During a recent trip to Tennessee to visit family, I was constantly reminded of how bullying remains in the lives of youth. On my flight back, I talked with a few people on board who shared their negative experiences with bullying. I advised we would continue to voice this challenge as we try to engage all youth in Character Building, Career Development and Community Involvement.
For children/youth that are or have been victimized by bullies, there are usually serious impacts on their lives and development. Negative health consequences of bullying can generally be classified under four categories:
• Low Psychological Well-being
• Poor Social Adjustment
• Psychological Distress
• Physically Ill-health
Such harmful effects can be both short-term as well as long-term:
Short-term Effects
Drop in grades to poor school attendance: Victims of bullying typically start to lose interest in school work, and may even avoid going to school, for fear of being bullied. As they spend an increasing amount of time thinking of ways to evade the trauma, they have less energy left for learning, thus their academic results suffer. That would in turn lead to more pressure and shame.
Loneliness and poor social relationships: Victimization is related to immediate effects such as loneliness, anxiety and a low sense of self-worth too. Besides that, those bullied usually have few friends, and their friendships are often of poor quality.
Physical ill-health: Physical ill-health symptoms can occur as well such as headaches, mouth-sores etc. Such health problems take place as constantly resisting and fearing the bully taxes the mental and physical defenses, causing the body system to break down.
Long-term Effects
Lowered self-esteem and depression: Bullying victims generally suffer from lower self-esteem, and a greater susceptibility to depression in the long run as compared to their non-victimized counterparts. Research has shown that there is “a causal link between peer victimization and low levels of well-being”.
Suicide: Apart from that, there had been several cases of “bullycide”, whereby victims commit suicide because of frequent bullying.
Self-harm: Many victims may choose to suffer in silence, or inflict pain upon themselves.
Revenge leading to violent juvenile behavior: Some victims may strike back in vengeance. The latter may consequently display violent juvenile behavior.
Due to the many damaging consequences of bullying, the victims are often trapped in a vicious cycle of continued victimization. Hence proper measures to prevent and to deal with the issue ought to be implemented. Social support is vital too, for the lack of it can contribute significantly to poor mental health among victims as well.
Pay it forward
Travis Hardin
