Bullying
Bullying can have a massive impact on your mental health, both now and in the future.
Recent research has shown that if you’re bullied as a child or teenager, you might be twice as likely to use mental health services as an adult. It doesn’t matter if you’re being bullied at school, at home or online, bullying can mess with your head. But you’re not alone, and you deserve support.
In very serious cases bullying could lead to self harming, or even suicidal thoughts. Often other people don’t realise the effect that bullying has when it goes on day in day out.
There are usually signs that someone is being bullied and if you see or hear any of them you’re in a good position to help. Below is some things you can do if you are worried that a friend is experiencing bullying at school.
- If you are at school, let a teacher know what you suspect
- Go with the person being bullied and back up what they say to the teacher
- Tell the person being bullied that you’ll can help them to tell their parents
- Tell your parents or an adult you trust
- Keep a diary of what you see going on so that you can give a reliable account of what has been happening
What is Bullying?
There is no legal definition of bullying. But it is usually defined as repeated behaviour which is intended to hurt someone either emotionally or physically, and is often aimed at certain people because of their race, religion, gender or sexual orientation or any other aspect such as appearance or disability.
Bullying can take many forms including:
- physical assault
- social bullying
- threatening behaviour
- name calling
- cyberbullying
- sexualised bullying
Cyberbullying
Cyberbullying is bullying Online. Unlike Bullying that happens in the real world, such as in school or with friends, cyber bullying can follow you wherever you go, especially if you’re on social networks, playing on game consoles or your mobile phone.
Cyberbullying can include:
- Excluding you from friendship groups
- Sending you threatening and abusive text messages or images
- Sharing and creating embarrassing images or videos of you
- Pressurising you into sending sexual images or encouraging you to engage in sexual conversations
How to deal with bullying at school
If you are being bullied at school, it can be very stressful and confusing on what steps to take to get the bullying to stop. This can have a huge impact, and you may be feeling very anxious, low, withdrawn or isolated because of the bullying. Please see the following link for more information on bullying at school for lots of advice on taking time off school, complaining to your school and next steps to take if the bullying has not been resolved.
Key Points
- Building resilience and confidence is very important. Life can bring you many challenges and how we manage this is important
- If you are being bullied at school, it can be very stressful and confusing on what steps to take to get the bullying to stop
- Talking to someone you trust is important, whether that’s a teacher, a parent or another responsible adult