to help a person we must first understand what is the problem.

Most people didn’t know that there are different kinds of bullying. The most common type of bullying base on my observation nowadays is cyberbullying. Let’s explain further about the types of bullying that we encounter daily.

In this article written by Suzanne Peck from http://www.parents.com, she explain further the four common types of bullying which are physical, verbal, relational, and cyber bullying. The article tells you what it is, give example, and let us know how to spot the signs and what to do in a specific type of bullying.

First is verbal bullying, it involves teasing, insults or name-calling in a negative way.

Here is the example from the article, When a child says to another child, 

"You're really, really fat, and so is your mom." – this is a form of verbal bullying, I know for some it can be a simple tease but some children might be really hurt and become moody and others lose their confidence.

The second type is the easiest to identify, physical bullying. Many of us may have witness a form of physical bullying. Conferring to the article,

“Physical bullying, or bullying with aggressive physical intimidation, involves repeated hitting, kicking, tripping, blocking, pushing, and touching in unwanted and inappropriate ways.”

Relational Bullying is common on girls, example of this is, 

“A group of girls in dance class keeps talking about a weekend sleepover and sharing pictures, treating the one uninvited child as if she were invisible.” – This really happens every day and the effect last longer especially on girls. They tend to become loner and feeling unappreciated and often feel they don’t belong.

In this century where we live in a techie world this type of bullying is widely seen all over social media. How to spot the signs a person is being cyber bullied according to the article,

”Watch to see if your child spends more time online (visiting social media pages or texting) but appears to be sad and anxious afterward. Even though she's reading painful things on her computer, tablet, or phone, this may be her only social outlet. Also take note if she has trouble sleeping, begs to stay home from school, or withdraws from activities she once loved.”

Take note that some cases of this may lead to committing suicide because of the embarrassment and because it’s on social media, everyone can see with just one click away.

Being bullied is not just a simple thing that we can say it just a pace in life that you have to deal with, It can be case to case basis, it depends on the person and it can be a serious matter that has a negative effect in their entire life. We must be aware and knowledgeable to take action if we encounter a type of bullying situation.