The effects of bullying can be long-term, yet most people believe bullying is nothing more than the regular part of growing up, and that some kids behave a little out of order. But as many academic research have shown types of bullying can be both physical and psychological, and both might bring the emotional effects of bullying.
This is true not only for the victim but also for bullies and those who witness bullying. We are talking both short-term effects of bullying, as well as long term impact of bullying for all three categories involved in bullying. Bullying can have a negative impact on overall school experience, so not only the victims but those who witness bullying refuse to go to school or pretend to be ill.
Effects of Bullying On The Victim
Those being bullied can can feel instant physical and psychological effects of bullying. Victims can have numerous symptoms as a result of bullying. Those can include sadness, low self-esteem and anxiety at first, but can also be headaches, stomach pain or even sleeping problems. Victims are more likely to suffer from those than bullies, which can lead to low immunity, meaning less resistance to infections. Therefore they might really get sick much more than most children.
Victims are usually avoided by their class mates. They have hard time making friends because of their low self-esteem. This effects of bullying will usually isolate victims, leading them to believe they don’t deserve to have friends. Another problem is that other children don’t want to get involved with victims because they are frightened they might become the next target of a bully, and as a consequence also lose friends they already have.
Sadness and these ablation are feelings that can bring victims bad grades. As we have already explained, effects of bullying might mean that victims will try to avoid coming to school and they awil be more prone to health problems. Victims are also afraid of certain areas in school like the bath room, or bus where they are not protected.
Some studies have shown that up to 10% of teenagers miss a day or more per month of school because o
f fear as one of effects of bullying. Except for low attendance victims have bad grades because of their stress and anxiety. Their only problem in school becomes the bullying and tactics for avoiding it, thus leaving them no time for learning.
Another one of effects of bullying is possible violence. This can happen during them being bullied or perhaps later in the future. This may be violence that is targeted to themselves, school or the bullies. If they try to resist it might lead to even more bullying because bullies will want to revenge. We have seen many cases of school shootings. Kids who took the gun or the rifle were victims of bullying more often than not.
Effects of bullying on victims such as anxiety disorder and depression may turn into permanent condition and continue for many years. This can in return cause problems to their friends, coworkers, and family in the.
In severe cases of bullying victim will even dream of suicide and some may even commit one. Victims are much more suicidal than their friends who were not bullied. When the bullying and suicide happen due to heavy stress caused by violence it is refered to as a „bullycide“.
Effects of Bullying on Bullies
Bullies also feel consequences of their deeds. They are also subjected to both short and long-term effects of bullying. As children, and even as an adults later, they are much more likely to get into some other activities which are harmful for their environment. In their youth they will most probably be involved with property damaging and stealing. Fights on physical basis will be started by them, they might be injured in those clashes, they will tend to skip school and even might start to carry weapons of some sort to intimidate others. The use of drugs and alcohol are also very common effects of bullying. They might even be prosecuted for their deeds – this is five times more likely to happen to them than to average kid.
When they grow up, most of bullies will carry on with their bullying behaviour. Some studies has shown an interesting pattern as a part of effexts of bullying. One was carried out on children who were bullying their schoolmates from 6th to 9th grade. These kids, and later adults, were accused for some crime by their 24th birthday in 60% of cases. This is a good time to elaborate a bit. For all of you parents who think their kid is just a little tough, you should really try and find out what is going on in school. Their behaviour, if you don’t correct it immediately, might lead them straight to the jail. One study showed that 25% of these kids will have a criminal record (conviction) by the time they are 30 years old.
It seems that bullies have an urge for power and they carry that emotion even when they grow up. As one of the effects of bullying they might become involved in sexual or racial crimes, they abuse children even as grown ups and domestic violence is very common in their case. The urge for power is maybe best demonstrated in the way they behave towards their own children – this makes and unfortunate loop and their children start bullying other children in school.
In the victims part we were saying how victims were more likely to have some kind of anxiety disorder than their bullies. But bullies have their efefxts of bulying too. Personality disorder is much more likely to occur in a population of bullies. This antisocial personality disorder means these people will be involved in violence and aggression, will have disregard for others and their rights. Bullies never learn proper social skills as kids, so the end up being adults with social problems. This also means they will not have strong bonds with others, like friend and family members or their co-workers.
Just one more thing to add. Just like victims, bullies can have depression problems and have suicidal thoughts as one of effects of bullying. It is not rare that they carry out a suicide too, but for different reasons – social personality disorder.
Effects of Bullying on Witnesses
There is also a third party when it comes to bullying, who also might suffer from effects of school bullying, but are not directly involved. These are witnesses or bystanders if you will. These people will develop problems too which include low self-esteem and frustration, even loss of control on occasions. This come from a guilt feeling for not doing anything to save the victim of bullying. When this guilt gets too huge for them to handle, they might even turn the page and switch from empathy to the feeling that bulling is something acceptable. They do this on subconscious base, to prevent that guilt feeling for not doing anything to stop the bullying. They will not even admit to themselves that a victim is actually being hurt in bullying process.
Witnesses might also feel some effects of bullying like victims do. These are primarily stress and anxiety. This is connected with worry that they might also become one of the victims in the future. So the feeling of security decreases when they are in school. This also leads to problems with achievement and learning as they develop negative feeling towards the school.
The Conclusion on Effects of Bullying
This article must have discovered you some new effects of bullying, for all parties involved. Do you still think it is smart to say „Kids will fight each other because that’s normal for their age.“? No, it is not normal. Most kids don’t get into fights because they are kids, but because they suffer from problems at school or home. Causes of bullying might be parents who are not the good role model, or just might be indifferent to whats going on to their kid in school. Facts about bullying form many studies tell us that.
The research on effects of bullying showed that most kids belong to some of these mention parties and are involved into bullying more often than we as parents are aware. We must therefore try to prevent this behaviour or the consequences might be with our kid for the rest of their lives. I realize kids feel ashamed if they got beaten up by some bullies and might not be ready to come forward with it. But this is where you as a parent should realize that if your kid shows up with bruises after school, it is usually not just a harmless kids fight, but can be a big problem because effects of bullying will not be visible right away, and when you realize the seriousness, it might be too late.