5 things you didn't know about bullying

Five facts change how you see bullying: it is learned behaviour rather than an identity, 57% of bullies stop when a peer intervenes, children with disabilities are bullied far more often, bullies influence other students into bullying, and school anti-bullying programmes cut problems by about 25% but only when they focus on prevention.

The actress Raini Rodriguez said it simply: “Bullying is never fun; it’s a cruel and terrible thing to do to someone. If you are being bullied, it is not your fault. No one deserves to be bullied, ever.”

Bullying harms both sides of it, victim and bully alike, and it can appear at every stage of life. Here we focus on bullying in school and among children. UNESCO reported in 2019 that 32% of students are bullied at school worldwide, and the number has been rising.

What is bullying?

Bullying is aggressive behaviour by one person towards another, driven by a preconceived mindset or a power imbalance, in which the bully demeans the victim personally and socially. Among Indian students the figures are stark: one survey found 42% of students in Classes 4 to 8 and 36% in Classes 9 to 12 had faced harassment or bullying from peers at school.

It takes many forms: teasing, mockery, rumours, deliberate exclusion, exploitation, insult, ridicule, physical fights. The deepest damage is to the victim’s emotional well-being, and the gravest outcomes have included suicide. The bully is not spared either; consequences follow many of them for life.

The bully’s perspective

The reasons are many and rarely justified: the power game, felt superiority, social status gaps, racial discrimination, the urge to control, the short-term satisfaction of it. Often the bully’s own insecurities drive the aggression. In most cases bullying is learned: children observe it at home, among friends or around them, and pick up the cues, sometimes unconsciously. Bullies tend to lack empathy, show narcissistic traits and enjoy intimidating others.

The victim’s perspective

The victim usually suffers in silence, afraid that speaking up will bring more bullying. The trauma shows up as health issues, lost sleep, loneliness, withdrawal from activities, absence, dropout and suicidal thoughts. Adults often wave it away, “it will pass,” “deal with it,” which deepens the harm. One US Department of Education study found bullied students reporting negative effects on how they feel about themselves (27%), their relationships with friends and family (19%), their school work (19%) and their physical health (14%).

Five facts that should change how we act

1. Bullying is not an identity; it is learned behaviour

Children pick things up easily, and displays of aggression by adults at home or in their environment do not go unnoticed. A child who bullies is often rehearsing something they were shown.

2. More than half of bullies stop when a peer intervenes

Studies show 57% of bullying stops when another classmate steps in. Teaching children how to intervene for a friend is one of the most effective anti-bullying tools there is.

3. Children with disabilities are bullied more

Painful as it is to read, up to 60% of children on the autism spectrum face bullying. Difference gets treated as inferiority, and inferiority as permission. This is exactly backwards, and adults set the tone that corrects it.

4. Bullies influence other students into bullying

More than half of students aged 12 to 18 believe bullies can influence others, and they are right: in the race to look cool, children join in, willingly or not. One unchecked bully seeds several.

5. School programmes help, but only proactive ones

Anti-bullying programmes reduce problems by around 25%. But a policy on paper does nothing; the programme has to actively work at prevention, and ignoring incidents cannot be tolerated.

Almost every fact about bullying points the same direction: it runs on what the surrounding people tolerate. Change the bystanders, the adults and the culture, and the bullying loses its habitat.

Bullying also comes in types, social, physical, verbal and increasingly cyberbullying, where Indian children are among the most affected in the world. Whoever your child is in this picture, target, bystander or even the one doing the bullying, the responsibility to act is shared, and it starts with refusing to look away.

Dr. V.S. Gayathri is a Certified Dyslexia Therapist, an Orton-Gillingham trained literacy specialist, and the founder of Flourishing Kids. She has delivered over 4,000 hours of one-to-one reading and spelling intervention, helping children across multiple countries build stronger literacy skills. Children with learning differences face more bullying than most; get in touch for a free 15-minute conversation.