All about Bullying in Schools & How to Act Against it

Least Known Facts about Bullying in Schools.

Let's have a glace at the seven least known facts about bullying in India. 

• According to the studies, approximately 30% of the youth are involved in bullying behavior and activities in schools. 

• After Singapore and China, India is the third country with the highest number of cyberbullying cases where most victims belong from the age group of 8 to 17 years.

• Bullying (also known as ragging in some cases) is one of the most dangerous forms of violence that affects the individual mentally. Still, its cases are often neglected or not considered serious.

• It is also the biggest reason why Indian parents are switching to homeschooling to educate their children.

• One of the primary and common causes of bullying is the distinctiveness of student background in schools of India.

• It has been noticed that students who perform bullying activities mess up with their behavioral patterns as they grow up and are further involved in criminal activities. 

• Victims of ragging or bullying can go through severe mental illness or suffer issues like depression, acute anxiety, and suicidal thoughts due to embarrassment. 

• Communication between parents and children is the foremost step to prevent situations of bullying or ragging with kids.

(source – Medindia)

Types of Bullying

Five major types of bullying have been noticed in educational institutions like schools, colleges, and universities. Whereas, bullying not only affects the individual that is being bullied. But, it also negatively affects the bystanders witnessing the incidents and the bully itself. We are going to discuss the effects of bullying on the victims in the next section. This section will simply describe the six most common types of bullying. 

      1. Direct Bullying

As the name suggests, it is the simplest type of bullying where the bully does not hide its identity. In easier words, the bully is directly targeting the victim where the victim itself knows that he/she is getting bullied. The most uncomplicated examples of direct bullying are harassment, hitting, pushing, or tripping.

      2. Indirect Bullying

The sole motive of the bully is to affect the victim psychologically by attacking reputation, confidence, respect, and self-esteem anonymously. The bullies usually hide their identity while targeting the victim. An example of indirect bullying is spreading fake rumors in school about someone. 

      3. Cyberbullying

New-age cyberbullying refers to bullying that takes place in the digital or online world. Here, the bully targets the victim online with motives like blackmailing, stealing, causing mental stress, or destroying self-esteem. An instance of cyberbullying is blackmailing an individual on social media with their fake profiles. 

      4. Emotional Bullying 

As the name suggests, emotional bullying focuses on hurting the sentiments or the emotional side of the individual either by emotional blackmailing or delivering inappropriate statements. An example is writing emotionally hurtings mails or messages to someone. 

      5. Sexual Bullying

Sexual bullying refers to the type of bullying where the bully aims to force the targeted victim to make them commit sexual activities or involve in intimation acts. This form of bullying has been very popular on the news nowadays. The most common examples are the cases of sexual harassment in schools. 

Effects of Bullying on the Victim

Being bullied not only affects the victim physically, but also mentally, psychologically, and emotionally. It can cause a severe case of depression, acute anxiety, and suicidal thoughts may arise. Bullying creates a fear in the individual that hurts the overall personality. Worst cases of bullying have been seen where the victim is not even able to talk because of its mental pain.

Pro tip- To reduce the risks of physical bullying, parents can switch to online schools any day.

In this section, we are going to throw some light on the negative effects of bullying on the victims. 

• The first change that parents may notice in their children is the decreasing interest in going to school. After getting bullied at school, students avoid going to school because of the embarrassment that they might face. 

• A drop in the graph of academic scores of the students may be noticed. One may not be able to focus on the studies due to the mental condition one is facing after getting bullied by someone at school. 

• It has been seen that one may put a full stop to a lot of social or personal relationships. An individual requires a healthy/stress-free mind to continue and maintain a relationship that might not be possible for the victim. 

• Emotions of a student turn unstable after getting bullied at the school. They might be in a very cherishable mood at this moment and suddenly go into a sad zone the very next moment. In some cases, this phenomenon is also known as ‘Emotional Leakage’. 

• Personality traits like self-confidence, self-esteem, self-efficiency, and communication skills simply degrade while one is suffering through any mental pain. Therefore, students may face nervousness every moment throughout their day. 

• Nightmares, scary dreams, and partial sleep paralysis are some of the secondary after-effects of bullying. Various students share their experiences which include side effects like very dark and scary dreams while sleeping.

• In extreme cases of bullying where one is suffering from severe mental pain, suicide is the very unfortunate after-effect. Students get suicidal thoughts very often and therefore some take the worst step of their life. 

Are You The Victim? Calm Down & Read This Out 

There are uncountable bullies around us that are constantly searching for that one moment for targeting the right individual. Most of the time bullies target only the weaker, less confident, or hesitating ones around them. If you’re a target of a bully, there’s nothing you need to worry about. Fortunately, there are very effective steps one can take to get rid of the bully that is wandering around. There are plenty of anti-bullying laws in India, to help you out.

This segment of the blog will show us the correct steps that one can take to be free and teach the bully a lesson. 

• Most importantly, inform your guardian about the situations that you have been facing. Parents should be well aware of every incident related to your case of being bullied. A lot of cases turn worse only because guardians we not made aware at the right time. 

• Reach out to the internal anti-ragging committee of your school (if any), and notify the school staff. Most schools have anti-ragging or anti-bullying committees that look deeply into every case of bullying and perform corrective measures. 

• In case of no anti-bullying committee functioning at school, one can simply reach out to the region's anti-ragging or anti-bullying committee even if it is not associated with the school. External committees have every right to look into your matter if you want them to. 

• If things go worse, simply reach out to the nearest police station and get in touch with an officer. Be confident enough to explain the whole scenario to the state police. Filing a police complaint in the worst cases is one of the best options.

• Last but not the least, do not lose your hope at any cost. Bullies want you to suppress yourself and work according to them. Your rigidness, confidence, and toughness are the only keys that can take you out of this web. 

Read more: High School Student Files Lawsuit due to Bullying

• Raise your voice against any bullying incident that you witness. It is very easy to witness the scenario while passing and forget it the very next moment. Prevent bullying because if it is happening with anyone, it can happen with you too! Always raise your voice against any inappropriate behavior that you notice in your school.