Scared of School

Bullying can occur in many different forms. You may not think of yourself as being bullied but it might be happening gradually. Here are some ways that people have been bullied

• Being called names
• Being teased
• Being pushed or pulled about
• Being hit or attacked
• Having possessions taken or thrown around
• Being ignored/left-out/excluded
• Being forced to hand over money or possessions
• Being attacked because of religion, colour, sexual orientation, disability, family or financial background or for any other reason
• Having malicious rumours spread about you

Stereotypical bullying incidents are classed as a series of cruel incidents involving the same bully and the same victim. But bullying can occur in a single interaction and repeat offences are not always a factor in bullying. If the bully is twelve years or above the incident can be counted as a criminal offence (in most countries).

The fear of bullying is usually what drives people to school refuse. Take a look at Bullying Online, to see the results of the National Bullying Survey they conducted to see just how many children and teenagers have been affected by bullying and how it makes them feel.

People can be bullied for a number of reasons, even though there is no excuse for the bullying to go on. Here are a few reasons why bullies pick on others:

• The victim doesn’t have a lot of friends
• The victim succeeds in school work
• The victim’s achievements may cause jealousy
• The victim is sensitive and cares about others (possibly vulnerable but this isn't a bad thing)
• The victim may be able to communicate with others better
• The victim’s intelligence

We’re not going to say that these are the only reasons you may be bullied for because it’s not true. Schools and other authority figures will sugar-coat everything and explain that the bullies are distressed individuals and they are cowards whom you must feel sorry for. This is true but from our experience, it’s not the best advice to give to someone who’s bullied. Basically, bullies are pretty evil and if they don’t like you then they’ll bully you. The last thing you should try and do though is try to make them like you because it won’t work. Bullies will pick on anyone they know is vulnerable and they’ll do it out of boredom or because they need to boost their ‘street cred.’ Yes, they enjoy the power – they love it – and the control they have over you probably makes them feel invincible. All the advice you get told about how bullies are probably insecure and/or bullied themselves is true but although understanding them is good, it doesn’t help you solve the problem. The only advice that isn’t good is when people tell you to ‘Ignore it.’ For all those who think it isn’t that bad or it will go away in time then think again.

Being bullied can seriously affect your physical and mental health. Most victims often suffer in silence. They lack confidence, feel bad about themselves, have few friends and spend most of their time alone. They will have negative thoughts about school, as it is the easiest place to be bullied. It may be difficult to concentrate on work. Some become anxious, have difficulty sleeping and could develop depression. Here are lists of the emotional and physical symptoms of bullying:

• Loss of confidence
• Loss of self-esteem
• Lack of motivation
• Irritability or aggression
• Anxiety
• Panic attacks
• Anger/murderous feelings
• Depression
• Suicidal thoughts
• Loss of pleasure in things once enjoyed
• Loss of trust
• Sense of losing control over events or life in general
• Indecisiveness

• Sleeplessness
• Nausea
• Sweating/shaking
• Palpitations (heart pounding)
• Lethargy (sluggish, no energy, not caring)
• Skin complaints
• Backache
• Stomach/bowel problems
• Migraine/severe headaches
• Change in appetite

Bullying tends to have 4 roles in it aside from the bully and the victim. Most think that there is just the bully and the victim but that’s not accurate. All four roles don’t have to be taken up/present for an incident to be considered bullying but it is typical of a bullying incident. Here are the four roles in bullying (bully and victim not included):

1. Assistants – These are those people who assist the bully. They join in eagerly with the verbal or physical bullying.
2. Reinforcers – These are similar to Assistants but they don’t necessarily join in. Reinforcers tend to give encouragement to the bully by providing an audience, making gestures or laughing.
3. Outsiders – These people stay away and try to distance themselves from the bullying incident. They don’t take sides but in doing so, silently condone the bullying.
4. Defenders – These people provide comfort to the victim, take the victim’s side and try to make the bully and other roles stop.

Physical

Physical bullies intimidate their victims by using violence. This includes hitting, kicking and spitting etc. or even destroying the victim’s possessions. This type of bullying is the easiest to recognise as victims may have injuries and seeing someone hit another child can’t be mistaken as play-fighting when it is all one-sided.

Verbal

Verbal bullying can often be worse than physical bullying as it is easier to inflict upon peers. Name-calling, insulting and making racist remarks takes no time at all and can be done roughly anywhere. These bullies use words to hurt or humiliate their victims. It is difficult to recognise as the scars are on the inside.

Relational

Relational bullies often try to convince their peers to reject/exclude a certain individual from activities. This results in social isolation and makes the victim feel very alone. This kind of bullying is linked with verbal bullying and can involve the bully spreading nasty rumours about someone, convincing others not to be friends with the victim. Bullying in this form (usually with girls) can be particularly nasty as it means the victim is isolated from their peers at a time when they need friends most.

Bullying is a difficult problem to solve, we all know that. It’s so difficult to cure because every case is different. The same insults, the same incidents may happen in two different cases but it’s different people so they could react differently to the same approach. Some schools have started using the ‘No Blame’ approach. This deals with bullying by making sure there is:

• The absence of blame
• The encouragement of empathy (understanding how others feel)
• Shared Responsibility (everyone has a part in the victim’s happiness)
• Problem solving

This has been shown to work quite well in some cases as it means the bully doesn’t feel as though they are in trouble and so may lay off the victim. Then again, the ‘No Blame’ approach can also mean that bullies avoid accountability for the wrongs they’ve done. A characteristic of a bully is a refusal to accept responsibility for his/her actions and so the ‘No Blame’ approach could fuel that. This is why it’s so difficult to know what to do about bullying. We won’t kid you and say that by telling someone about bullying everything will go away because we know it might not be true. Here are a few things that we can advise you to do and sometimes you really just have to hope for the best:

• Tell someone you trust. This can be a doctor, family member, friend etc. We know it’s not usually advised but we don’t think it’s good to tell a teacher first. We recommend telling some other person and then asking them to contact the school. That way, you can let everything out at once and you have someone else to back you up. We’ve had teachers trying to convince us not to do anything about the bullying and it was easier to give in to them when we were on our own.

• If you do hold a meeting, practice what you want to say first. It’s scary, we know, but really just say what’s on your mind. Don’t just say what you think they want to hear because if you do, it’s been a waste of time.

• Keep a diary of what’s happening if you can. Not just because you’ll remember the facts but just to let it all out. If you bottle up your feelings then they’ll come out when you least expect it and it’s not nice.

• Don’t give up and don’t blame yourself. You have a right to be safe and happy. The bullies are taking those rights from you and no matter what anyone says, it shouldn’t be allowed. You’ve done nothing wrong and you just have to make noise about how unfair this really is. Don’t let them tell you it’s not THAT bad.

• Be open about it. Many victims suffer in silence because they are scared that if they tell it will provoke another attack. It sounds mean but if the bully feels like annoying or hurting you then they will try their hardest to do so regardless of whether you keep quiet about it. Bullying gets it’s power from secrecy. Don’t let it have that power. Make others take notice of what is happening to you. We know it’s hard and very scary but you need to give everyone a wake up call and scream at them, "I’m being bullied! Stop this!"

Bullying happens once every seven minutes in the US and once every seven seconds in the UK. How many people must suffer before something is done? Good luck.

Big thanks to the book 'Victims of Bullying' by Issues and all the websites listed there. You've really helped!