What Is Teenage Bullying?

Today, bullying cases are read so often that one considers that it a normal and acceptable part of childhood. Some people believe that bullying toughens up a child and makes them learn how to handle situations. It teaches them that fighting, getting even with the bully is the ultimate solution to this menace, that you either be meek and let yourself get walked on or you stand up and bully that boy who bullied you. In other words, you either bully or be bullied. In reality, neither of these two options are healthy for the child’s growth. Thus, this research paper aims to understand the cause(s) behind a teenager bullying someone and its subsequent effects on the victim’s life.

Bullying is a conscious and deliberate attempt to undermine another

More than an act, bullying is actually a behavior, a bad habit that can be shown in three different forms and their varying types: physical (hitting, slapping, making the victim trip), verbal (name-calling, insults) and social (making everyone dislike the victim) (Scrapaci,2006).

Generally, a victim is bullied by a combination of these three forms, not just one. According to an article by the Institute of Education Sciences, on an average, approximately 60% of the kids in the age of 12-18 reported bullying by 6-7 different types of bullying in the year 2007. In addition, roughly 61% of these bullies did physically harm their victims e.g. making the victim trip on his lunch supplementing it with threats and property damage e.g. damaging the kid’s bag with paint- the most commonly used combination of bullying types (Petrosino, Guckenburg, DeVoe & Hanson,2010).

Having being mistaken for teasing, bullying has gone under the radar for so long that almost half of the American adolescents have experienced bullying in some manner with the other half having expertise in bullying. There is plenty of research to show and confirm that bullying has a negative impact on the well-being of the victim’s different aspects of

In other words, a kid’s self-worth is formed only when those around him tell him through words and their treatment of him that he is worthy, desired and capable. Bullying does exactly the opposite. It creates identity crisis (Dombeck,2007).

Secondly, having been mistreated for a significant period of time, the physical health of the boy decreases. He refuses to indulge in any form of sports as it required dealing with people and because of the concept of Learned Helplessness i.e. when the kid believes that he is incapable of being able to take charge of his life and turn it around as he could not take control over the bullying situation.

Thirdly, academically the kid starts doing bad as he finds no point in studying for it did not help him in the situation. Just like Jon Santos who started failing algebra because he sat in between two bullies and did not want to appear smart as they would later bully him for it (Saslow,2011).

Lastly, the kid becomes entirely anti-social as people as a whole disgust him. Bullying teaches the individual that he is an outsider, an outcast who is unwanted and if seen in public will definitely be humiliated (Dombeck,2007). Just like Jon who sat all alone during lunch contemplating suicide