Bullying in elementary schools can take many forms, including physical violence, verbal abuse, social alienation, and cyberbullying. Physical bullying is the most recognized form, while verbal bullying is more common and can include making fun of a student’s appearance, religion, or socioeconomic status. Cyberbullying has become increasingly prevalent with the rise of technology.
Bullying in elementary schools is nothing new, although some of the ways in which bullying occurs are relatively new. From physical abuse to verbal harassment, elementary school bullying can happen among any population of students in any school. Alienating some students can also be considered bullying, as can intimidating or threatening a student, regardless of intent. More recently, cyberbullying has become a popular tactic for bullying in elementary schools. This type of bullying involves sending messages via the Internet, cell phone or other technological device to intimidate, threaten or otherwise show aggression towards a student.
The most recognized form of bullying in elementary schools is physical violence, in which a student is hit, pushed, bumped, or otherwise contacted with malicious intent. This is a dangerous form of bullying that can lead to physical harm to a student. Most bullies look for opportunities to take part in physical bullying when adults are not present or paying enough attention, such as on the playground, restrooms, or crowded hallways. Taking a student’s possessions and destroying them can also be considered physical bullying.
While prevalent, physical bullying is not the most common form of bullying. Verbal bullying in elementary schools can be just as damaging to a student and is far more common than physical violence. Making fun of a student; threatening him or her; or making fun of a student’s gender, religion, appearance, socioeconomic status, or mannerisms are all forms of verbal bullying. Such bullying tends to spread rapidly, as other students also tend to pick up on the verbal abuse and participate, often without thinking about the harm or consequences. An indirect form of verbal bullying includes spreading rumors or talking about a student behind her back in a negative way. This can lead to another form of bullying in elementary schools: social alienation, which occurs when a student is excluded from a group or the rest of the class and made to feel inferior or different from everyone else.
Cyberbullying has become a common type of bullying since new technologies have become readily available to students. This may include sending threatening emails, text messages, picture messages or other types of computer communications intended to demean, taunt or threaten. A practice known as “sexting” has also become a popular form of bullying; this involves spreading nude, semi-nude, or otherwise racy photos of students to other people via phones or the Internet.
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