Bullying - information for children and young people
Bullying is when someone keeps doing or saying things that are meant to hurt another person, either physically or emotionally
Bullying doesn't just take place in schools. It can happen to anyone, anywhere, at anytime. When you are face-to-face with someone, over the Internet and through mobile phones.
| Type of bullying | What it can involve |
|---|---|
| Emotional | being unfriendly, excluding or constantly tormenting someone |
| Physical | pushing, kicking, hitting or punching another person, or any use of violence against someone |
| Verbal | teasing, being sarcastic, calling someone names, ignoring them, spreading rumours or making hurtful comments |
| Cyberbullying | threatening or abusing someone by text message, phone calls, through email, chat rooms, social networking sites, video, or any other technologies |
| Material | damaging or stealing someone’s belongings |
| Racial or religious | calling another person racist names or making racist comments or gestures to or about someone |
| Sexist | making abusive comments or engaging in behaviour relating to whether someone is male, female or transgender |
| Sexual | making unwanted physical contact or sexual comments or abusing someone sexually |
| Homophobic | inappropriate comments or behaviour made towards to someone who is openly, or thought to be, gay or bisexual |
| About learning difficulties/disabilities | making fun of someone’s disability, calling them names, laughing at them or not letting them join in because of their disability |
| About any sort of difference | abusing someone because of: what they look like, what they believe, how clever they are, how much money they have, where they come from, where they live, with whom they live, etc |
No one deserves to be bullied and it can happen to anyone. It is important to remember that when someone is bullied, it is not their fault and it is the people who are bullying that need to change their behaviour.
Find out what to do if you are being bullied. You don’t have to put up with it.
