Dubai, United Arab Emirates (CNN) — Every generation has its own experiences with bullying, but today’s adults probably don’t know what it means for a child to be bullied now.
A new study indicates that physical bullying, such as confrontations involving hitting or pushing, actually showed very little association with the risk of developing mental disorders.
“For the adults doing this research, they kind of assume that bullying is about shoving you into a closet and hitting you on the field,” said the study’s lead author, John Rovers.
But Rovers, the John R. Ellis Distinguished Professor in the Department of Pharmacy Practice at Drake University in Iowa, noted, “We found that it had significantly less effect.”
Researchers took data from the 2018 Iowa Youth Survey of sixth, eighth, and 11th grade students to see if there was a link between bullying, mental health, and suicidal thoughts, according to the study published in the journal PLOS ONE on Wednesday.
The results showed the effect of different forms of bullying on feelings of sadness, despair, or suicidal thoughts, but it did not affect students equally.
The study stated that bullying on the identity of the individual, that is, on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, and sexual jokes is linked to feelings of distress or suicide attempts.
It is followed by cyber and social bullying, i.e. excluding a person or turning his peers against him. It comes next to identity bullying in terms of the degree of its impact.
However, the study is limited, according to Dr. Neha Choudhury, who is not involved in the study, a child and adolescent psychiatrist, chief medical officer at BeMe Health, and a faculty member at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, because the sample did not include a high level of of ethnic and religious diversity, but showed “a trend very consistent with recent surveys, as well as what I see during my clinical practice.”
But the teachers and school administrators surveyed were more concerned about physical bullying, according to the study.
Who gets bullied the most?
It is logical that bullying one’s identity is among the most painful forms of bullying.
“Identity is very important for children and teens growing up,” Choudhury told CNN. “Not only is their inability to be themselves without fear of being judged or bullied by others, but it can greatly affect their confidence, peace of mind, and ability To see a pain-free future.
The survey data reviewed by the study team revealed a troubling statistic about adolescents’ mental health.
“About 70,000 students responded to this survey. 5% of them attempted suicide in the last year,” Rovers said. That equates to 3,500 of them.
Results of responses to the biannual Youth Risk Behavior Survey from the US Centers for Disease Control and Control (CDC) show that mental disorders among adolescents are getting worse.
The majority of teenage girls (57%) felt persistent sadness or hopelessness in 2021, twice the rate of teenage boys (29%), according to the Centers for Disease Control.
Almost 1 in 3 teenage girls have seriously considered attempting suicide.
The majority of LGBT students (52%) have also recently experienced a decline in mental health, with 1 in 5 attempting suicide within the past year.
How do you deal with a bully?
When it comes to bullying, Rovers points out that there are three sides: the bully, the victim, and the child being bullied who is also bullying others.
All three need support, said Dr. Hina Taleb, a specialist in adolescent medicine at the Atria Institute in New York and assistant professor of clinical pediatrics at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City.
Talib, who was not involved in the research, said, “Bullying is a behavioral pattern that harms the victim of the bully, the children who may witness the bullying, and even the bullies themselves.”
While caregivers’ first response may be to punish their child when they know they are bullying others, further investigation into what is going on with them is important.
“There are possible reasons for them to act in this way,” Taleb explained. “Deep down, I think it’s important for us to touch that their child is hurting, too,” she continued. She recommended that you talk to them with the mindset that, “This is unacceptable behavior, and that’s why I’m here to help you stop it.”
There are many ideas about what triggers bullying behaviour, Rovers said, but one could be that children mimic how the adults in their lives resolve their conflicts. These teens may learn that violence is a way to protect themselves.
How do we deal with the victim?
For children who are being bullied, Taleb said, they may not always talk openly with adults about their lives when something is wrong.
At first, families may notice feelings of stress, anxiety, depression, stomachache, and the child avoiding going to school, she said.
She recommended that a student pay attention to the child and his individual behaviors, and intervene when seeing a change.
This may mean asking them about the situation directly, having the pediatrician talk to them about it privately, or talking about it indirectly.
One helpful method is to ask them about their friends’ experiences.
When you discovered that your child was a victim of bullying, you advised Talib to contact the school and the other family to put together an action plan.