Daily Times

Unfortunately, teasing is considered as a part of growing up and is often considered as a part of entertainment and almost every child experiences it. But it isn’t always as innocent as it seems. Words can cause pain. Teasing becomes bullying when it is repetitive or when there is a conscious intent to hurt another child. Bullying can be defined as a “typically a form of repeated, persistent, and aggressive behavior directed at an individual or individuals that is intended to cause (or should be known to cause) fear and distress and/or harm to another person’s body, feelings, self-esteem, or reputation. Bullying occurs in a context where there is a real or perceived power imbalance”. Bullying has many forms; it could be physical, verbal, social and electronic. Physical bullying includes, hitting, kicking, shoving, spitting, beating up, stealing or damage of property, while verbal bullying includes, name-calling, mocking, hurtful teasing, humiliation, threatening, racist or sexist comments and harassment. Social bullying consists of actions excluding others from the group, gossiping or spreading rumors, setting others up to look foolish, damaging friendship, saying bad things about to a culture, telling racist jokes, making someone feel uncomfortable because of gender expression, touching, pinching, grabbing someone in a sexual way, calling names and making someone feel uncomfortable because of a disability (e.g., mental or physical).

Now we are living in the age of media as everything is found in the palm of a person. Youth use social media to create relationships with others. Healthy face-to-face and online relationships mean that interactions are respectful, and disrespectful interactions become bullying. Cyber bullying is, when electronic communication used to upset, threaten or embarrass another person, while using email, cell phones, text messages, and internet sites to threaten, harass, embarrass, socially exclude, or damage reputations and friendships including insults, spreading rumors, sharing private information, photos or videos or threatening to harm someone is always aggressive and hurtful.

The children who are bullied have many common factors among them. They are, generally, shy in nature and are physically weaker than their peers. They may also have low self-esteem and poor social skills, which makes it hard for them to stand up for themselves. Bullies consider these children safe targets because they usually don’t retaliate. The child who is a victim of bullying, may suffer physically and emotionally, and his schoolwork will likely show it. The victims are affected even into adulthood as they have difficulty forming positive relationships. They are more apt to use tobacco and drugs, and to be abusive spouses. Some studies have even found a correlation with later criminal activities.

On the other hand, it is necessary to understand that the children and youth who are bully are not alike. They are strongly motivated to be popular in their peer group and will go to great lengths (even bullying) to achieve popularity. They need support in using positive relationship skills and learning positive means of using their power to achieve recognition. Children and youth who bully others may also be experiencing family difficulties or other mental health problems.

The endeavor to highlights the problem faced by our youth is an attempt to provide an insight of the ignorance given to the youth issues. I hope that educators will find this effort useful in providing a research foundation and consolidating their commitment and efforts to prevent bullying and promote healthy relationships for all children and youth. I hope that the EDO’s and the associations of teachers would consider it as a problem and will make necessary arrangements to get rid of this menace. They can achieve this goal by creating committees at district levels to counter the situation, where the victims, parents and volunteers could approach and record their problem to help and improve the situation. All educational institutions have to advertise the definition of “bullying”, should designate school staff responsible for addressing bullying, and provide anonymous reporting drop box and student reporting form.

Traditionally, there is a strong emphasis on education for children but it is an agreed fact that sports could help to teach social skills which are also very important alongside the education to develop a positive personality. No doubt, participating in sports activities along with numeracy and literacy are defined as the critical life skills. In recent years the emphasis on learning the critical skills for initiating and sustaining healthy relationships has grown. These skills can be difficult to learn because, unlike reading there is no consistency in the developmental learning skills required from one relationship to another and from one day to another. Just as with other forms of learning, children and youth learn relationship skills by trial and error while playing sports and with reading. We need to provide extra support to those who are constantly struggling to foster positive relationships.

Learning how to get along with others is highly complex and difficult for all children and youth to master, especially those who are not given support for healthy relationships in the early years — there is no one-to-one correspondence, nor consistency in learning about relationships. To initiate and maintain positive relationships, children need to develop increasingly complex social understanding, social awareness, and social skills. Children learn through trial and error. It’s their job to make mistakes, and our job is to help them learn from those mistakes — whether those mistakes are in reading, math, sports or relationship skills. All children require ongoing and positive support for social-emotional development because it is essential for success in school and in life.

The obvious fact where children and youth engaged in bullying is an area where both have “relationship problems that require relationship solutions”. Those who engage in bullying require support in learning how to use their power positively, rather than aggressively. Children and youth who are victimized need support to be protected from this form of abuse, some of these students may need to develop social skills and strategies including building self-esteem. Children and youth who witness bullying often feel helpless to intervene, they also need support to learn effective strategies to stand up to bullying, rather than standing by. Anyhow, this singular view falls short in providing a thorough understanding of bullying problems and addressing the problem. By adding a second lens, as with binoculars, we expand the focus to include student’s relationships. This second perspective takes into account the social dynamics in student’s peer groups and the roles that adults play in shaping their experiences. Together these two lenses offer a more comprehensive perspective on bullying problems. This deeper understanding of the complexity of the issues will lead us to recognize the multiple approaches required to address bullying problems.

The writer can be reached at malikmasud@hotmail.com