Tips to Defining and Identifying Bullying in Your Elementary School

What is bullying? If you’re a parent, teacher, school counselor, or administrator, you likely have a good idea of what bullying is. But despite practically every parent or school official in the United States knowing what bullying is, it’s still an often-misunderstood topic. In this article, I’ll outline different forms of bullying, how it affects young people, and more.

I’m Joe Romano and for the last 30 years, I’ve presented fun-filled and interactive elementary school assembly programs on character education, positive behavior, reading, math, and science to schools across the country. By writing articles for my website’s blog, I hope to give parents and school faculty important information they can use to supplement their lesson plans and best practices for their students and kiddos.

Bullying Defined

Many people often confuse bullying with everyday aggressive behavior. Not true! Bullying is about an imbalance of power. Older children picking on smaller or younger students is bullying.

At least that’s one definition.

One challenging part of bullying is there are many different “definitions” of bullying. The U.S. Department of Health has its definition and other groups offer their own. On the surface, they all make sense. I’ll spell out many of the common definitions of bullying, which will hopefully paint a clearer picture of what the problem is.

Bullying Has Multiple Definitions

Another definition of bullying? It’s when one child aggressively picks on another child without provocation. The bully merely targets another child for no particular reason. In school, bullies sometimes target young children. But that’s not the only kind. Maybe a bully targets a minority. Or perceived as odd, having special needs, a new student in school, or in some way not the same as the bully. And in some cases, the victims’ own names are used as a reason for torment.

The important part of this definition is the bullying was unprovoked. The person being bullied did nothing to start the aggressive behavior of the bully. No tempers were flaring. This type of behavior can be referred to as “rational aggression.”

Yet another characteristic of bullying is its duration. In the real world, many bullies often target the same child repeatedly. The behavior can continue daily, even lasting the entire school year.

Bullying Misunderstood

Decades ago, much bullying behavior was explained away as “boys being boys” or “just teasing.” That was considered the bottom line. But not recognizing these signs of overt bullying can inadvertently cause children to believe that what they are experiencing is normal or to be expected.

Many young girls complain of boys pulling their hair or otherwise picking on them. “Oh, that just means he likes you,” well intentioned parents tell their daughters. The result? Girls grow up believing on some level that bullying is acceptable behavior.

Years later, bullying finally was acknowledged. But that was a slow road, too. For years, the only form of bullying widely acknowledged was physical bullying. If there was physical aggression involved, it was bullying. If it was something else, it was ignored.

Different Forms of Bullying

As we continue to pursue a deeper understanding of this problem, parents and educators began to realize bullying takes many different forms. Long gone are the old images in the back of comic books showing a muscular man kicking sand in the face of a thinner man on the beach as the sole kind of bullying. It was a great way to depict physical bullying, but it’s far from the only kind.

One part of bullying we need to keep in mind is escalation. Once things start, they rarely subside on their own. Many bullies, after discovering a target, will continue to step up their attacks. This flies in the face of older claims that ignoring the bully was the right idea. Some claimed that ignoring the bully would de-escalate the problem. Some claimed that eventually the bully and victim would see each other in a new light and even become best friends!

And without some kind of intervention or outside force changing the equation, the problem escalates. This escalation has another layer, too. The bullies rarely just use one form of bullying. A child’s tormentors can even follow them home from school in the form of cyberbullying, which I’ll cover in a moment.

Physical Bullying

This is what most people think of when they hear the word ‘bully.’ They envision mean behavior, where a bully is pushing, shoving, or punching a smaller or younger child. But physical bullying doesn’t end there. Bullying can include pinching, tripping, hair-pulling, or damaging someone’s belongings.

But unlike a fight or disagreement, several things separate bullying from normal conflict. First, bullying, as mentioned before, is an imbalance. Maybe the bully is bigger than their victim. Or they have their ‘gang’ around them. Physical bullying is also repetitive. It’s not just a single encounter, but something that happens over and over. And the bullying is intentional. The bully wants to hurt their victim, regardless of the reason.

Physical bullying can have multiple long-term effects on its victims. Kids who are bullied may no longer participate in class. They hope that by being silent, they’ll be left alone. And these patterns can persist well into adulthood. And prolonged bullying can lead to social anxiety, depression, difficulty forming healthy relationships, and other problems in life.

Verbal Bullying

Verbal bullying is perhaps the most misunderstood kind of bullying. I recall a conversation with a fellow school assembly presenter. He told me teachers at a school he performed at were frustrated. Kids were accusing each other of bullying because they called each other names.

Verbal bullying does involve name-calling at times. But it’s more than that. Verbal bullying can include taunting, insults, or threats. Verbal bullying can often lead to physical bullying as the encounters escalate.

Psychologists warn us that the effects of verbal bullying can impact a child’s social skills development for years. Verbal bullying can lead to severe self-esteem issues and other mental health problems. These effects can even result in depression and difficulty fitting in socially well into adulthood. Indeed, the old saying, “Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me” is undeniably false.

But victims suffer academically as well. The stress of wondering when their abuser will strike next can make it next to impossible for a child to focus on their studies. Also, because they are told how worthless they are and made to feel unworthy, these words seep into a child’s subconscious mind. They start to believe it. Soon, their actions reflect that they agree, on some level, that they are as useless as their tormentors claim.

Covert Bullying

This form of bullying is the most insidious. It’s harder to pin down. In its most basic form, covert bullying involves spreading rumors about someone. These bullies say things about the victim behind their back. And with people being what they are, word spreads. In short order, the victim’s reputation and social standing are damaged.

The more covert bullying spreads, the worse it can get. Have you ever played the game “telephone?” In this old game, a line of people sits in a row of chairs. A person on one of the ends whispers a phrase or piece of information into the ear of the person next to them. This is repeated until the last person in line hears the information.

Guess what happens? What that last person reveals is far different than what the person said. We communicate with each other ineffectively. Words change, facts are embellished, until it’s hard to know what the truth is, or what was said in the first place. And as with other kinds of bullying, the effects on the victim are disastrous.

Cyberbullying