Bullying happens all over the place and might be more common than you think
Of course, everyone know about school bullying
And some of you might know or even experience office bullying which may link with office politics too
Then we have online bullying, otherwise also known as cyber-bullying
What’s going on?
Why does it occur?
What is going through the mind of such bullies?
How about the victims?
Of course, I might not be able to go through everything
But hopefully, whether it is a bully or a victim, or just a bystander
Whoever reads this can have a greater awareness of themselves and/or the people around them š
Why does bullying occur in school?
After all, one might think children are so young and innocent right?
As it is with most things in life, there are a few factors of consideration
Firstly, let’s talk about the kid bully
You might have already read this article on how kids learn from their parents
If you haven’t, go read it~
In this instance, what this might mean is that the kid learn from their parents how to bully!
To be more precise, if there was verbal or physical abuse happening at home between the parents…
The kid might develop a similar trait to their friends and peers
Because if parents are doing it, then it must be right to do with their classmates
Of course, if the parent(s) abuse the child, it is also possible for the child to replicate to their peers
In both instances, it is also possible the child will develop fear (as an example) and don’t bully others, however this will develop into a victim instead
So the school bully might also have one more issue that cause them to bully others
They might have low self esteem, and in order to compensate for this low self esteem, they end up wanting to show their power on others, usually one with low self esteem as well
Now we go into the victim’s mind
As mentioned briefly already, the victim might develop fear of being bullied or abused, or develop low self esteem due to the abuse at home
However the victim might also develop low self esteem due to other reasons
For example, a remark from an elder that the child is not doing as well as others might cause said child to develop low self esteem (among other possibilities)
This low self esteem can be observable!
When we read the body language of one with low self esteem, they have a tendency to slouch over, or look downwards
One might hang their head lower, walk slower, even drag their feet
A word of caution: Just because you exhibit or see someone exhibit one of these does not mean they have low self esteem, it is more of a combination of things
Anyway, if all these body language show that one has low self esteem or low power, what might happen?
The bully wants to establish power or show their power, and it is easiest to pick on people with low power
That’s how a bully and victim encounter each other
And yes, everyone can read body language unconsciously
Ted Bundy, the American serial killer, said that he can spot a potential victim ‘by the way she walks down the street’
So yes, it is real and I am not making this up
Of course, as mentioned earlier, there are several factors, whether its learnt from parents, or even maybe a trauma
While the victim needs help, the bully needs help too
When I was in Primary school, I was bullied by this particular boy who wasn’t even in my class
He and his friend prevented me from going to Catechism and when I managed to get away from him, he grabbed me and punched me
A parent saw this bullying and called the discipline mistress and later on, she shared that the boy is known for his bad behavior
Honestly, I just want to get to catechism so I didn’t do anything
If I look back, perhaps he was beaten by his dad and he want to release his frustration on other people and perhaps I happen to look really timid
Regardless, he needs help
What about bullying in the workplace?
Similarly, there is a level of power and control that is happening for bullying to occur
Perhaps the boss was raised in a family where shouting and scolding occurs every day
And so, it is easy for him to verbally abuse his staff
In case you are wondering “won’t they know better since they are adults?”
The short answer is no – but I shall see if I got time to share later or in another article why it is so
One shift that is more common in the workplace as compared to school is envy (again low self esteem)
The envy of your fellow colleagues who are doing well, succeeding etc
This might cause one to harass the victim or spread rumors of the victim, in order to tarnish the reputation of said victim
In a sense, the bully possibly felt threatened by the victim’s accomplishments and thus, seek to bring them down through bullying or office politics
And then of course, we might have an abuse of authority
Essentially the senior bullies the junior through the work
It could be in the form of micromanaging, assigning more tasks or their own tasks to the junior to handle
And the junior cannot say no
Although of course, the micromanager could be a control freak too, while the one who gave their tasks to the junior could just be lazy and wanting to get out of work
Then we have sexual harassment
However in this case, perhaps the victim has rejected the other person’s advances, causing them to spread rumors as a way to “punishing” the victim for rejecting them
Hence, bullying the victim into “submission” or “leaving the company”
In truth, as long as there is a group of people, it might surface out as bullying or even office politics
Lastly, on cyber-bullying
This is similar yet very different from the above settings
The key difference is that it is done online
Before you ‘duh’ me that it is online lol…
It is an important factor
Because the cyberbully’s face or identity is not known, it is easier to do it
Of course that is with fake accounts, or in forums where you can hide your identity behind a username
Essentially, when your identity is not known, our psychological guards and defenses drop, and we tend to show more of our inner thoughts and feelings
Be they good or bad
So yea, some people might do good while anonymous, while some might do bad
Research has found that even just being in a group setting of strangers, where no one knows you, and it is easier to “hide” among the group, can cause one to be more aggressive
They also found that in a video chat where there is eye contact between two people, verbal aggression drops significantly
Probably because one can see the face and identify the aggressor
This is further supported when you realize putting pictures of eyes can reduce crime rate
Weird huh?
That’s human psychology for you hahahaha
Therefore the “lack of eyes” or “when no one is watching you” can potentially increase “bad behaviors”
Which is why cyberbullying is so prevalent
And also why trolling is so easy to find
Patterns repeat themselves
The victims of any of the above bullying are more likely to suffer from mental health issues later on
From the fear of making friends to having depression, PTSD, anxiety or even panic attacks
Even if they do not suffer from such issues, the minimum is probably low self esteem which might get passed down to their own children
And this child might get bullied in school
Which might beg the question, how to resolve all this?
For mental health issues, you might need therapy
To stop a bully, it depends
If the victim has low self esteem in the first place, you can’t tell them to “stand up” to the bully
It is not just an action of standing up but how you stand up, which is internal, it is unconscious
For the one in primary school (Yes I did get a few), I just wanted to go to Catechism and it was the parent who saw that highlighted to the discipline mistress
Another one in JC, this might be a bit worse actually
There were 3, maybe 4 guys in total
2 blocked the staircase so no other students can use it, while the other 2 put me in the middle
I have absolutely no idea why they decided to pick on me
Although I do realize my name is unique and I get name teased often, so maybe they didn’t like that I got a unique name
Envy
So anyway, one of the guys grabbed my shoulder from behind as I was going to walk down the stairs (we are in the middle of the staircase)
And I attempted to shrug him off, to which he immediately threw a punch at my chest
Then the other guy pushed me against the wall and kept yelling
“Don’t fight! Don’t fight!”
I wasn’t doing anything
I just looked at the guy who punched me
This was because I knew if I retaliated, it going to be 2 versus 1
AND the guy who pushed me against the wall? That guy was in the taekwondo club in the JC
Yup, just pure bullies
I wasn’t cowering either, so they can see that they don’t have power or control over me
Their provocation and acting wasn’t working
I couldn’t see the guy at the top of the stairs but I can see the one below, glancing up at me as he blocked the way
Then the guy who punched me said something, and they all walked away
Sorry, I don’t recall what he said
Earlier he said he want to talk to me about something then he punched me and then he walked away
Like duh I know he wanted to corner me for something, not to talk to me
For this one, I texted my form teacher and then reported to the discipline master
The problem was that I was alone and they got a group of friends right?
So they said they witness me punching him first and that is why he punched me back and the other guy pushed me against the wall
See?
Acting
The discipline master didn’t know who or what to believe so nothing was done
But at least this guy never think to bully me again
Or maybe they had… š¤
The TKD guy did say he wanted to show a new move he learned from his trainer/master and practiced the punching on my face
NOT that he punched me directly, more like punch towards my face but didn’t hit
I didn’t flinch – again, it is a power thing they want to show
A lot of it is self power
Being confident, having a health self esteem, and so on is important
If you have issues and you don’t want your child to have issues, you can consider therapy
Or you can teach your child the right values and skillsets
It doesn’t have to be defence classes or martial arts
Just teaching them to be calm in the face of danger is a good skill too
Reacting, losing the cool, etc are actually signs of weakness and opens up to more
Because to the bully, it is more fun to see you cry, or act out, or whatever
Next is to be ok speaking to an authority figure
Like reporting to the discipline master or mistress
Or in the workplace environment, knowing who to report office bullying or harassment
For online bullying or harassment, ignoring is really the best in my opinion
In this instance, they really want to get a reaction out of you
Nothing better to do
Yes, you can block too, and they might create a second account to harass or bully more
Just ignore and let them be
Although I do ignore, I might play dumb and chat with them in the comments section too
The more they insult me, the more I misunderstand their words and the more they lose interest eventually
This is my secret technique shh
Just that you got to be really good at misinterpreting what they are saying and not falling for their provocations
I do that on my Tiktok videos if I feel like it š
