Impact of Bullying – Bullying as a global problem. On the one hand, this behavior also makes the authorities tighten regulations against the perpetrators.
But on the other hand, bullying is then seen as a normal phase that seems to have to be passed when growing into teenagers and adults. Sometimes we also forget, that the impact of bullying is so influential in a person’s future.
The short-term consequences of bullying can be seen clearly. Especially if the bullying is physical. Bruises can be seen immediately and become a trigger that will make the perpetrator apologize.
However, what will happen mentally? Dozens or even decades later, this mental wound will even be very difficult to heal. This condition is not a whiny song for bully victims, but is based on valid research results.
Both in the short and long term, the impact of bullying itself needs to be known by everyone, especially among children, parents and teachers.
7 Impacts of Bullying to Watch Out for
The effects of bullying are easiest to recognize in the short term. As victims, both adults and children will experience the following as a result of bullying by people in their environment.
The following below are the effects of bullying that need to be watched out for.
1. Psychological Problems
Victims of bullying often show various symptoms of psychological problems, even after the bullying has taken place. The most common conditions are depression and anxiety disorders.
In addition, the effects of bullying on mental health in adolescents and children are feelings of sadness, low self-esteem, loneliness, and loss of interest in things they usually like, as well as changes in sleeping patterns or eating patterns.
The effects of bullying will then cause psychosomatic symptoms, including psychological problems that trigger disturbances in physical health. This does not only apply to adults, but also to children.
For example, when it’s time to go to school, the child will then feel a stomach ache and have a headache even though there is nothing physically wrong with his body.
2. Physical Problems
Bullying will also cause children to experience digestive disorders. Not only bruises or injuries due to physical violence they experience, victims of bullying also often experience anxiety which will then trigger stress on the body.
This condition will also cause various health problems, as well as frequent illness, digestive disorders, as well as various other problems. Bullying in children will also exacerbate health problems that they then suffered before.
For example, skin problems, stomach problems, or heart problems in children that get worse due to stress.
3. Sleep disorders
The negative impact of bullying is also clearly visible, namely sleep disturbances. Victims of bullying also often have difficulty getting a good night’s sleep. Even if you can sleep, it’s not uncommon for that time to be filled with nightmares.
4. Suicidal Thoughts
The impact of bullying on this one victim will not only come to the minds of adults. Victims of bullying who are children and adolescents are also at risk of having thoughts of ending their life.
Not infrequently there are reports of incidents of school-aged children who later die from suicide after being bullied by their friends. This is the danger of bullying that parents should be aware of.
5. Unable to Unite with People Around
One of the consequences of bullying that you need to watch out for is the difficulty in blending in with the people around you. Children in adults who experience bullying are indirectly placed in a social status which is then lower than their peers.
This will also make victims of bullying often feel lonely, neglected, and lead to decreased self-confidence.
6. Achievement Disturbances
The impact of other bullying is that children tend to experience difficulties in achieving learning achievements. They will also find it difficult to concentrate in class, often do not attend school, and are not included in various activities at school.
7. It’s hard to believe in other people
The impact of bullying on victims that should not be underestimated is the feeling of difficulty trusting other people. When a child is a victim of bullying, it becomes difficult for them to trust other people around them.
One of the bad effects of bullying will be seen when the victim is still small. However, when they grow up, they will feel the need to build relationships with other people.
The impact of bullying according to these experts will also make children experience failure when making friends or looking for partners in the future.
Impact of Bullying in the Long Term
The effects of bullying are often still felt by victims, even though dozens of years have passed since the incident took place. The long-term impact of bullying itself is rarely seen, but it is precisely this that makes the victim feel more tormented.
Researchers in England themselves conducted research on the impact of bullying up to 40 years after the incident. The result itself is that there are several long-term impacts that are then felt by the victims, as follows.
- The health conditions for victims of bullying, who are now 50 years old, tend to have worse consequences, both physically and mentally.
- Cognitive function is also lower when compared to proper people who have never been victims of bullying.
- The quality of life and life satisfaction levels of bully victims also tend to be lower when compared to their peers who have never experienced bullying.
The impact of bullying itself is not always predictable. Children who are victims of bullying, themselves may not show signs of being disturbed by these various treatments.
However, later in life, these children are at increased risk of developing a depressive mental disorder as well as receiving psychiatric treatment. Other evidence regarding the long-term consequences of bullying is also presented by the results of various studies conducted on 1,420 children aged 9-16 years who had been victims of bullying.
The experts also examined their mental state for 4-6 times over a period of several years. As a result, children who have experienced bullying are also more likely to experience various types of anxiety disorders and panic disorders.
In addition, the trauma caused by bullying that was received as a child will also change the structure of the brain in the future, and will affect the ability to make the right decisions.
Finally, children who have been victims of bullying in their childhood tend to experience difficulties in socializing when they grow up, like some of these things.
- It is more difficult to get a job or keep the job you have
- It’s hard to feel focused on one thing
- Difficulty in interacting socially with others
- Tend to feel more susceptible to disease
Types of Bullying
Bullying is any violent physical or mental behavior that is carried out by one or more people by attacking or by intimidating other people.
This violent behavior also generally affects children and adolescents who are physically weaker than their peers. This bullying itself can be grouped into several categories.
- Direct physical contact. Examples include hitting, kicking, slapping, pushing, biting, grabbing, locking someone in a room, pinching, scratching, extorting and damaging things that are then owned by other people.
- Direct verbal contact. For example threatening, humiliating, demeaning, and disturbing, by giving name-calling, sarcasm, put-downs, ridiculing, spreading gossip, intimidating, and cursing.
- Direct nonverbal behavior. This includes looking cynical, sticking out the tongue, showing condescending, mocking, and threatening facial expressions. Generally, this type of bullying itself is accompanied by physical contact or verbal contact.
- Indirect nonverbal behavior includes the act of keeping someone quiet, manipulating friendships so that they eventually crack, deliberately isolating or ignoring, and sending anonymous letters to someone.
- Cyber bullying, the existence of technological advances then has a negative side as well. Hurting other people with electronic media, such as sending intimidation video recordings and writing malicious comments on social media, is classified as bullying in cyberspace.
- Sexual harassment. Sometimes, acts of harassment are categorized as either physical aggression or verbal behavior.
Characteristics of Child Victims of Bullying
Often avoiding social situations Sometimes, what happens to children who are victims of bullying are reluctant to end it by complaining to their parents and then they have become victims of bullying.
Therefore parents then need to take the initiative and understand what are the characteristics of children who have become victims of bullying, as follows.
- Often skip school
- Dislikes going to school
- Academic performance continues to decline
- Doing various actions that harm his body
- There were damaged personal items, such as books, gadgets, and clothes
- Hard to sleep
- Often have nightmares
- Sudden loss of friends
- Avoiding many social situations.
If the various things above then appear in children, you should immediately ask them. It could be that children then feel afraid to report bullying that happened to them.
How to Overcome the Impact of Bullying
When a child later becomes a victim of bullying, recovery from that condition may not be an easy thing to do. However, if it is not addressed immediately, then it will cause problems for children in the future.
So that the impact of bullying does not drag on in disturbing children, there are several important steps that can be taken, as follows.
- Listen and understand what the child is feeling
- Help your child feel focused on taking care of himself and growing into a better person
- Invite children then do counseling with psychological problems
- Remind your child that then taking revenge won’t make them feel better
- Invite children to also do activities or go to various places they like
- Make children feel important
- Make sure your child gets support from family and friends.
The impact of bullying can arise right away or decades later. The short-term impacts that are felt include psychological disorders such as depression and anxiety disorders, sleep disturbances, to various declines in performance at school and at work.
Meanwhile, in the long run, children who become victims of bullying tend to find it difficult to get a job, cannot interact socially, are more susceptible to psychological disorders and tend to need help from a psychiatrist more often.
Therapy sessions with a psychologist or psychiatrist can be the first step to improve the quality of life due to bullying.
Books Related to Bullying
1. Let’s End Bullying
Bullying is a problem whose impact must be borne by all parties. Whether it’s the perpetrator, the victim, or he who witnessed the action.
The results of the study show that one in three children worldwide admit to having experienced bullying. Whether it’s at school, in the neighborhood, or even online. Likewise, one in three children admit to having bullied their friends.
It is very important for parents to understand that bullying is by no means a normal part of childhood to go through. The act of bullying has bad consequences for victims, witnesses, as well as for the perpetrators themselves! Even the effect sometimes lingers until the child has become an adult.
This book will discuss thoroughly what bullying is, how to prevent and overcome it.
2. Stop Bullying
Bullying or what is known by the wider community as bullying is not something new that is happening around us. Old, young, rich, poor, everyone can be a victim of bullying, or even people who do it.
The question is, why did all this happen? What are the reasons for someone to bully, and why is someone bullied? Then, from the side of a third person who is not involved with all that, what should we do? Can we have a role to play in stopping this form of bullying?
Through this book, the author invites readers to explore the understanding of bullying, the various types of bullying, the reasons bullying can occur, and how we can overcome it all. Happy reading.
3. Cyberbullying
Cyberbullying: Digital Rights: Right on Online Safety seeks to provide an explanation of cyberbullying through historical exploration, case tracking, and the potential for new forms of bullying to emerge in cyberspace.
For this reason, the authors accompany the discussion by explaining various phenomena that have recently been present, such as cyber incivility, trolling, cyberstalking, doxing, revenge porn, cancel culture, disinhibition effect, and oversharing activities.
In closing, the author uses the QR Code in this book to summarize material reviews and make it easier for readers to explore further the issue by looking at laws and regulations, court decisions, videos, and articles related to the topic of discussion.
When humanity is entering a period of online transition, there will be evolutionary changes to the architecture of human rights that we have known so far. There are important challenges in fully understanding the complex and extensive threats to human rights in the digital space.
New technologies have penetrated so deeply into today’s legal environment that they not only introduce new ways of approaching traditional human rights, but also generate new rights and freedoms.
Today, a term known as digital rights appears. Some experts introduce digital rights as new human rights categories, while others explain them as a chain that is interrelated, starting from the right to access, the right to expression, and the right to feel safe (right on online safety).
However, there is deep concern when confronting the right to feel safe with the reality experienced by internet users today. A series of incidents have been seen that have harmed the sense of security of internet users, ranging from hacking, sexual violence, surveillance, especially cyberbullying.
Those are some of the effects of bullying that we need to be aware of. Sinaumed’s can also read books related to bullying which you can get at sinaumedia.com so that you have #MoreWithReading information.