Peer Bullying or with its English equivalent “Bullying” is a concept we have heard frequently lately. It has started to spread especially among school children who are in adolescence. In general terms, it can be explained as forcing the person to an attitude or behavior that they do not want to do with verbal or physical harassment and pressure in order to influence others and to make their own existence superior to others. In other words, Peer Bullying is one or more school children’s intentionally and continuously disturbing children who are physically or socially weaker than them individually or as a group, and kicking, slapping, shoving, pulling, mocking because the offended child cannot protect himself. It is being exposed to behaviors such as being teased, angered, being called with unpleasant nicknames, not being included in friend groups or being kicked out, and damaging their belongings.
It is thought that the social environment, the role-models in the immediate environment, and in this context, television programs and computer games containing extreme violence are also influential in the emergence of this behavior of the individual who practices “Peer Bullying”.
Individuals who are exposed to “Peer Bullying” generally see individuals displaying bullying behaviors in front of them. If you look around you, it is quite possible to come across the Memati, nicknamed Polat, leaning slightly to the side and walking makeshift.
When we look at the subject from the side of the child who practices the Peer Bullying, it can be thought that these children are frequently exposed to physical and verbal violence in their families, their self-esteem is low and they try to cope with the feeling of insecurity. The desire of a child who is oppressed in his own social environment or who believes that he is not valued, to dominate over weak individuals in order to gain self-esteem leads to this negative behavior. Especially in schools, if such children are detected, it would be appropriate to go for regular behavioral treatment in the triangle of family, guidance service and specialist. Experts on the subject should definitely include family therapy as well as cognitive and behavioral individual therapy in their treatment studies.
It would be appropriate to work on gaining a sense of trust and self-esteem for the child who is bullied.
The issue that should not be forgotten for both families and experts is that children somehow try to exist in life. In this process of existence, we adults guide them on which paths they will go through and what kind of attitudes and behaviors they should adopt. Therefore, instead of seeing the child who displays negative behavior as “bad” and the exposed person as “victim”, our main goal should be to identify the weak and strong issues of children who perpetrate and accept violence, to work on them and to reintegrate them into society.
