Whoever thought that bullying was a phase and did not consider it to be a ‘real issue’ needs to read this. According to a recent study, children who are involved in bullying at the age 11, may remain involved in it throughout their adolescence.
While there has been a discussion about bullying among teenagers, there are still gaps in knowledge related to its long-term effects. Bullying has short-term and long-term consequences for both the perpetrators and victims, along with the other members of the school community, family and society in general. Depression and difficulty with social relations have strong links to bullying. Moreover, bullying also has a link to drug use and offending.
The research team studied this by identifying specific bullying behaviors in each age group and how adolescents continued to be involved in bullying or on the other hand found a way out at some point before adulthood.
The findings of the study said that bullying becomes less physical with age. This means, while younger children were more susceptible to physical violence, the elder children had exposure to subtle forms such as insults and social exclusion.
The study showed that there different roles in bullying – perpetrators, victims and bully/victims ( who are both perpetrators and victims) Nearly 15% of the 1000 participants in the same had been involved in one of these bullying roles during all their adolescent roles.
The research team hopes that their study starts a more long-sighted conversation about bullying and how to combat it.