Peer interactions and bulling

Peer interactions and bulling.

Children’s individual socialization with their peer groups has been seen as an important role in the development process, mainly in developing relationships outside the family environment, and a greater understanding of social justice. This development can be effected by the kind of attachments they develop and interaction with peers. One of the factors that can effect the peer development of children is bulling, as it will affect how they interact and who they make attachments with.

Peers play an important part in helping a child to understand and develop their own self image as will has having a large effect on their self esteem. The child will often rate their own behaviours by their peers, usually by social comparisons. It has been shown that children will in elementary school increase their social comparison, which will effect the way in which they perceive their own values and abilities. (Harter et al., 1990)

Having acceptance for a child is very important as it is one of their first interactions. A Childs peer acceptance is often associated with peer status. One of the ways of studying a Childs peer status is by using socimetric techniques were other children will say which child has the most likeability, and who that child would most like as a companion. Based on the answers given there are seven groups that children could be placed in, they are popular children who are liked by most children. Average, children who have some friends. Controversial peers they are usually liked and disliked by many. Neglected children who are likely to be isolated and have few friends. Aggressive rejected children, show high levels of aggression and show behaviour problems. Non-aggressive rejected children are withdrawn and have very few social skills. (Bierman, Smoot, and Aumiller 1993).

Children’s peer acceptance can often effect whether they are bullied are not, and has a large influences on what kind of bullies which they will attract. We also have to remember that children with in different social status will have different goals and behaviours and different interactions with their peers which will affect their personal development (Chung and Asher 1996).

Bulling is often considered to be a comprised of a series of repeated events, which involve the some person. In most cases it is one person playing the victim role and the other playing ...

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Bulling is often considered to be a comprised of a series of repeated events, which involve the some person. In most cases it is one person playing the victim role and the other playing the bulling role. It important to remember that it can be one or more people in either role. It also can be a single interaction been the victim and bully.

The bully usually has a power difference to the victim, often cause sing them to feel some kind of distress.

Yates and Smith (1989) suggest that 5-10% of all children are bullied and that their or four main types of bullies to consider. The first is the physical bully, is action orientated usually hitting, kicking and taking and damaging property. It is also suggested that the older the child is the more likely that the acts will become more aggressive in nature. The second type of bulling is the verbal bullies who will often humiliate the person in the victim role by teasing are making racist comments and so forth. The third kind of bully is the relational bully who will carry out actions to try and convince peers to exclude people form that social connection. The fourth and final king of bully is the reactive victim, who usually taunts bullies and will be victims themselves. There reactions are physical and impulsive, been able to react quickly to both interntional and unintentional physical situations.

Ken Righy (2003) carried out a review on the clinical implications of Childs involvement in bulling, and found that both the victim and the bully were at risk form poor psychological health. The victim is considered to be most at risk when the bulling is prolonged and is lacking in the adequate social support.

An article in the Canadian Psychiatry Journal (2003) identifies four stages of clinical implications of bulling. The first is low psychological well being, which is usally a state of mind which is unpleasant, for example low self esteem and feelings of anger. The second is poor social adjustments were the person will have feeling of aversion to the social situation, and will often manifest itself into isolation. The third is psychological distress, were the person will have high levels of anxiety and depression will develop at this stage. The fourth and final stage is that physical unwellness, were the person will be showing signs of physical disorders, and will usually have a mentally diagnosed illness.

This review shows that victims who are repeatedly bullied are affected leading to both physical and emotional harm. This idea is also supported by a number of other psychologists such as Olweus (1992) found that people, who suffered frequient victimisation in school, often developed low self esteem leading to depression. He found that people’s mental heath was not affected. This raises the concern of whether the article published by the Canadian Psychiatry Journal (2003) is being to extreme, in its ideas on the clinical implications of bulling. Mainly if we consider that Egan and Perry (1998), found that children who were bullied who have low self esteem, had further loss of self esteem. The didn’t report on the development of psychological disorders, are the development of physical implications.

One of the other factors that has to be considered is that bulling may be a good thing, as suggested in a national survey carried out in Australia were 38,000 people replayed to a questionnaire on bulling, and it found that most of the people had not been bullied, and though how were bullied often said that being bullied made them a stronger, tougher more resilient children.

By studying children’s interactions with peer and the effects of bullying on children we can see that it plays a large influence on the Childs behaviour and development. Often the conflicts in early childhood and social play an important part of the Childs understanding and improving the Childs social interchanges effectively (Brown and Brownell 1990). This early socialations plays an important role in the social behaviour of children in later life.