Student days are tough. I know most of you are thinking, ‘Yeah, tell me about it! Tests and exams are such a pain!’

I agree with you here, but the tough part I am talking about is the tough time that kids sometimes give to other kids, something that we call bullying, which you all know about and may have faced it sometimes too. Millions of kids get bullied every day, and, according to an estimate, one out of four kids has experienced bullying of some kind or the other during their academic life.

Bullying can be anything from a good-natured teasing to actual physical harassment, causing emotional or physiological disturbance to physical pain and harm. So sometimes it can be difficult to determine bullying behaviour.

causing emotional or physiological disturbance to physical pain and harm. So sometimes it can be difficult to determine bullying behaviour.

The definition of bullying is when an individual or a group of people more powerful in some way, repeatedly and intentionally cause hurt or harm to another person or group of people who are physically or emotionally weaker, and therefore helpless to respond. When someone uses words or actions to hurt or harm others and they have a hard time defending themselves, that’s bullying.

Name calling, tripping someone, laughing at them, leaving them out, ignoring them on purpose, trolling them, spreading malicious rumours about others and cyber-bullying, besides physically hitting or intimidating others, is bullying.

Bullying can be a one-time incident or can continue over time, is often hidden from others/adults, and will probably continue if no action is taken.

Bullies are not from another planet, they are people like us, among us and sometimes it’s even us … yes, we can be bullies without realising, or meaning, it. We all have made very public fun of a classmate’s weakness, goof up or failure, almost driving them on the verge of tears or making them avoid us like plague. While it may all have been harmless fun for us, such behaviour would have highly embarrassed, disturbed and distressed the receiver because the fun was at their expense.

Bullies can be of any size, age, grade or gender. We can’t define them by a particular appearance; it is the behaviour of a bully that defines him.

Aggressive bullies are easily recognisable both by their actions and style, the more passive ones are difficult to determine until the deep effects of their acts are clearly apparent in the disturbed and distressed state of their victim. Just like emotional scars are sometimes more hurtful that physical ones, passive bullies can be equally cruel, if not more, than the aggressive kind.

And what is sad about bullies is that they enjoy seeing their victim in pain and distress. It gives them a sense of sadist satisfaction and power, and the more scared they see others get, the better they feel and they become encouraged to continue with bullying — until someone stands up to them and stops fearing them.

Bullying involves an imbalance of power, and when bullies can no longer yield that power, it unsettles them. So they either give up bullying the kid who no longer fears them and they shift their attention to another target to torment. Bullies don’t give up bulling easily so it is very important to stand up firmly against them and report them to any adult who can be of help, a senior student, teacher, principal or parents. But the only person who can stop a bully is the person being bullied.

Let us look at some ways to stand up against bullies and bullying. Basically, there are two main things you can do when being bullied — you can first prevent or avoid a run-in with a bully and when you do face a bully, there are ways to deter them. Let’s find out.

Even if we have all the courage in the world, it is not easy to face a bully who is larger in size, has a few supporters and doesn’t mind trading some blows for fun. Avoid such a person and a sticky situation with that person. Change your timing and routine, but not your school or skip the class. Just avoid passing the places where he is likely to hang out with his friends or sitting next to the bully in the class.

Even if you don’t came face to face with the bully, you must always have a confident posture so that even if you are seen from far away, you are perceived as a confident and bold person. By looking timid and nervous, you are just going to give the bully an adrenaline rush that will have him hungry for some teasing. Hide your nervousness by standing tall and straight, looking directly at people when speaking to them, speaking in a clear and loud tone, and being neat and tidy.

Sometimes just by acting brave we can stop or discourage a bully.

Tell your friends about the bullying or teasing you are facing. If they are your good friends, you will have at least one, then you don’t have to worry about appearing weak in front of them. Share what you have had to face and ask them to be around you all the time and come to your defence if the bully troubles you again.

Bullies mostly look for kids who are alone and if they see you have someone to stand beside you, they will probably back off. If they don’t, then there are other things that need to be done.

Talk to other kids whom you get along with, find out if they have also been troubled by that particular bully or even anyone else. Form an anti-bullying squad and come to each other’s aid when in trouble. Talk to your teachers and tell them about this. They can help form a teachers-students anti-bullying squad and monitor to see no one gets bullied. In fact, a number of schools have this kind of anti-bullying squad to curb this extremely harmful behaviour. And if there isn’t one at your school or even if you are not facing bullying of any sort yourself, suggest to your teachers to form this kind of vigilant group to curb this practice.

If it is happening in your neighbourhood, do the same with your neighbourhood friends and some adults.

Bullies are also kids like you, they need advice and counselling. Sometimes just by having someone talk to them and explain to them that their behaviour is not right and finding out if they have some kind of issue that is troubling them to behave in an aggressive manner, can help in changing their behaviour. Bullies can stop as soon as a teacher finds out because they don’t want their parents to know and punish them.

Bullies need to feel powerful and important, they can change if they learn to use their power in positive ways. Some bullies can become great kids and even your friends once they realise how wrong they had been. So running away from bullies is not a solution, facing them and curbing the nuisance is the only way to overcome this.

Types of bullying

There are many different types of bullying, faced by both children and adults. Here are some of the most common forms.

Physical bullying

Physical bullying includes hitting, kicking, tripping, pinching and pushing or damaging property. This can sometimes take a more aggressive form that can hurt and injure everyone involved.

Verbal bullying

This includes name calling, insults, teasing, intimidation, racist remarks or verbal abuse. In many cases, it starts with harmless teasing that can escalate to any extent and cause a lot of physiological damage.

Social bullying

This is a more subtle kind of bullying that often takes place in the absence of the bullied person when bullies spread false stories and rumours about their victims, badmouthing them and damaging their social reputation. It can cause humiliation, isolation and stress. It can also be in the form of encouraging others to socially exclude someone or playing nasty jokes on them.

Sadly, this kind of bulling is very common and many people do it without realising that they are actually being bullies.

Cyber bullying

Cyber bullying can be overt or covert bullying behaviours using digital technologies, on social media, instant messaging, texts, websites and other online platforms. It can be in public or in private, and sometimes only known to the target and the person bullying.— KH

Published in Dawn, Young World, January 28th, 2017