Question

Discuss bullying behavior throughout development. Be sure to include:

-Criteria for behavior to be considered bullying

- The different forms and functions of aggressive bullying behavior

- Risk factors for a child to become a bully, as well as a victim

- The effects or consequences of bullying/being bullied

- What bullying looks like at each stage in development

- Any changes/developments in bullying/aggressive behavior that occur as children progress from preschool into middle childhood, adolescence, and into adulthood.

Responses must be essay form and please follow the instructions the information provided below helps to answer the questions .

> Criteria for behavior to be considered bullying

Bullying is defined as negative actions that could be physical, verbal or relational. They have hostile intent, cause distress to the victim, are repeated and involve power imbalance between bully and the victim.

> The different form and functions of aggressive bullying behavior

- Physical confrontation

- Aggressive physical behavior like hitting, kicking, pushing

-Verbal behavior like name calling, threatening.

- Teasing

- Humiliation to more indirect ways of victimization such as spreading rumors or exclusion from the group or social marginalization of the victim.

- Sexually like making sexual comments or gestures

- Electronically like texting, emailing or cyberbullying

> Risk factors for a child to become a bully

- Witnessing or experiencing abuse

- Parents who do not establish rules for their children and provide inadequate supervision

- Craving power

- being bullied by their siblings

- Exhibiting low frustration tolerance

- low self -esteem

- Unable to empathize

- Aggressive behavior and using physical strength to intimidate

> Risk factors to become a victim

- Submissive in nature

- low self-esteem

- Experiencing abuse in the past

- Anxious or always scared in nature

- unable to express

- Family characteristics also defines child's behavior

> Effects of Bullying/being bullied

Bullying impacts not only the victim but also the bully himself. It affects their mental health and can also lead to substance abuse and suicide. It may further cause anxiety, depression or any such psychological issues.

> What bullying looks like at each stage in development

- Bullying during Preschool years is mostly physical and children tend to hit, bite, pinch or kick each other and usually it's not intentional. Aggression and aggressive behavior are due to impulsivity and the inability to regulate their emotions and are unaware how to express and communicate themselves.

- Bullying during school age includes verbal bullying like taunts or saying mean comments and physical bullying among young age students and social exclusion is also observed.

- Bullying during preteens and teens is relational aggression. Rumor spreading, emotional and electronic bullying is highly observed and it may lead to sexual harassment.

> Any changes/developments in bullying/aggressive behavior that occur as children progress from preschool into middle childhood, adolescence, and into adulthood.

It may lead to aggressive behavioral problems, It can also lead to antisocial behavior in later life. It majorly affects their psychological health and at times behavioral as well.

Answer 1

Bullying as stated above is a form of aggressive behavior in the form of action or words with an intention to harm others.

The criteria for bullying can be divided into three aspects, (i) intent to harm (ii) imbalance of power(iii) repetition. Bullying has a target or focus to harm specified person who is deemed to be weak and the action is carried out repeatedly through words or action. Bullying can be in varied forms, verbal, non verbal, social, cyber, and physical. Verbal bullying refers to the choice of word made intentionally to hurt the victim, it can affect them psychologically, socially withdraw, weaken confidence, hamper their regular functioning, induce negative thoughts and so on.Non verbal bullying refers to the choice of inappropriate gestures which is culturally and socially not accepted with an intention to hurt the feelings of the victim. This can affect the socializing skills, can be humiliating, increase frustration also which might sometimes lead to physical fights. Social bullying is different unlike verbal and nonverbal bullying, this might involve spreading of false rumors or testimonies with an intention to isolate the victim. This can psychologically affect a person the most. It can even lead to developing of behavioral disorders to suicidal tendencies. Cyber bullying is a sub category of social bullyiing, it can also be considered as an upgraded version of social bullying. Here the bullying is carried out with the help of science and technology. This is the latest way of bullying. the effects are almost similar to that of the social bullying. Physical bullying refers to the action which might involve, physical fight, inappropriate painting on the body, causing physical harm, undressing, dressing according to opposite sex forcefully and so on. Preschoolers are very good imitators, they grasp every single action which interests them. Today the media is very innovative and caution should be taken by the elders while the preschoolers are around. Around school age there is a tendency to use verbal and social bullying and above that stage they tend make use of the cyber bullying and social bullying.