The Impact of Bullying on Children, Adolescents, and Families
Ashley Thomas
DBMF 600
Liberty University
March 5, 2025
Abstract
Bullying is a universal issue impacting children and adolescents all over the world. We now understand
that it has lasting consequences that follow children into adulthood. They become our leaders, our
neighbors, and our colleagues. Untreated, these childhood issues become mental health problems that
require future intervention, not to mention the poor hasty and soldering development that young brains
undergo in the wake of bullying. We first examine and explore the history of bullying as it is known today
for a very good reason. Bullying has various manifestations. In this paper, we will touch upon physical
aggression, verbal harassment, and social exclusion that can also happen virtually, thanks to the ubiquity
of the Internet. We'll look at the way these employments of unfriendly force travel straight to the
victim's reproductive neurology, to the hubs of limbic activity in the amygdalas, and ascending ventral
premotor cortices that come into play when one is unable to cope with life's usual hiccups. Also, the way
these weapons targeted straight at the neural wiring for empathy can and do have
behavioral consequences that are easy to see and hard to ignore.
Introduction
Bullying refers to aggressive actions that are repeated over time and that involve an unequal balance of
power or strength (Olweus, 1993). It can take many forms, such as physical, verbal, and relational
aggression, and threats made online (cyberbullying), each of which can harm victims in different ways.
Research shows that bullying is a "normal" occurrence in the life of a school and that online spaces are
not free from the human tendency to form in-groups and out-groups; indeed, cyberbullying is often
considered the next frontier in the challenge of dealing with digitally connected youth (Patchin &
Hinduja, 2018). Parents and educators certainly have a strong interest in the local occurrence of this
delinquency. Counseling research should pay attention to the formation, maintenance, and
breaking up of bullying cliques as another delinquency avoidance program.
History of the Issue
In the past, bullying was seen as a standard part of growing up—"just kids being kids," people often said.
But a handful of social scientists, especially Dan Olweus in the 1970s, started making the case that
bullying is a much more significant issue— that it's a major social problem, in fact, that requires
intervention. Schools have since tried to step up and do various things to address bullying, including
putting up anti-bullying signs everywhere (as per the 1999 book, Please Stop Laughing at Us), having all-
school morning assemblies about the unacceptability of bullying, and having teachers read incoherent
scripts in class about why bullying is, like, totally bad. (In this last incident, I should mention, the word
"bad" was probably not used.) And then came the internet, which we might also call "Algebra 2.0."
While some few social scientists have suggested that the phrase "cyberbullying" might just be another
way to say, "aggressive communication among internet users," there's no denying that mental health
concerns among adolescents have shot up dramatically since the arrival of online harassment as a nearly
ubiquitous part of internet life. And students living with these heightened concerns don't seem
to be recovering very well at all. (Patchin & Hinduja, 2018).
Developmental Impact
The developmental effects on children who undergo bullying can be profound and long-lasting. Of all the
things a child can go through, experiencing bullying could be one of the most damaging, especially if it
happens over an extended period. Low self-esteem, poor social skills, and an overall sense of
worthlessness can be expected outcomes. On top of that, cognitive underdevelopment and poor
problemsolving skills can lead to academic failure (as if school weren't bad enough for a
bullied child as it is). These are the kids who drop out (Espelage et al., 2013).
Spiritual Impact
In faith-based environments, let it be a Christian home or not, children and adolescents take teachings
and core beliefs very seriously. For them, bullying can be a catalyst for faith crises. After all, why, in a
world of divine love, should they be the targets of such treatment? And if a truly divine being exists, why
hasn't that been intervened to stop the cruelty? In the aftermath of the victimization, some youth will
pray for fulfillment of the promises that their parental and pastoral figures have made concerning the
power of prayer to a loving God (Koenig, 2012). Although some youth may not find the answers, they are
comfortable with, faith communities can provide excellent support. In churches across the country,
counseling, mentoring, and friendship are signs of the next phase after a young person's diagnosis of
victimhood.
Physical Impact
Often, bullying has physical effects, for instance, on the head, stomach, and sleep. Chronic stress from
bullying weakens the immune system (Gini & Pozzoli, 2013), so that victims are more likely to get sick. A
few young people cope by cutting or otherwise harming themselves. Eating disorders are another way
that some victims
cope with emotional distress.
Emotional Impact
Common among the bullied children and adolescents are low self-esteem, depression, and anxiety.
Copeland et al. (2013) believe that long-term exposure to bullying can result in PTSD, with not a few
victims carrying that mental burden well into adulthood. They also contend that the emotional toll taken
can lead many victims to contemplate suicide. With the profound sense of hopelessness and isolation
that bullying fosters, some bullying victims might just see suicide as the
only way out.
Behavioral Impact
Bullying victims often behave differently after experiencing the trauma of being bullied, and these
behaviors can change over time.
Victims might start off merely withdrawing further into themselves and trying to stay away from
everyone and everything that reminds them of school or the people who bullied them.
But not all victims pace themselves through these stages. Some might skip right over the withdrawal
stage and go quickly into an incredibly angry phase, starting fights and being overly aggressive toward
anyone and anything that gets in their way.
Some children may develop antisocial behaviors, while others internalize their trauma, leading to long-
term mental health struggles.
Even when kids who are bullied ask for help, it seldom helps. They simply have to live with their
tormentors until some moment of intervention is finally allowed or a
moment of creative rebellion is found to flip the script on bullies.
Influence on Parenting
Mishna, in 2012, stated that parental guidance is very crucial in addressing bullying, as children who are
being bullied need some form of emotional support, reassurance, and "practical solutions to tough
problems" that they can navigate themselves. He said that some of us, in the profession, may tend to
consider too much the difficulties that parents face in dealing with a strongly bullied child. Undue
emphasis on this aspect may lead us to think more of parents simply as unhelpful figures rather than as a
significant part of the prevention and
intervention picture.
Treatment Strategies
Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
CBT is frequently employed to assist bullying victims in coping with anxiety and depression. This
therapeutic method enables individuals to reshape distressing thoughts and to equip themselves with
strategies for a kind of stress-tolerant resilience that might have served, in bygone days, as wayfinding
for coping with the bullies themselves (Fekkes et al., 2006). In reconstituting CBT as an approach that's
somehow effective with certain groups of kids, certain kinds of stress, and certain kinds of thoughts, we
must also acknowledge that studies indicate CBT
significantly improves self-esteem and emotional regulation in bullied children.
School-Based Interventions
Anti-bullying programs that work pay attention to two essential things: creating a positive school climate
and encouraging peer intervention. An example of such a program is the Olweus Bullying Prevention
Program, which was created in Norway.
This program, now quite popular in the U.S., trains teachers and has them work
directly with kids. Tell teachers to keep their eyes open and lots of ears, too. And
what do teachers watch for? Watch for the kids who are not getting along.
Christian Counseling Approaches
Counseling based on faith enables victims to achieve emotional healing through the application of
biblical principles. Numerous churches provide not only this type of counseling but also support group
and mentorship programs. In these settings, children and teenagers are helped to work through their
life-altering experiences. They are guided in their moving forward, in resilience that is often a direct
consequence of the inculcation of certain fundamental tenets of Christianity that, as is widely known,
are all about love, forgiveness, and self-worth—tenets that make a real and significant difference in the
lives of many vulnerable people.
(Koenig, 2012).
Community Resources
Multiple organizations help bullied children and their families:
• StopBullying.Gov – It is a wealth of resources for bullied kids, parents, and professionals. Bullying
stats and facts; federal policy guidance; as well as local laws and even private sector-services provided;
this site covers it all and is very user-friendly.
• The National Bullying Prevention Center – This service of PACER Inc. offers support and networks
for kids who are bullied. Their website is interactive and provides avenues to a variety of supportive
resources.
• Local churches and faith-based organizations – Many local churches have mentoring programs
for kids and counseling services. They serve as solid places to
go for help.
Conclusion
Bullying is a multifaceted social problem that has enduring effects on children, adolescents, and their
families. It gets into development, emotional well-being, physical health, and spiritual beliefs. All that
makes it very necessary to come up with a pretty good set of intervention strategies. Parents, schools,
and community organizations need to work together to make safe spaces for our children, provide the
resources necessary for the victims, and (as my grandmother would say) make a real, serious effort to
get at the root of this cowardly act. The next generation of research needs to get at the long-term effects
(which we heard can last a lifetime) of the kind of victimization that happens when one child or
adolescent bullies another. We also need to look more closely at some of the new strategies that people
are trying out to prevent this from happening. And we pretty much have to talk more about
"cyberbullying," what it is, the kinds of digital spaces in which it goes on, and the fact that so many of
our social interactions nowadays happen in
those digital spaces.
References
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2021). Preventing bullying.
https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/youthviolence/bullyingresearch/
Copeland, W. E., Wolke, D., Angold, A., & Costello, E. J. (2013). Adult psychiatric outcomes of bullying and
being bullied by peers in childhood and adolescence.
JAMA Psychiatry, 70(4), 419-426.
Espelage, D. L., Hong, J. S., Rao, M. A., & Thornberg, R. (2013). Understanding ecological factors
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Fekkes, M., Pijpers, F. I. M., & Verloove-Vanhorick, S. P. (2006). Effects of bullying prevention programs: A
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Koenig, H. G. (2012). Spirituality in patient care: Why, how, when, and what.
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