How does bullying start?
In order to understand how does bullying start one must first discover what bullying is, or the definition of bullying according to Webster’s dictionary. A bully is an aggressive person who physically or emotionally mistreats a person who is weaker and has less power. A bully will embarrass, persecute, oppress, intimidate, torment and the use of scare tactics towards their victim without mercy. When a victim experiences bullying, it must be in repeated instances of over six months, and not just at intervals.
The word bully had made national and international headlines and has been in the news a lot lately. Bullying is so much out of hand that the United States federal government and governments overseas have set laws into place protecting persons from bullies. The United States calls bullying a federal offense. When a person begins to bully their victim they are breaking the law, and when caught, the person can be arrested by the authorities and ordered to pay a hefty fine and/or jail time. Bullying is no laughing matter when it causes so much mental and emotional distress to another person that it causes him or her to commit suicide.
Over 45 states have enacted laws to punish bullies. There is a wide and varied definition of what a bully is. Each state’s definition makes it difficult to address.
How does bullying start when a child first begins school? One child may innocently tease another child. If a child can talk, the child can innocently bully another child in a pre-school setting. At such a young age, it is doubtful that this child bully really knows or understands, what they are doing is wrong. The child’s cognition is not developed well enough to understand the concept of being a bully. It is the responsibility of the parent to intervene. Parents should tell the child this behavior is unacceptable and wrong. Parents should make it clear to the child there is zero tolerance for this behavior.
Sometimes when young children see, older children bullying them immediately think this behavior is acceptable. Younger child look up to an older child, whether the child has a good or bad attitude. It does not take long for the young six year old to know who the bullies are in their school and that it is wrong. Many schools are enacting bullying programs and anti-bullying assemblies in conjunction with the police and other authorities to teach children bullying is unacceptable and not tolerated, anytime or anywhere.
School assemblies targeting bullying, will sometimes leave questions in young minds, and teaching about bullying becomes mixed up. The majority of educators feel that bullying starts about the age of six. Other educators feel that bullying can begin as soon as the young child talks in sentences. Odd and unusual things in a child’s surroundings related to the child that something is different, not normal.
Young children can use words such as, stupid, ugly, fat, yucky, dumb and so much more, geared towards younger minds. Parents and parents of parents and on back through history have known for centuries that kids can be cruel to adults and their peers. It is difficult for a parent or teacher to distinguish that fine gray line between teasing of another and bullying.
Bullying can start due to any number of means it just has to be equally identifiable across the nation. Educators have been able to set up criteria for bullying. This makes it easier among states to identity and address whom the bullies are and who are their victims.
Physical and verbal bullying can start at a young age, sometimes before six years of age. This child may bite, hit, punch, slap, kick or scratch a playmate. The youngster through name-calling, as mentioned earlier, can do verbal abuse. The child bully can be so distressed that they will grab at another child’s clothing to rip the material. The child bully may grab a piece of the victim’s property and destroy the item. The young child may see something that the other child has and want it, so will steal their possessions.
This physical and verbal bullying can remain with the child all through their adult life. In a marriage situation, this physical and verbal bully can have a tendency towards a spousal and child abuse, through physical and verbal abuse.
The ability for the young child systematically and chronically to know how to inflict physical and verbal, psychological and emotional abuse will not be picked up upon until the child is old enough to think out these methods of bullying. A young child is not old enough to be able to reason out the balancing of power or status between them and their victim. These are methods learned and visualized while the child is growing up, then gradually instituted, as they get older.
When a youngster is beginning to put sentences together well, they still cannot express their feelings or emotions except through acting out. This is probably true of a much older bully child or adult if they have never been allowed to express what is bothering them. It is possible their parents never taught the child good communication techniques. How a bully starts out in life and forms the bully image can be the fault of many things in the bully’s life.
• The Child’s father has been a bully all his life and is now bullying the child
• Divorce can set a child apart and be confusing and cause acting out on the part of child
• The child could look a bit different, such as a large nose or big ears. Some kids started to point their fingers at this child, so this small victim did the only thing they felt they could do to protect him or herself, to bully back
• Maybe the child is lonely or picked last on a team, and self-esteem issues form • The child does not have clear speech
• The child is short or weighs more than the rest of his or her peers
• Children learn by example. If mom or dad uses words towards other adults, such as crazy, fat, or ugly and the child hears this he or she will naturally think it is ok to do, because mom and dad do it
• Maybe a child bully is learning from their bully teacher or coach
Bullying can start at a young age and be easily mistaken for common childhood teasing. Some parents think that bullying is a common part of growing up. Bullying behaviors is never common. If the behavior continues uncorrected, the bully could turn nasty when the child enters into adulthood. This behavior will have negative outcomes in adult relationships if allowed to continue.
If everyone looks back into their childhood, it is a sure bet that there will remember instances of when the adult was a bully, or was a victim to a bully. Continued bullying leaves life-long emotional scars that area difficult to remove if ever.
If adults everywhere in every aspect of a child’s life bully how does the child learn any differently? When does one see the bully squelched? In the beginning of the child’s life, the teen years or adult years when the person is arrested because they caused the death of their victim.
Many have wondered how does bullying start? Bullying starts in the most innocent ways, sometimes, unbeknown to the young child. Bullying can start with an older child who is retaliating for the unfairness and hurts in his or her own life.
Bullying can start at any time in the period of a child or adult. Most times bullying starts in the home with the parents. Victims of bullies often come from homes where the parents were overprotective of the child. Parents who are trying to protect their child from the negatives in life are not doing the child any good. On the other side, parents who are too harsh with a child may turn them into a bully early in life. These overprotective parents where shaping their child to become a bully’s victim. A child is thought to become a bully when the parents are too harsh and overbearing with that child.