Did you know October is National Bullying Prevention Month?

Bullying is the behaviour of a person who hurts or frightens someone smaller or less powerful. Often forcing that person to do something they do not want to do.

Bulling starts at school and can often when growing up be transferred to your workplace, social events and even home.

It’s reported that as many as 57% of South African learners have been bullied at some time during their high-school careers.

When one considers that we have 2.2 million school-going children in this country, those percentages translate into truly staggering numbers.

Bullying can take many forms:

• Verbal bullying — includes name-calling, threats of harm, and taunting.
• Social bullying — can involve excluding someone intentionally, encouraging others to socially exclude someone, spreading rumours, or publicly shaming someone.
• Physical bullying — often results in physically harming someone or their belongings by hitting, punching, pushing, spitting, kicking, or tripping.
• Cyberbullying — involves using electronic media such as on the Internet, texting, and social media to spread hurtful and damaging stories, rumours, and images. Although cyberbullying can take place anywhere and anytime, this form of bullying often can travel rapidly through a school population and beyond, devastating the victims and leaving them feeling powerless.

Both learners who bully and learners who are bullied can suffer lasting psychological effects, including post-traumatic stress.

It is vital that schools provide support to all the learners involved in a bullying incident and that schools take steps to reduce bullying.