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Bullying in the family


Facts About Bullying | StopBullying.gov

This section pulls together fundamental information about bullying, including:

  • Definition
  • Research on Bullying
  • Bullying Statistics
  • Bullying and Suicide
  • Anti-Bullying Laws

Definition of Bullying

In 2014, the Centers for Disease Control and Department of Education released the first federal definition of bullying. The definition includes three core elements:

  • unwanted aggressive behavior
  • observed or perceived power imbalance
  • repetition or high likelihood of repetition of bullying behaviors

This definition helps determine whether an incident is bullying or another type of aggressive behavior or both.

Research on Bullying

Bullying prevention is a growing research field that investigates the complexities and consequences of bullying. Important areas for more research include:

  • Prevalence of bullying in schools
  • Prevalence of cyberbullying in online spaces
  • How bullying affects people
  • Risk factors for people who are bullied, people who bully others, or both
  • How to prevent bullying
  • How media and media coverage affects bullying

What We’ve Learned about Bullying

  • Bullying affects all youth, including those who are bullied, those who bully others, and those who witness bullying. The effects of bullying may continue into adulthood.
  • There is not a single profile of a young person involved in bullying. Youth who bully can be either well connected socially or marginalized, and may be bullied by others as well. Similarly, those who are bullied sometimes bully others.
  • Solutions to bullying are not simple. Bullying prevention approaches that show the most promise confront the problem from many angles. They involve the entire school community—students, families, administrators, teachers, and staff such as bus drivers, nurses, cafeteria and front office staff—in creating a culture of respect. Zero tolerance and expulsion are not effective approaches.
  • Bystanders, or those who see bullying, can make a huge difference when they intervene on behalf of someone being bullied.
  • Studies also have shown that adults can help prevent bullying by talking to children about bullying, encouraging them to do what they love, modeling kindness and respect, and seeking help.

Bullying Statistics

Here are federal statistics about bullying in the United States. Data sources include the Indicators of School Crime and Safety: 2019 (National Center for Education Statistics and Bureau of Justice) and the 2017 Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention).

How Common Is Bullying

  • About 20% of students ages 12-18 experienced bullying nationwide.
  • Students ages 12–18 who reported being bullied said they thought those who bullied them:
    • Had the ability to influence other students’ perception of them (56%).
    • Had more social influence (50%).
    • Were physically stronger or larger (40%).
    • Had more money (31%).

Bullying in Schools

  • Nationwide, 19% of students in grades 9–12 report being bullied on school property in the 12 months prior to the survey.
  • The following percentages of students ages 12-18 had experienced bullying in various places at school:
    • Hallway or stairwell (43. 4%)
    • Classroom (42.1%)
    • Cafeteria (26.8%)
    • Outside on school grounds (21.9%)
    • Online or text (15.3%)
    • Bathroom or locker room (12.1%)
    • Somewhere else in the school building (2.1%)
  • Approximately 46% of students ages 12-18 who were bullied during the school year notified an adult at school about the bullying.

Cyberbullying

  • Among students ages 12-18 who reported being bullied at school during the school year, 15 % were bullied online or by text.
  • An estimated 14.9% of high school students were electronically bullied in the 12 months prior to the survey.

Types of Bullying

  • Students ages 12-18  experienced  various types of bullying, including:
    • Being the subject of rumors or lies (13. 4%)
    • Being made fun of, called names, or insulted (13.0%)
    • Pushed, shoved, tripped, or spit on (5.3%)
    • Leaving out/exclusion (5.2%)
    • Threatened with harm (3.9%)
    • Others tried to make them do things they did not want to do (1.9%)
    • Property was destroyed on purpose (1.4%)

State and Local Statistics

Follow these links for state and local figures on the following topics:

  • Bullied on School Property, Grades 9-12
  • Cyberbullied, Grades 9-12

International Statistics

According to the UNESCO Institute of Statistics:

  • One third of the globe’s youth is bullied; this ranges from as low as 7% in Tajikistan to 74% in Samoa.
  • Low socioeconomic status is a main factor in youth bullying within wealthy countries.
  • Immigrant-born youth in wealthy countries are more likely to be bullied than locally-born youth.

Bullying and Suicide

The relationship between bullying and suicide is complex. The media should avoid oversimplifying these issues and insinuating or directly stating that bullying can cause suicide. The facts tell a different story. It is not accurate and potentially dangerous to present bullying as the “cause” or “reason” for a suicide, or to suggest that suicide is a natural response to bullying.

  • Research indicates that persistent bullying can lead to or worsen feelings of isolation, rejection, exclusion, and despair, as well as depression and anxiety, which can contribute to suicidal behavior.
  • The vast majority of young people who are bullied do not become suicidal.
  • Most young people who die by suicide have multiple risk factors.
  • For more information on the relationship between bullying and suicide, read “The Relationship Between Bullying and Suicide: What We Know and What it Means for Schools” from the CDC.

Anti-Bullying Laws

All states have anti-bullying legislation. When bullying is also harassment and happens in the school context, schools have a legal obligation to respond to it according to federal laws.

What Is Bullying | StopBullying.gov

Bullying is unwanted, aggressive behavior among school aged children that involves a real or perceived power imbalance. The behavior is repeated, or has the potential to be repeated, over time. Both kids who are bullied and who bully others may have serious, lasting problems.

In order to be considered bullying, the behavior must be aggressive and include:

  • An Imbalance of Power: Kids who bully use their power—such as physical strength, access to embarrassing information, or popularity—to control or harm others. Power imbalances can change over time and in different situations, even if they involve the same people.
  • Repetition: Bullying behaviors happen more than once or have the potential to happen more than once.

Bullying includes actions such as making threats, spreading rumors, attacking someone physically or verbally, and excluding someone from a group on purpose.

  • Types of Bullying
  • Where and When Bullying Happens
  • Frequency of Bullying

Types of Bullying

There are three types of bullying:

  • Verbal bullying is saying or writing mean things. Verbal bullying includes:
    • Teasing
    • Name-calling
    • Inappropriate sexual comments
    • Taunting
    • Threatening to cause harm
  • Social bullying, sometimes referred to as relational bullying, involves hurting someone’s reputation or relationships. Social bullying includes:
    • Leaving someone out on purpose
    • Telling other children not to be friends with someone
    • Spreading rumors about someone
    • Embarrassing someone in public
  • Physical bullying involves hurting a person’s body or possessions. Physical bullying includes:
    • Hitting/kicking/pinching
    • Spitting
    • Tripping/pushing
    • Taking or breaking someone’s things
    • Making mean or rude hand gestures

Where and When Bullying Happens

Bullying can occur during or after school hours. While most reported bullying happens in the school building, a significant percentage also happens in places like on the playground or the bus. It can also happen travelling to or from school, in the youth’s neighborhood, or on the Internet.

Frequency of Bullying

There are two sources of federally collected data on youth bullying:

  • The 2019 School Crime Supplement to the National Crime Victimization Survey (National Center for Education Statistics and Bureau of Justice) indicates that, nationwide, about 22% of students ages 12–18 experienced bullying.
  • The 2019 Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) indicates that, nationwide, 19.5% of students in grades 9–12 report being bullied on school property in the 12 months preceding the survey.

See also "Frequency of Cyberbullying."

Power in the family. Part 5

Lecture materials on the psychology of family and marriage on the topic "Power in the family". For the first time, this lecture in an abbreviated form was read by Igor Shiryaev on June 22, 2019 in the Lecture Hall of the Armenian Museum of Moscow and the Culture of Nations.

Previous PART 4 ​​ .

Type 4. Family with abuse

The term abuse in psychology comes from the English word abuse - mistreatment. As a rule, psychologists understand abuse as psychological bullying, humiliation of human dignity, emotional abuse, unprincipled psychological suppression and manipulation of the psyche of a subordinate person. nine0007

What a typical abuser who manipulates someone else's psyche often does:

— he makes another person feel guilty for real or imaginary misdeeds, exaggerating the significance of these misconducts,

— he creates a high level of anxiety in another person with his inconsistent behavior ,

— he forms psychological dependence on himself and personal devotion in another person, suggesting to the inferior that he is inferior, and that without the superior he will disappear in life. nine0007

These are not the abuser's only psychological manipulation tools, of course, but they are quite typical.

Some psychologists combine families with abuse and families with physical violence into one type, because sometimes it is not easy to draw a line between them, but at our consultation with a psychologist we attribute them to different types. The criterion for difference is the presence or absence of physical violence in the family.

Now I will talk about some typical types of abuse, and then you will understand what it is. nine0007

Bullying in the family – psychological bullying by one family member of another family member. As a rule, this is done by an older family member (for example, a father, mother-in-law, older brother or sister), who has attributed a higher rank to himself, to the status of lower or victim family members (for example, to the daughter-in-law). Sometimes psychological bullying in the family can be accompanied by physical (for example, pushing, poking, beating, damaging the victim’s property - this is why it is not always easy to draw a line between abuse and physical violence). Bullying in the family, as a rule, organizes a rank higher than the victim. Sometimes the organizer of bullying in the family attracts other people (for example, family members or even strangers) to this, creating a support group for himself. nine0007

Family bullying (bullying) differs from family conflict in that:

A) The process of bullying is of a long-term systematic nature. Attempts to wait out, endure family bullying in the hope that “something found” on the initiator of the bullying, as a rule, do not lead to a positive result. An aggressive person with a history of successful family bullying rarely stops it voluntarily. On the contrary, the experience of successful family bullying gives the initiator the experience of victories, dissolves it, forms persistent ideas about one’s own impunity, and triggers mechanisms in the psyche for the habitual enjoyment of bullying the victim. The psychological path of the aggressor from irritability, through family bullying, to family psychological and physical sadism is a one-way road. In most cases, the victim of family bullying will not be able to wait out the situation and wait for improvements that will happen by themselves. nine0007

B) As a rule, the initiator of bullying is a family member who attributed to himself a higher rank or status. Initially, the initiator of family bullying can pretend to be a conforming person, relying on the rules and traditions existing in society (for example, on a higher rank (status) position of elders in the family). However, with the development of the bullying system in the family, it becomes clear that the appeal to the rules and traditions is just an excuse, and the conformity of the aggressor is a social mask in order to hide his need for bullying. That is why it is absolutely useless to explain to the initiator of family bullying that he is wrong and does not do well. The extreme point of development towards which the initiator of bullying moves is a sociopath and an aggressive impulsive psychopath, and such people can only be kept by fear and force. If you don't have this power, leave bullying territory and don't come back. nine0007

C) The initiator of the bullying is intended to suppress and psychological bullying, and not to clarify and resolve the conflict. It is useless to follow the whims or instructions of the initiator of bullying. It is impossible to earn a good attitude towards yourself.

D) The initiator of bullying is well aware of what is happening and that the victim is not able to resist for one reason or another (for example, the victim is bound by traditions and norms of upbringing, or the victim is victimized, or the victim has a strong love for aggressor in the family and psychological dependence on him, or the victim has a clinical peculiarity of the psyche, an increased level of neuro-emotional sensitivity and reactivity, an increased level of neuroticism, a reduced level of aggressiveness, tendencies of depression, suicidality or autism). The initiator of bullying chooses the one who, with his reaction to bullying, will give him maximum pleasure. nine0007

What to do if you are being bullied by family?

The best way out is to leave the area where you are subject to family bullying. This will save you from many psychological problems, which may then have to be dealt with with a psychologist for a long and expensive time. However, if you are forced to remain in a situation of family bullying, then demonstrate several things at the same time: your indifference to the actions of the aggressor, your superiority in other areas (for example, in education and intelligence), the ability to resist family bullying (for example, the ability to leave or seek outside protection). With absolutely no way to leave the territory of family bullying or get protection from other people, pose as an unpredictable sociopath and an aggressive psychopath in the presence of the aggressor, even if you are not and it is unpleasant for you. In fact, the initiators of family bullying are cowardly, otherwise they would have realized their aggressive tendencies not in families, but in society. nine0007

But when demonstrating sociopathy and psychopathy to the aggressor, be careful: the initiator of family bullying can turn everything upside down, accuse you of everything, and then you risk getting a whole range of negative consequences: from public censure to legal punishment. However, even in a situation that seems hopeless, the victim of family bullying, if he has a strong balanced type of nervous system and a developed intellect, can minimize his damage and resist. Do not take on the role of a helpless victim! nine0007

Many victims of family bullying wonder what they did wrong, what caused them to be treated like this. However, the reason for family bullying is not the characteristics of the person being bullied, but the characteristics of the aggressor! A person removed from a family where family bullying is accepted and tacitly accepted by the rest of the family immediately ceases to be a low-ranking victim as soon as he is placed in other social or family conditions.

Fully resist family bullying can be done in different ways:
A) Remove the victim from the territory of the aggressor.
B) Find a defender of the victim: in the family or on the side.
C) Conduct psychotherapy and social adaptation of the victim.
A combination of these methods usually produces the best results.

The experience of successful family bullying is destructive not only for the victim, but also, oddly enough, for the aggressor. The experience of successful bullying dissolves, it leads the aggressor to coarsening feelings, cutting off opportunities for subtle and intimate relationships and, ultimately, to destructive, asocial personality traits. The initiator of bullying gradually destroys the mechanisms for forming closeness with other people, it is more difficult for him to create trusting and warm relationships with partners and relatives, his tendencies to sociopathy uncontrollable by himself and aggressive impulsive psychopathy increase. nine0007

Bullying in the family is associated with several other concepts and phenomena.

Victimization is a psychological readiness for the role of a victim, expressed in a victimized person in a reduced desire to adequately avoid situations of psychological or physical violence, and then when they get into situations of psychological or physical violence in the absence of adequate resistance. Victimization can be a consequence of upbringing in the parental family, a consequence of the internalization of social traditions, a consequence of the clinical identity of the individual (for example, passive forms of hysteria). nine0007

Victimblaming (blaming the victim, the term was introduced by William Ryan in 1971) is the phenomenon when the victim of psychological or physical abuse is given full or partial responsibility for violent acts committed against her, for psychological or physical harassment, for an accident.

There are two types of victimblaming:

The first type of victimblaming. From the side of the aggressor. This is psychological manipulation, this is a deliberate distortion of facts in the eyes of the victim or others for some kind of their own benefit (for example, to avoid legal or moral responsibility, to be able to continue abuse or family violence with impunity, so that the victim believes in his inferiority or defectiveness, so that psychologically suppress or break it, etc.). nine0007

Related to this point is a phenomenon called gaslighting.

Gaslighting is a psychological manipulation aimed at making a person doubt the adequacy of his perception of the surrounding reality. Gaslighting is used to make a person appear psychologically defective and abnormal in their own eyes, and further in the eyes of the public. To do this, the initiator of gaslighting resorts to systematic lies, juggling of facts, creating situations in which the victim looks inadequate. nine0007

The main goals of gaslighting are to suppress the person psychologically, to attribute to him inadequacy in his own eyes and in the eyes of the public, and, ultimately, to inspire the victim and others with the belief that the victim of gaslighting is unreasonable and incompetent.

The initiator of gaslighting deliberately demonstrates to the victim the examples of psychological inadequacy and mental abnormality of the victim that he invented and constructed.

As a rule, the initiator of gaslighting takes the following manipulative psychological steps:

A) Causes the victim to question their memory.

B) Forces the victim to doubt his emotional stability and adequacy. For example: "You're crazy!" - the husband declares to his wife after he himself brought her to an emotional breakdown and hysteria.

C) Presents the victim as a stupid, intellectually weak person.

D) Emphasizes imaginary age, gender and physiological inferiority. nine0007

E) Denies feelings and facts that are important to the person.

Clinically speaking, gaslighting is often used by sociopaths (including those with schizoid and paranoid personality types), as well as such personality types as narcissists.

Socially speaking, men use gaslighting to hide their psychological or physical abuse of their wife or daughter. Women also resort to gaslighting to manipulate their husband or children. Thus, gaslighting is associated with gender bias and discrimination (for example, statements like: “all women are crazy”, or “all men are stupid and inadequate in their personal lives”), and also gaslighting mainly unfolds in situations of family or, at least, long-term relationships. . nine0007

The term gaslighting comes from the name of the theater play "Gaslight", in which, according to the plot, a manipulator-man in this way psychologically suppresses his wife - a young woman.

The second type of victimblaming. From society and witnesses. Family members, the community and witnesses may be victimized if it is psychologically, financially or socially beneficial for them.

There is a hypothesis that victimblaming is a manifestation of the so-called belief in a just world. nine0007

Belief in a just world is a cognitive distortion in which a person believes that any action causes natural and predictable consequences. The reason for the widespread belief in a just world is that for some people it is neuro-emotionally unbearable to think that misfortune can happen to anyone (including them!) quite by accident, that reality is unfair, cruel and unpredictable. In order not to think about it, in order not to realize the injustice and unpredictability of the surrounding reality, a person turns on various types of psychological defenses. In fact, faith in a just world is one of the types of denial and rationalization at the same time, i.e. an attempt by a person to deny the injustice of the world and rationally explain to himself that the world is fair, predictable and logical. As a result, the level of anxiety decreases in such a person. And so, in order to avoid admitting the fallacy of their ideas about the just structure of the world, such people explain to themselves an unjust event, associating it with the behavior or properties of the victim, and thereby both blame and belittle her. Researcher Melvin Lerner wrote about this. nine0007

In addition, studies by Zeke Rabin and Letitia Ann Peplau have shown that people who believe in the justice of the world tend to be more religious, authoritarian, and conservative. They show a tendency to obey and even worship political leaders, to approve of existing social traditions, generally accepted rules and dominant organizations. In most cases, they tend to look down on the poor, the unsuccessful, the low-status, and the like.

In the system of power in the family and in situations of family bullying, people with a developed belief in a just world easily take the position of victimblaming (for example, the victim is to blame for provoking bullying and psychological or physical violence in his address: or the victim herself is to blame for that she didn’t “set herself up” properly, didn’t defend herself, etc.) And then, the person who initiated family bullying gets at his disposal not a group of silent witnesses to bullying, but a group of psychological support for this bullying. nine0007

A phenomenon called slut shaming is indirectly related to the latter.

Slutshaming (the term comes from the English words slut - a whore, shaming - to shame) is a harsh criticism and belittling of people (especially young women and girls), whose appearance and behavior is interpreted by the critic as a violation of the traditions of society or family in the field of sexuality. Slut-shaming can also be applied to smartly dressed, well-groomed young men, to whom the critic ascribes unmasculinity or homosexuality. Victimblaming and social or family slut shaming are often present at the same time in this particular area of ​​family bullying. nine0007

Continued PART 6 .

© Authors Igor and Larisa Shiryaev. The authors advise on issues of personal life and social adaptation (success in society). You can read about the features of the analytical consultation of Igor and Larisa Shiryaev "Successful Brains" on the CONSULTATION page.

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Tags: psychology and psychiatry

Domestic bullying: why a child is bullied in his own family

Education

Contents

  • 1 What is bullying at home
  • 2 Why a child is bullied in his own family
  • 3 How to protect a child from domestic bullying

It is commonly believed that girls and boys from early childhood are exposed to bullying surrounded by other children and adolescents . Bullying occurs in kindergartens and schools. Domestic bullying has a stronger effect on the psyche of children than peer bullying. This article will examine in detail domestic bullying, the reasons why a child is offended in his own family and ways to save daughters and sons from bullying loved ones. nine0007

What is domestic bullying

Domestic bullying is the deliberate or accidental regular abuse of a child by one or more family members. 5 main forms of home bullying:

  1. Ignoring. The opinion, feelings, words of the daughter are not important for the parents.
  2. Lack of praise. Focusing only on bad deeds and failures.
  3. Overprotection. Suppression of the baby's personality by controlling every step. nine0218
  4. Verbal aggression. Too direct statements of relatives: insult, humiliation, threats.
  5. Physical aggression. The daily minimum punishment escalates into a beating.

The authority of parents in the upbringing of children

Why a child is offended in his own family

Harassment of children by adults is based on the desire of relatives to show their power and authority. The kid is absolutely not to blame for this situation, since his father or grandfather did this all his life with brothers, sisters and friends. Reasons why children are bullied in their own family:

  • Leadership.

The baby receives a lot of attention from early childhood. One of the family members doesn't like it. With ridicule and mockery of his son, the father tries to attract the attention of the family and show who is in charge in the house.

  • Submission.

"It will be as I said" is the main phrase of the aggressor. Children's opinions are not interesting for such adults.

  • Self-affirmation.

Having low self-esteem, the aggressor asserts himself with the help of his son. nine0007

  • Fear of losing a child.

Mothers who have been expecting a baby for a long time often try to tie the baby to themselves.

  • Unwanted child.

Children who were not wanted are most often subjected to domestic bullying.

How to Raise a Happy Child: 9 Tips for Parents

How to Protect Your Child from Domestic Bullying

Being aware that a relative is hurting your daughter and wanting to protect your daughter from domestic bullying makes it easier to stop bullying in the family. Ways to save daughters and sons from bullying loved ones:

  • Make sure you are not the aggressor.

If so, control your every word. Work on yourself.

  • Monitor your son's communication with all relatives.

Observe family relationships. Watch the mood of the baby after talking with family members.

  • Protect your child from potentially dangerous family members.

The beating of the grandson by the grandfather will be repeated again and again. Do not leave your son alone with such relatives or prohibit communication. nine0007

  • Be in a trusting relationship with your child, unless you are the bully.

Be interested in the experiences of your little counterpart. Ask your daughter questions about spending time with her grandmother or walking with her older brother.

  • Take the child to a psychologist.

It is easier for a schoolchild to tell a stranger about his problems and those who bully him in the family. The specialist will not only improve the psyche of the boy, but also open your eyes to family members. nine0007

Reading this article gave parents an idea about domestic bullying, forms of domestic bullying and the causes of bullying in the family.

Learn more