Bullies
Bullies are people who have a strong urge to feel powerful, gather attention and have total control over a person or a group of persons.
Bullying refers to aggressive and sometimes violent behaviour of bullies. This is a big problem children face in school, at home and at work; it affects all ages.
Children who are frequently attacked by bullies are sometimes severely affected psychologically.
What do bullies do?
When a person bullies someone, it affects many other people even if they are not directly involved. Bullies create an environment of fear and discomfort. The things that bullies do are frightening for children and they may want to be away from that place.
- Bullies indulge in physical attacks. They hurt, kick, push, pinch or do anything that hurts the other person. They snatch or damage possessions to cause harm.
- Bullies say unpleasant things. They make insulting comments about looks, clothes, styles of walking and talking, race and culture of a person and sometimes make sexual remarks to embarrass the victim. Sometimes they tease or call names to laugh at persons or threaten to cause harm.
- Bullies damage a person’s impression among friends and school mates. They gossip, spread rumors, keep a person out of the group on purpose, say mean things, and create misunderstandings between friends to isolate a person.
Why do bullies do such things?
Bullies want to feel powerful. They want everybody to look at them differently and want to dominate over all others.
To feel good, bullies target people whom they can easily attack. There are many reasons why bullies act that way.
To seek attention –
Bullies like it when people react to their presence. They like being discussed. They feel it’s a good way to capture everybody’s attention.
To feel powerful –
Picking on someone else gives them the feeling of power and strength. They take pleasure in controlling the feelings and actions of other people. That’s why, bullies look for soft targets.
They think it’s normal –
If bullies come from families where people are loud, being angry, calling names and frightening is common, they think it’s natural to behave that way. They may be imitating their family members.
They are insensitive to the feelings of others –
Sometimes bullies may not realize that their behaviour harms others. At the same time, there are other bullies who are aware of their incorrect behaviour but do not care for the feelings of others.
They may have been victims themselves –
Children who have been bullied may sometimes react by bullying other children. Giving the negative experience that they have had to others may make them feel good or may give them the satisfaction of settling scores.
What happens to children who are bullied?
Bullying has damaging emotional and academic effects. Children who are constantly bullied often choose to be away from school. They are scared of meeting other people and making new friends. They begin to think about themselves as inferior and begin to look for faults in their own behaviour. They lose confidence in themselves. They develop strong negative attitudes about everything related to them.
Sometimes the experience is so unpleasant that it haunts them for a long time. They may not forget what happened even after many years. There are many adults who may still be fighting the horrible experience of having been bullied in their childhood.
Sometimes children lose their capacity to tolerate the bullies’ behaviour and take extreme steps such as suicide.
Schools and parents can take some steps to curtail the occurrence of bulling incidents at school and in the neighbourhood. More importantly, children who are bullied need to understand that the problem does not lie with them.
The problem actually lies with the bully. It’s the bullies themselves who will be harmed most.
How are bullies harming themselves?
Bullies are not liked and their behaviour is more self damaging.
- Bullies are an unwanted presence, therefore, in spite of all the attention they may have gathered, they don’t really have many friends. This is the worst thing to happen to a child at school.
- Bullies are punished for their behaviour at school and at home.
- Some bullies realize that their behaviour may not always give them what they want and that they have more enemies than friends. With this realisation they may try to change themselves.
- Bullies who do not understand the importance of good and friendly behaviour may end up as anti social elements.
It’s important for children to understand that bullying must never be tolerated. Bullies are not more powerful than parents, friends or school authorities. There is nothing to feel ashamed about being bullied because the real problem is with the bullies.
All the best,
Natalie Dee
London Life Coach & Business Coach, London UK
Certified High Performance Coach & Master NLP Practitioner
020 3411 4888
Natalie Dee, London Life Coach works in the area of lifestyle management as a London life coach, using life coaching with confidence coaching and NLP both in London and throughout the UK, applying techniques such as NLP,EFT and Hypnotherapy to improve levels of self-confidence as well as relationships, personal health, finance and career. Life coaching London, UK and worldwide available.
