Bullying Facts

Sometimes you need to check out bullying facts before classifying someone’s actions as bullying. Even seemingly meaningless put-downs and unwanted contact count as bullying these days, but that doesn’t mean the offender is a total bully. Here are some guidelines to use to determine if you’ve been bullied, or if you’ve been the one doing the bullying yourself.

1. Bullying is a direct, intentional action: If your best friend just punched you in jest but you know he didn’t mean it, it’s not really bullying. The person had to mean to hurt you.
2. You might be outnumbered or physically much smaller than the attacker. Generally, bullies are way bigger than you and often travel in packs like coyotes. If the person who attacked you was alone and about your size, you might not classify it as a bully attack.
3. The bully might destroy your stuff, not you: Bullying facts state that if a person intentionally damages your stuff, especially if it’s something expensive like an iPod, that the person is being a bully, and not just pulling pranks.
4. A bully doesn’t always attack you physically: A guy might steal your girlfriend because he wants to get back at you for something. Or, he might just steal her to make you angry in general. This can be classified as a type of social bullying.
5. Girls can bully you, too. Girls are nasty. Girls travel in packs just like boys do. And when they insult you and call you names, it hurts you deep down inside, which is considered a form of bullying.
6. Gossip hurts: It’s a fact—gossip is bullying. Having a few girls mention that you’re not good in bed is one thing, but if they’re spreading malicious lies and trying to ruin your relationships, that’s all-out bullying that you shouldn’t have to take.
7. Cyberbullying is just as bad as personal bullying: Kids, and teens especially, get into big trouble if they’re caught spreading naked pictures of someone in a locker room or bullying a schoolmate over Facebook. Avoid it at all costs, or you might end up getting sued.
8. Bullying generally happens at school, but it happens elsewhere, too. If you went to school, you probably got bullied at some point, even if it was mild. But you can also get bullied by your own family members. Sometimes the DCFS steps in to intervene in such cases.
9. You might be a prime target if you’re quiet. If you don’t look like you can hold your own, the Freddies and Jasons of the classroom might be out to get you.
10. You can peg a bully by the way he acts: It’s not foolproof, but if you notice someone who always brags about winning, hangs around with a gang of guys their size and taunts little girls in the hallway, just stay away.