Bat El Jirad Edri

"Aggressive behavior that is directed towards the goal of harming or injuring another living being who is motivated to avoid such treatment“ (Baron, 1977).

"Bullying is repeated oppression of a less powerful person, physical or psychological, by a more powerful person" (Farrington, 1993).

“Bullying involves a desire to hurt another, a harmful action, a power imbalance, repetition, an unjust use of power, evident enjoyment by the aggressor and generally a sense of being oppressed on the part of the victim“ (Rigby, 2002).

Victims of bullies can be bullies because of factors like gender, race, disabilities, manner of dress, or weight (Shariff, 2004). A student can become a victim of bullying depending on his/her level of self-esteem and social development (Sheras, 2002). Passive and shy children are the most likely group to be bullied (Voors. 2000a)

These children will not usually stand up for themselves in a bullying situation (Fekkes, Pijpers, & Fredriks, 2006). Many children believe it is their own fault that they are being bullied, and will not tell on a bully for fear that they will be threatened again later (New, 2007).

Bystanders are children that witness a bullying situation and rarely intervene. Bullying situations that occur in front of other students often encourage more bullying (Webb. 2006).

An audience makes a bully feel validated. Students who observe this violent behavior without any negative consequence may become aggressive themselves in the future (Entenman et al. 2005) .

Most bystanders do nothing to help victims because they either find it entertaining or are afraid that they

will become the next victim (Brown et al. 2005) .

There are some differences between boys and girls: girls can be very mean. They are often smart, pretty, and well-liked by others. In addition, in general, girl bullies travel in packs, with one girl being in charge of the group.

Furthermore, girls are more often the victims of relational bullying. An important fact is that the incidents of boys teasing and bullying are three times more than girls. Also boys are more likely to pair relational and physical aggression together and to advance to more serious forms of violence. Unlike the girls’ bullying, boys are more often the victims of physical bullying.

School districts across the U.S.A have established policies against physical aggression and bullying, but few schools have policies against verbal bullying and other forms of indirect aggression .

The difference between the direct actions and the indirect actions is that :

Direct actions are becoming physical with someone else .

Indirect actions are verbal and psychological bullying .

Government and public pressure for schools to address the issue of bullying is increasing .

The funding and training for bullying prevention programs is often not appropriate to meet the needs of schools and address the problem in a suitable way.

The parents have a major part in the phenomenon of bullying ."When parents take an active role in preventing bullying, programs in schools are more successful"(Lumsden, 2002).

It is a fact that children who grew up in non-physical families show more empathy and more thoughtfulness to other children. Parents need to be a model of self respect, assertiveness, compassion and empathy. Furthermore,

" parents should use active listening"(Voors, 2000b)

and tell their children about their own experiences with a bully (New, 2007) .

Some of the people in our society probably think that bullying is expressed only in two ways: physical and verbal. Unfortunately, bullying has gone high-tech .

Cyber bullying is a new form of bullying that has surfaced over the past several years. Twenty five percent of children in middle school have been targeted at least once in a two-month period by harmful emails, text messages or slander-filled web pages .

The phenomenon of bullying affects 30% of teens in the U.S.A. Children identified as bullies by age eight are more likely to be convicted of a crime by age 24 and have serious criminal records by age 30.

Adults who suffered from bullying as children experience more depression, poorer self-esteem and have more difficulties with sexual relationships .

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