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BULLYING AND ITS EFFECT ON STUDENT’S PERFORMANCE
BULLYING AND ITS EFFECT ON STUDENT’S PERFORMANCE
Cassandra Howery
Liberty University
March 12, 2019
Abstract
The past few years have seen a high rise in the number of children being diagnosed with the mental health-related illness in the United States. The vast increase in the number of outpatients related to mental health treatments has caused an alarm which has resulted in priority being given to the high increase. The number had doubled by 2013 as compared to the statistics before 2000 in the United States (Soltanian, et.al., 2014). This is largely due to not only bullying but cyberbullying as well. Bullying is a common occurrence in our everyday lives, from school to work to home, we can encounter bullying anywhere. Most often, bullying is intentional aggressive behavior and continuously leading to physical or mental injuries. Further research has been carried out on the subject to analyze the cause and effects of bullying. The families ' environments leading to health, wealth and relationship issues over the long term are a common cause of bullying. Bullying caused students and employees to skip and/or get out of school or work because they feel unprotected. Students who leave are more likely than not to end up in prison instead of graduating and go to college to become lawyers or physicians, or what they wanted to be before bullying took over their lives. Employees skipping work cannot provide for their families. Extremely severe psychological problems can result from bullying, which could require hospitalization and even more extreme cases could lead to death by suicide.
"Bully" was first utilized as a part of the 1500s to allude to a sweetheart, however during that time its importance changed to somebody who was a "harasser of the frail." For some American kids, customary tormenting has been a reality of school life and just about a transitional experience. In any case, innovation has prompted advancement in harassing. As an ever-increasing number of children are being influenced by cyber bullying as well as conventional bullying. The absence of eye to eye collaboration in cyberbullying that innovation gives makes it considerably simpler to youngsters to go too far from kidding to tormenting.
Generally harassing has not been viewed as an issue that required consideration, but instead has been acknowledged as an essential and ordinary piece of adolescence (Cornell & Limber, 2015). In the last two decades, be that as it may, this view has changed, and schoolyard harassing is viewed as a significant issue that needs special consideration. Tormenting is a deep-rooted societal issue, starting in the schoolyard and regularly advancing to the meeting room (Soltanian, et. al., 2014). It could be characterized as a man's harmful treatment by power or pressure.
Review of Literature
Statistics
Bullying is forceful conduct that is rehashed after some time, is purposefully destructive and happens without incitement. Tormenting can either be physical, involving, for example, hitting, punching and spitting, or may involve the use of verbal embushments, prodding, disregard or mockery (Soltanian, et. al., 2014). It includes at least two people, one the guilty person and one the victim. However, there could be a huge number of people who are backhandedly involved. These spectators may be different understudies, but they do not involve themselves. Often they are concerned to become the next victim when they risk interfering.
The rate of bullying in schools was increasing, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. These are known serious threats to young people's health and development (Hill, 2011). The issue has been much more scrutinized since the publication by Olweus of the book "Aggression in schools" in 1993. The book characterizes school bullying as if a student has been repeatedly and over time exposed to negative actions. It also features aggressive behavior and unequal power. Recent Human Behavior research data from a study of school-age children in 40 countries showed that bullying is prevalent among young children and range from 9% to 45% with an average of about 23.4% of girls, with bullying ranging between 4.8% and 35.8%, while averaging about 15.8%. Another study conducted across countries with high school students in about 19 countries with low and low incomes reveals that Tajikistan was the country with 7.8% and 70% of the highest in Zambia with the lowest number of bullying cases (Iannotti, 2013).
The teenage stage is marked by huge social and psychological changes and behavioral challenges. Research has demonstrated that bullies and victims both tend to develop abducted and submissive behavior (Iannotti, 2013).
Victims develop problems with their peers compared to non - involved persons who develop behavior problems like drug abuse, weapons carrying and even school firefighting. They are also likely to develop difficulties. There is increasing evidence that childhood exposure to violent behavior affecting adults, and that bullying can be a sign of both psychological and physical problems (Hill, 2011). It has been known that victimization has a major impact on one person's future emotional well - being, especially in girls. This multinational issue requires immediate consideration with these facts about the long - term results of bullying. It is very important to understand these enormous development systems which can be used to inhibit or encourage school bullying.
Certain variables related to bullying at school were discussed by the students. One of them has demographic features; studies conducted before indicating that male students have reported more than female students involved in violent acts towards their fellow students. (Iannotti, 2013). Furthermore, several other studies have demonstrated that bullying in schools decreases with age. More cases of violence are reported by younger students. Family communication, economic status, parental care and living arrangements are all problems that come within the family. Several studies have shown that bullying teens are likely to be insecure with friends and have problems dealing with their parents (Iannotti, 2013).
Cyberbullying
The use of online children goes beyond all scores, especially as adolescents who used various social media tools from different firms are increasingly suicidal. In April 2013, Twitter announced plans to scrutinize and suspend harassing customers through injuryful tweets. “Online networking use is gigantically regular among young people”, said Lucy Betts, a teacher in Social Developmental Psychology at Nottingham Trent University, UK., however, it is obscure how cyber bullying affects well - being through web - based media destinations. In general, the risk of depression in adulthood can be doubled during adolescent years and harassing items can be as awful as a person or student cannot handle them accurately.
Michele Hamm and her colleagues conducted a survey of cyber bullying and online networking. They found 36 surveys examining the impacts on well - being of cyber bullying among 12 - 18 year - olds. Although various well - being results were analyzed and cyber bullying occasionally unexpectedly characterized (Hamm, 2015). However, Facebook was the most widely recognized – from 89 percent to 97.5 percent of teenagers who used Web social networking had a Facebook account. Hamm's publication showed that examiners had access to social media. 17 of the 36 thinks of dissected people were watching over how essential cyber bullying was, and scientists found that a middle of 23% of high school students revealed they were focusing on.
Many school-aged children have encountered the pitilessness of tormenting. The effect and effects of harassing have been depicted broadly in academic writing. Lamentably, the effect of bullying has likewise stood out as truly newsworthy with the current rash of school shootings and other types of school-based viciousness. The present ability to log online during any time of day, brings an extra danger to bullying. Because of their complex utilization of innovation, the present students are going to utilize contemporary delivery frameworks to insult, bother, and undermine their schoolmates. Cyberbullying is the most up to date frame of bullying, and it brings extra difficulties for school staff. Because of the remarkable viewpoints of cyberbullying, school therapists require systems to direct school groups confronted with this threatening behavior (Gleason, 2011).
Digital harassment is a major problem. Many students were reported to have taken their lives because they felt compelled, humiliated and no other options. With such a large number of innovation gadgets available, and the online world usually unmonitored, someone has significant space to act irrigatingly, whether through social media or face to face, to threaten others. The impacts may not be measurable from digital torments, but after a while, the anxiety factor develops. Many children and adolescents who experience digital harassment, may feel alone and frightened. Digital tormenting does not start on the Internet in many cases, but is face to face (Gleason, 2011).
As time goes on, cyberbullying evolves into more terrifying events that can forever impact our youth, Just recently, a new more horrifying form of cyberbullying is affecting children from ages three to eighteen, it’s called “The Momo Challenge.” “Momo” appears in YouTube videos as innocent as “Peppa Pig” and “Paw Patrol” as well as Whatsapp and Facebook. “Momo” is a depiction of a young woman, with enlarged eyes, smaller nose and lips, and she will threaten children with violence if they do not commit potentially dangerous activities, which includes self-harm or harming others. According to an article by Tim Furlong, a couple of suicides in different countries have been linked to this awful “Momo Challenge.”
Emotional Impact
A professor of child psychiatry at the University of Turku in Finland, Dr. Andre Sourander, conducted a study about how children who are bullied at a young age have a higher risk of possible psychiatric treatment later in life as well as depressive and anxiety disorders (Nierenberg, 2015). In his study, he found that children who were victims of bullying as early as eight years of age, will be more likely to be diagnosed with a psychiatric disorder that will need treatment as an adult, compared to children in the same age group who were not bullied.
While it is understandable to empathize with the victims of bullying, it can be harder to understand that the bully may also have emotional turmoil linked to bullying. Some of the short-term effects bullying can have for the bully include, poor performance in school, higher risk of skipping classes, trouble with maintaining peer relationships and a possible increase for substance abuse. The long-term effects that have been recorded for the bullies include: higher risk for substance abuse, anti-social behavior, higher risk of domestic abuse as an adult and less likely to have sustained employment (Wolke & Lereya, 2015). Some short-term for the bullied victims include, dietary changes, anxiety, poor performance in school, depression, difficulty sleeping, isolation and low self-esteem. The long-term effects for the bullied children can include: higher risk of suicide or suicidal ideations, poor overall health, higher risk for self-harm, difficulty in building relationships, anxiety disorders and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) (Wolke & Lereya, 2015). Earlier studies have found a link between bullying and an increased risk of childhood mental health concerns such as low self-appreciation, poor education, depression and a greater risk of suicide. (Iannotti, 2013).
Physical Health Impact
Some of the physical health impacts of bullying can be instantaneous, such as physical injury, or they can involve long-term effects, such as insomnia, headaches, or Somatic symptom disorder, which is when a person has a mental illness that manifests into physical symptoms, such as pain (Rivera & Le Menestrel, 2016). Long-term effects of bullying on physical health can be difficult to identify as they can be easily confused with other past childhood trauma or events. A study conducted in 2014, by Dr. Laura Bogart and her colleges, studied 4,297 children and their parents from Birmingham, Alabama, Los Angeles County, California and Houston, Texas and were question at three different points in their school career, fifth, seventh and tenth grade. In this study, they found that children who were bullied had worse physical health than the non-bullied peers. Most of the students who participated in the study also reported higher depression symptoms and lower self-esteem as time progressed (Bogart, et, al. 2014). Symptoms that were also reported in this study sleep disorders, gastrointestinal concerns, headaches, palpitations, and chronic pain. In another study conducted on 2,232 twin children, as part of the Environmental Risk (E-Risk) Longitudinal Twin Study, found that children who were chronically bullied had a high body mass index (BMI) than the children who reported little or no bullying (Baldwin, et.al, 2016).
Another physical concern that relates to bullying is overall brain function. Bullying-related stress can have detrimental effects on developing brains. A psychologist at Tufts University named Klaus Miczek conducted a study with rodents and the effects of bullying on their brains. He found that the bullied rodents had a higher level of corticosterone, the stress hormone, in areas of the brain that process rewarding stimuli, like drugs of abuse (Burke & Miczek, 2014). Another study found abnormal cortisol levels found in students who are bullied, which “can weaken the immune system and can even kill nerve cells in the hippocampus, a region of the brain that is involved in memory” (Nierenberg, 2015, p.).
Gender and Race
There are many differences between how boys and girls bully one another. We have all watched the movie “Mean Girls,” and while we would all like to believe that things like that do not happen and that the movie was made just for entertainment, sadly, that would just not be correct. Just by looking at a crowd, it would be difficult to find the girls who are bullying others and the ones who are not. Girls tend to socialize with each other differently than boys. While girls are getting older, their social interactions become less physical and more cerebral (Mishna et al., 2018). According to a study done by Mishna, Schwan and Van Wert, when girls bully each other, they use things like alienation, ostracism, deliberate and calculated random exclusions and spreading of rumors to harass their targets. Sometimes, girls will order others to do something embarrassing or aggressive and then will sit back to watch the events take place.” Boys, on the other hand, tend to be more physically aggressive and impulsive when they bully their peers. Boys are usually taught the “boy code” which means they must show certain traits that make them more masculine and when they don’t they are considered “wimpy” or “girly.” Often, when boys begin bullying, they are often coaxed by their more “alpha” peers in order to show that they are “manly” and more dominating than the boy they are choosing to bully (Mishna et al., 2018). Both genders are more likely to be a part of groups in bullying. However, boys are more likely to bully another student than girls.
According to a study by Peguero & Williams, Asian children are more likely to be bullied than any other racial group. In the study, children between the ages of twelve and eighteen were interviewed, and sixty-two percent of the Asian Americans in the study reported being bullied both face to face and online, compared to the eighteen percent of Caucasian students (Peguero & Williams, 2013). In another self-report study conducted on 10,254 middle school-aged children, sixty-two percent were Caucasian, nineteen percent of the reported bullied students were African American, and six percent were Hispanic. This study found that in more urban areas, Caucasian children were more likely to be bullied than any other race (Goldweber, Waasdorp & Bradshaw, 2013).
Prevention
Unfortunately, no school is without bullying or some form of bullying. Bullying can occur at any time, anywhere from the sports teams to after-school clubs to online. Teachers, parents and other adults in the community need to understand their part in bullying prevention. By preventing and stopping bullying, children will be given a space to thrive and grow in their community and school. Administrators and teachers need to be aware that bullying is no longer just a face to face incident. Cell phones and tablets can be used to isolate and victimize students. If a teacher witnesses bullying, he/she needs to intervene immediately. Parents should be talking to their children about the consequences of harsh words and insults as well as the effects of isolating their peers. Parents should also watch for signs of depression, stress and anxiety as their child may be dealing with bullying at school.
Teaching children how to communicate with each other and cope with their negative feelings, is the foundation to help prevent and stop bullying. “Teachers can implement a curriculum that promotes communication, kindness, friendships, and cooperation which includes lessons and activities teaching conflict resolution skills, anger management and empathy” (Whitley, Smith & Vaillancourt, 2013, p.). The school can create an event to educate administrators, teachers, all other school staff, parents, students and others in the community about bullying behaviors, how to respond and community resources. Parents can participate in activities to teach children kindness and compassion such as volunteering or partaking in community clubs.
Conclusion
As we advance in society, it is important to remember that our youth is precious and should be looked after. Many children pick up their habits from their parents, as well as those who are in their community. It is important that as a community, we strive to all be on the same page when it comes to how we handle bullying. It is not a problem that we can sweep under the rug and hope that it will “go away.” Since technology has grown and children have access to the internet, things like “Momo” will happen more and more, causing distress in our children and stunting their mental growth. The impact of bullying can become a lifelong issue if it is not addressed. Teaching our children how to cope and communicate now, can help them to deal with any issues that may come their way.
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