Children from abusive homes can indeed go on to bully--bullying is a sign of abuse--but not all abused children become bullies and not all bullies come from abusive homes. There are other factors that can determine whether or not a child will go on to bully:

- the child's temperament
- lack of supervision (NOTE: bullies require constant supervision)
- the social climate at school

On average, children and youth spend about 6 hours a day in school. It is the only place that children are brought together in large numbers for extended periods of time on a regular basis. Within the society of school, children and youth try to fit in, often by joining in peer group circles and cliques. This society within a society makes schools highly susceptible to bullying.

According to the British Columbia Ministry of Education (2000), most bullying happens in or close to the school building. Some statistics reflect that more than 90% of bullying occurs either in the school or on the school playground.

Bullying and harassment have historically and traditionally been considered rites of passage, something all children and youth must go through as part of the growing up process. This is a myth.

In the past 20 years or so, bullying and harassment have received international attention, due in part to children and youth who commit suicide as a result of being a victim of relentless bullying and their inability to cope. There have been enough incidents' of children committing suicide because of incessant bullying that a phrase has been coined for it: bullycide.

Canada, in fact, just the province of British Columbia, the province in which I reside, has its share of internationally-known bullying victims:

November 2000, in Mission, British Columbia: Dawn Marie Wesley, 14 years old, hanged herself in her bedroom with her dog's leash. In her suicide note, she named 3 girls at school who had tormented and threatened her.

March 2000, Surrey, British Columbia: Hamed Nastoh, 14 years old, leapt off the Patullo Bridge after he left a 5-page suicide note that detailed the relentless bullying he endured.

November 1997, Victoria, British Columbia: Rena Virk, 14 years old, was bullied, attacked and beaten unconscious by 7 girls and 1 boy--all schoolmates--and then brutally murdered. What was particularly startling in this case was the fact that hundreds of students knew about the cruel and relentless taunting, and even of Rena's death before someone finally reported her death to the police.

April 1997, Nanaimo, British Columbia: A grade-4 student pulled a knife on another student who was taunting him. He'd been dealing with torment by his peers for over a year. After the knife incident, the boy and his family were ordered to take an anger management course. The school took no immediate action with the children who bullied him.

How prevalent is bullying and harassment in Canada?

1 in 5 children is bullied; 1 in 12 youth are regularly harassed in school by other students (Gladue, 1999).

Risk factors for bullying:

- submissiveness
- shy, reserved, quiet, sensitive
- the youngest or smallest
- a child unwilling to fight
- a child who wears clothes that are considered unfashionable
- a child who exhibits annoying behaviours
- a child who expresses emotions quickly
- being the new kid on the block
- a child who has been previously traumatized
- being rich or poor
- a different ethnicity
- gender/sexual orientation is seen as deserving of contempt or inferior

STAT: According to Egan (2000), 1 in 6 gay teens is beaten so badly during adolescence that he requires medical attention.

- religious beliefs are considered deserving of contempt or inferior
- a child who is bright, talented, gifted
- a child who does not conform to what is considered the "norm"
- a child who is unusually fat, thin, short, tall

STAT: According to Pepler & Craig (1997), young girls were more afraid of becoming fat than they were of nuclear war, cancer or losing their parents.

- a child who wears braces or glasses
- has acne or any other visible skin condition
- has a physical or developmental/mental disability
- just being at the wrong place at the wrong time

ANYONE can be a target for bullying; and boys and girls are equally likely to be victims.

There are school administrators who believe that their school does not have a bullying problem. This is another myth. ALL schools have bullying problems. Perhaps liability issues enter into the mix, or perhaps they really do believe the claim. The following statistics dispell that claim:

STAT: An international study done for Health Canada in 1999 reflected that 56% of boys and 40% of girls in grades 6 and 8 had bullied someone that year.

STAT: In that same 1999 international study, 43% of boys and 35% of girls said they had been bullied in that year.

STAT:According to Pepler & Craig (2000), 71% of teachers said they usually intervene in bullying episodes; 25% of students said teachers intervene.

This last statistic tells us that teachers are unaware of just how much bullying is going on in schools. If teachers are unaware of the problem, they are not in a position to intervene. Without intervention, bullies will not cease their violent behaviour. Left unchecked, as the bully gets older, the bullying behaviour escalates to harassment.

For more on harassment, check out my article titled Bullying vs. Harassment.

To summarize, children from abusive homes sometimes exhibit bullying behaviours. These children are either lashing out, or they are trying to gain control of the people around them because they have no control otherwise. But child abuse is not the only governing factor here. A child's disposition, a lack of supervision and guidance, and the school environment also play a role.

Yes, child abuse can lead to bullying, but bullying isn't always the result of child abuse.

RESOURCES:

http://www.child-abuse-effects.com is a site that details the four types of child abuse (emotional, physical, sexual, and neglect); signs, effects and statistics for each; sexual abuse victims, including victims with disabilities; sex offenders, including female, child, adolescent, and Internet offenders; laws governing child abuse; intervention; prevention; plus a forum to write your own child abuse story.

RELATED PAGES AND ARTICLES:

http://www.child-abuse-effects.com/emotional-abuse-signs.html

Article titled: Bullying vs. Harassment

Darlene Barriere's On My Own Terms, A Memoir, a book about surviving the effects of child abuse, is now available for download in PDF e-book format at http://www.child-abuse-effects.com/child-abuse-story.html

You have permission to publish this article electronically or in print, free of charge, as long as all bylines and live hyperlinks are included.

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Darlene Barriere Copyright 2006