Bullying happens each and every day. In fact, one in three students has been bullied at school. And it can happen to children of any age — whether it’s at school, on the playground, or even on social media, bullying is a very real problem. Bullying can come in many forms, including physical, social, verbal, and cyberbullying. In today’s tech-savvy age, cyberbullying is extremely common and it’s, unfortunately, one of the hardest types of bullying to spot. So what should parents know about bullying? Let’s take a look at how parents can spot warning signs of bullying and what they should do about it. Warning Signs of Bullying The most important thing for parents to do is be able to ...
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The question comes down to this: by calling a child a bully, are you reinforcing that behaviour? Forever typecasting them into the role of bully? Building up their self-image into that of a bully? Currently, there’s at least a few different ways of thinking about this issue: The first group believes that the focus of bullying should be on changing behaviour and that labeling the participants is counterproductive to that (e.g., we should refer to ‘the child that bullies’ rather than ‘the bully’.) Especially in the cases of learning disabilities and illness, that makes sense. You don’t want to forever refer to the child with asthma as ‘the asthmatic’. There’s more to any child than their illness or disability and so they ...
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In Barbara Coloroso’s renowned book on bullying, The Bully, The Bullied and the Bystander, she makes a clear distinction between teasing and taunting. Teasing is a benign act between friends not intended to cause hurt and done in a light-hearted way with both parties able to switch roles easily. Teasing is not bullying. Taunting on the other hand is intended to cause harm, is one-sided, malicious in motive and involves cruel comments thinly veiled as jokes. Teasing and Bullying: Teasing Is a Normal Part of Healthy Relationships Teasing is a fun thing done between friends – with people you care about. Because of this, teasing does not involve comments about the ‘big 5′ subjects often come up in verbal bullying: ...
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In a recent call with a school administrator, they mentioned to me that they weren’t interested in tracking name calling incidents, didn’t consider name calling bullying and wouldn’t want students that call other students names labelled as bullies. Now, one of the great parts of my job is that I get to speak with motivated and dedicated school administrators all around the world every single day! In this rare instance though, I was a bit taken a back. “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me” is a lie! This couldn’t be more the case than with young students who have yet to fully develop a sense of self. From the perspective of a mature ...
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