If your child is at school, it’s highly likely that he or she has in some way had contact with a school bully. An unpleasant thought isn’t it?
Children who are bullied at school are exposed to abusive relationships early in life. Is your child a silent victim? Hopefully not. But others may be.
School bullying is a nasty form of mental and physical abuse that can leave permanent scars on a child’s personality.
Clearly, it should be taken more seriously than it has up to now. Not enough has been done to root it out of schools. In fact schools have become a breeding place for bullying.
And it doesn’t stop there either. If bullying is left unchecked it eventually leads to dangerous forms of anti-social behaviour in later life.
Even victims of bullying have been known to turn nasty.
Disturbed youngsters who see themselves as isolated and discriminated against somehow resort to acts of revenge with unprecedented violence. We only have to think of the massacres of Columbine and Virginia Tech in the U.S.A. to appreciate some of the implications.
Cyber-bullying
What makes bullying at schools difficult to eradicate is that it is no longer confined to the school playground or to school hours only.
A recent report on TV showed how school children are threatened and bullied even when they are at home and away from school.
There has been a steady growth of cyber-bullying where bullies make use of internet technology, emails and cell phones to threaten their victims.
Bullying and Abusive Relationships
Bullying is an insidious and spreading phenomenon which is particularly
dangerous because it’s a reflection of all the violence and broader ills that afflict our society.
It’s a problem that often stems from abusive relationships in early childhood. Many children simply do not know what a normal loving relationship is. They have never experienced it. They have only learnt about abusive relationships from the violence that they see around them.
Some see it on the streets. Others live with abusive situations in their homes.
Others again come from privileged homes but pick up bad attitudes from over-exposure to computer games, movies, videos and various other forms of entertainment.
It’s difficult to find a pattern. But if we want to get some insight into the behaviour of bullies we have to take a careful look not only at their personalities but also at their early relationships. And incidentally, there’s a rather fascinating way of learning to understand what makes them tick. A bully’s handwriting will in all likelihood show signs of social aberration. Compare it to the victim’s handwriting and the difference will jump out at you immediately.
School Bullying deals with this fascinating subject in detail by explaining how bullies and their victims can be identified from their handwritings. It’s a system that’s well worth checking out.
Some time ago, Dr Phil on a TV show devoted a whole program to bullying and referred to it as an epidemic. And that’s exactly what it is. Unfortunately, a lot of it stems from those early abusive relationships.