School is an environment where students both develop themselves academically and get together with their peers and establish social relations. However, peer bullying, which is a type of aggressive behavior especially encountered in schools, negatively affects the academic, social and emotional development of children and adolescents. Bullying is the verbal, physical or behavioral harm of a child or adolescent towards their peers or friends. Peer bullying can be applied by one person, or it can be applied to a person in a group.
While the risk of being bullied is seen more in the first years of school, the bullies are mostly students in the last year. While mostly younger and weaker children are exposed to bullying, male students are more exposed to direct physical bullying. While bullying behaviors decrease in girls as they get older, on the contrary, physical violence increases in boys. It is observed that children in the pre-school period (average 4-6 years old) begin to engage in bullying behavior when they start to play games with each other in a meaningful way. In this process, children resort to verbal, emotional and physical bullying because they do not know how to communicate and cannot say what they want in an acceptable way. Children who bully see themselves as stronger than they are. As the pleasure they get from this feeling of being strong increases and as they get older, these behaviors may become stereotypes and the child's communication skills may become established in this way. We can list many reasons for such behaviors: Growing up without being loved, not liking and not loving oneself, wanting to be liked and popular by others, not knowing concepts such as no good as a result of doing whatever one wants, feeling inadequate, wanting to have more than one deserves, etc. Victims of peer bullying, on the other hand, are generally anxious, meticulous, and have low self-confidence, unable to protect themselves from danger. consists of children in the profile. They are usually quiet, calm children who do not know how to fight and cannot share their experiences with an adult.
Types of peer bullying can be listed as follows:
Physical bullying: Behaviors involving physical force can be defined as It is known as the most common type of bullying, especially in preschool and primary school. Compared to other types of bullying, it can be easily noticed by teachers and others. (Putting hair, kicking, spitting, hitting with a toy...)
Verbal bullying: It can be defined as negative opinions or verbal behaviors. It can be seen heavily at every grade level. Verbal bullying can be a little harder to spot by teachers and others. It is known that the most common form of verbal bullying is nickname-taking.
Relational bullying: It can be defined as behaviors targeting social relations. It is more difficult to notice by teachers and others and less intervention. For this reason, its effects can be more hurtful and severe than other types of bullying. (Gossip, revealing his secret, excluding from the group, imitating, ignoring...)
Cyberbullying: Behaviors made over technological devices (computer, tablet, mobile phone) can be defined as In cyberbullying, the bully can hide their identity anonymously. (Writing bad comments on social media, sharing photos without permission, sharing private conversations with others, opening an account on behalf of the person without permission...)
How can we understand that the child is being bullied? Children who are exposed to peer bullying may have physical injuries, do not want to go to school and find excuses, make hate speech against school, have depressive behaviors, experience a decrease in self-confidence, do not want to leave the house, decrease in school success, and may have difficulty concentrating on their lessons.
Parents of children who have been bullied can do the following: talk to the child about what he/she goes through during the day, show him/her that you are with him/her, listen to the child without judgment, ask what he/she is feeling and share his/her feelings.
If you are a parent or teacher, you should talk openly and openly with the bullied child. It may be a faster and more accurate solution to advance this process in cooperation with the experts in the guidance services of schools and specialists whose area of expertise is child-adolescent.
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