Childhood Bullying

According to the Merriam Webster’s dictionary the term, “bullying” is defined as. “A form of aggressive behavior manifested by the use of force or coercion to affect others, particularly when the behavior is habitual and involves an imbalance of power. It can include verbal harassment, physical assault or coercion and may be directed repeatedly towards particular victims, perhaps on grounds of race, religion, gender, sexuality, or ability. The ‘imbalance of power’ may be social power and/or physical power. The victim of bullying is sometimes referred to as a ‘target‘. Bullying consists of three basic types of abuse – emotional, verbal, and physical. It typically involves subtle methods of coercion such as intimidation. Bullying can be defined in many different ways.” Almost every parent will have to deal with some form of bullying in their child’s lifetime. Whether their own children become the target of bullying, witness someone else being bullied or they, themselves, are in fact, considered the “school bully”. These are all important issues to consider in what to discuss to your child before they enter elementary school. What can be done to prevent bullying, dealing with aggression, proper punishment of bullies at school and the consequences of cyber bullying are all topics that should be discussed by parents with their children. “Is my child a bully?”, is rarely a question parents ask themselves. Many adults are in denial of their children’s aggressive behavior towards others. Signs of aggressive behavior could be as simple as slamming a door, sly remarks or simply sitting in silence and sulking, while other are quite obvious, a child may have a difficult time in engaging in simple activities with their peers in a non-confrontational manner. Some research has indicated that some children who resort to bullying as a defense mechanism often struggle in school, lack social skills, have negative attitudes and have poor problem solving skills. Building up your