Yates and Smith (1989) suggest that 5-10% of all children are bullied and that their or four main types of bullies to consider. The first is the physical bully, is action orientated usually hitting, kicking and taking and damaging property. It is also suggested that the older the child is the more likely that the acts will become more aggressive in nature. The second type of bulling is the verbal bullies who will often humiliate the person in the victim role by teasing are making racist comments and so forth.
The third kind of bully is the relational bully who will carry out actions to try and convince peers to exclude people form that social connection. The fourth and final king of bully is the reactive victim, who usually taunts bullies and will be victims themselves. There reactions are physical and impulsive, been able to react quickly to both interntional and unintentional physical situations. Ken Righy (2003) carried out a review on the clinical implications of Childs involvement in bulling, and found that both the victim and the bully were at risk form poor psychological health.
The victim is considered to be most at risk when the bulling is prolonged and is lacking in the adequate social support. An article in the Canadian Psychiatry Journal (2003) identifies four stages of clinical implications of bulling. The first is low psychological well being, which is usally a state of mind which is unpleasant, for example low self esteem and feelings of anger. The second is poor social adjustments were the person will have feeling of aversion to the social situation, and will often manifest itself into isolation.
The third is psychological distress, were the person will have high levels of anxiety and depression will develop at this stage. The fourth and final stage is that physical unwellness, were the person will be showing signs of physical disorders, and will usually have a mentally diagnosed illness. This review shows that victims who are repeatedly bullied are affected leading to both physical and emotional harm.
This idea is also supported by a number of other psychologists such as Olweus (1992) found that people, who suffered frequient victimisation in school, often developed low self esteem leading to depression. He found that people’s mental heath was not affected. This raises the concern of whether the article published by the Canadian Psychiatry Journal (2003) is being to extreme, in its ideas on the clinical implications of bulling. Mainly if we consider that Egan and Perry (1998), found that children who were bullied who have low self esteem, had further loss of self esteem.
The didn’t report on the development of psychological disorders, are the development of physical implications. One of the other factors that has to be considered is that bulling may be a good thing, as suggested in a national survey carried out in Australia were 38,000 people replayed to a questionnaire on bulling, and it found that most of the people had not been bullied, and though how were bullied often said that being bullied made them a stronger, tougher more resilient children.
By studying children’s interactions with peer and the effects of bullying on children we can see that it plays a large influence on the Childs behaviour and development. Often the conflicts in early childhood and social play an important part of the Childs understanding and improving the Childs social interchanges effectively (Brown and Brownell 1990). This early socialations plays an important role in the social behaviour of children in later life.
Refreence.
Bee H, (1998) Lifespan development, 2nd edition, Harlow; Longman.
Hetherington E.M and Park R.D (1998) Child phycology A comtemporary viewpoint 5th editition, Bosten Mc Graw Hill.
The Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, In review. Page 583, C.J. Psychiatry, vol 48, Oct 2003