This week (Monday 16^th November to Friday 20^th November) is Anti-Bullying Week 2020. The aim of this campaign is to raise awareness of bullying in children and young people while also highlighting ways to prevent and respond to it. The post today will take us through what exactly is bullying and some ways to help stop it.

The Anti-Bullying Week is an annual UK event organised by the Anti-Bullying alliance. The theme for this year is ‘United Against Bullying’. To set the tone for this article, here is a short story of what happened to Lena just before the Covid-19 pandemic.

For a few weeks towards the end of October 2019, Lena has had little desire for school. She complains of stomach aches, and headaches has trouble concentrating. She was very restless and finds it difficult to sleep at night. She does not want to interact or meet with her friends and her school grades were worsening.

The reason: Her classmates constantly laugh at her, steal and hide her school supplies and bump into her in the schoolyard. For no reason. Lena is a victim of bullying and she needs help.

Do you know someone who is in a similar situation like Lena? There is help for victims of bullying! Please read further while I explain what is bullying and what you and I can do to stop it.

What is bullying anyway?

It is when the insults, abuses, marginalisations and physical attacks occur regularly, and the perpetrators always have the same victim in view, this is bullying.

Someone’s life is made hell by being systematically bullied and tortured repeatedly. We can use the English verb “to mob” here which means being mobbed, harassed, or attacked.

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There are times when the bullying can come from one perpetrator, and in other cases several people are involved. They tend to drag more people along until a whole group picks up on a single person. Their goal: finish off the victim of bullying which is so sad.

These types of bullying exist

Bullying can happen in many ways:

• Verbal bullying occurs through verbal abuse and insults.
• In non-verbal bullying, the perpetrators torment their victims with derogatory looks, gossiping, whispering, and mimicking.
• If there is regular pushing, kicking, and hitting, it is physical bullying.

The Consequences of Bullying

Of course, bullying has consequences: the victim suffers from the humiliation, feels lonely and powerless. It is not uncommon for anxiety and depression to occur if the bullying process continues for a long time.

In addition to psychological stress, physical complaints also occur such as insomnia, headaches, stomach problems, nervousness, and lack of concentration also torments the victims. (S)he becomes more and more curled up and lose their self-esteem.

What are the causes of bullying?

“Don’t stand in line” or “I’m sure the others are just kidding”: Such phrases can make the affected victims to feel worse off. They might also encounter a lack of understanding when narrating their anxieties to those who do not care.

These worries and fears can remain entirely with the helpless victim which is very detrimental to their health and wellbeing.

The result: The person looks for guilt in themselves. What am I doing wrong? Is it my appearance, my clothes, my figure? What can I change about myself so that others can accept me? But the causes of bullying almost never lie with the victim.

5 tips: This is how bullying aid works

Are you a victim of bullying yourself or someone close to you who is being bullied? Then the following steps will help stop and reduce the occurrence of bullying.

1) Don’t stay alone

Even if your worries and fears may not be taken seriously at first, these issues will have to addressed and accepted before the victim can overcome and move on: Victims of bullying should confide in their family or friends. Maybe there are classmates and work colleagues who can support you.

Read: How to manage stress levels during a pandemic

2) Keeping a bullying diary

A bullying diary documents all verbal and non-verbal attacks. Who did what, when, and how? It helps the victim to substantiate the bullying incidents and to be able to reject the guilt clearly. In the case of cyber bullying, screenshots can also be taken of the attacks.

3) Build self-confidence:

The private support of family and friends pushes and improves on self-esteem. Also, professional courses in which self-assertion is trained will help the victim a great deal.

Another advantage: Attend therapy sessions or go into different groups to get to know other people affected by bullying. This is fantastic to help in the exchange of ideas and also work out crucial strategies against the bullies.

4) Targeted addressing of bullies

Victims can defend themselves against bullies with enough self-confidence. The bullies do not expect a loud question such as “What’s the nonsense?” Or the clear message “Leave me alone, I don’t want that!”. In addition, those affected can make the bullying public. Any direct question to the bully may upset them, and can let go on their own accord because they do not want to be the centre of attention and be classed as a bully.

5) Authorities Initiate Action

Teachers, persons of trust at the university, or managers at work should also know about the bullying. Sometimes a person of authority can stop the bullying from getting nasty and take appropriate actions to prevent its reoccurrence.

Hope this post on what exactly is bullying and what we can all do to help stop it was useful to you. Please leave any comments below. Thanks for reading and see you in the next post.

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