The impact of bullying on mental health can be dramatic, extending far beyond the bullying event itself and into long-term challenges for bullying victims. Recognizing the impact of bullying on children’s mental health problems is critical to providing children and adolescents with the support they need to overcome these challenges and prevent bullying in the first place.
Bullying isn’t just a part of growing up. It isn’t something that children need to learn to deal with. It is a devastating and needless behavior that can and should be stopped. These seven facts drill home the extent of mental health difficulties that victims of bullying face, and how we can break the cycle of bullying behavior.
Whether in person or virtually, our behavioral and mental health experts are here to support you every step of the way. Get started today by finding your nearest Elite DNA location today.
1. Increased Anxiety and Depression
Children who are on the receiving end of bullying behavior experience substantially higher rates of anxiety and depression when compared to children who don’t experience bullying. According to a recent meta-analysis, children who are bullied are:
- 2.2 times more likely to develop depression
- 2.8 times more likely to develop generalized anxiety disorder
- 6.4 times more likely to develop PTSD
The connections between bullying and child anxiety, as well as bullying and depression in kids, are clear, causal, and a significant cause of concern for the well-being of children. The same study found that there was a dose-response to how bullying affects mental health outcomes, such that children who are bullied more experience higher rates of mental and emotional health challenges. Left unaddressed, these mental health issues can quickly begin to impact nearly every aspect of a child’s life.
2. Bullying and Self-Esteem
Children experiencing mental and behavioral problems as a result of bullying behaviors can show signs of low self-esteem, self-doubt, or insecurity. This can lead to a pattern of negative self-talk, a fear of failure, or difficulty maintaining healthy relationships in the future.
This can happen even to children who had a relatively high sense of self-esteem before bullying victimization. Like so many of the other facts on this list, the mental health effects of low self-esteem often ripple into other areas, such as a child’s social life or emotional stability.
3. Academic Struggles
The American Psychological Association has repeatedly reported that there are a number of negative academic impacts of bullying, including:
- Lower academic achievement
- Dislike of school
- Reduced confidence in their academic abilities
In some cases, bullying can even lead to children trying to avoid school entirely, as a way of trying to circumvent or prevent bullying behaviors.
Bully victims face a number of co-occurring challenges after they’ve faced physical or mental health bullying at school. They may have an intense fear of being bullied or embarrassed again, experience poor mental health as a result of bullying, or may fear ostracization from their peers as a result of their experiences.
All of these add barriers and stress to achieving their full potential in school.
4. Social Withdrawal
Bullying can have an enormous impact on the social life of children and adolescents. People who have been bullied will frequently show signs of social withdrawal as one of the primary effects of bullying, spending less time with friends and peers and more time alone.
Often, ostracization from a peer group is the explicit intent of bullying behavior. Cyberbullying on social media platforms, for instance, can make children feel embarrassed or humiliated in front of their peers, leading to social withdrawal. Rumor spreading or persistent teasing can make children or teens feel as though they are no longer welcome in social circles.
The social withdrawal from bullying is an extremely important factor in young people’s mental health. Particularly in adolescence, the peer group is a vital source of stability, a sense of belonging, and self-esteem. When teens are bullied and their social circles suffer as a result, there can be a number of harmful downstream effects on adolescent mental health outcomes.
5. Physical Health Issues
Bullying of all types can lead to physical health issues. Sometimes, these effects are immediate, if a child or teen is the victim of physical bullying. They may be physically injured, have broken bones, or suffer a concussion from being hit, shoved, or kicked.
Yet direct physical trauma isn’t the only way that physical health is affected by bullying. Children who are victims of all types of bullying often report physical health issues that appear after the bullying event has taken place, with some of the most common concerns including:
- Headaches
- Sleep problems
- Greater rates of overall health problems
- Increased physiological stress
These effects were seen both for the victims of bullying and the children enacting bullying as well.
6. Long-Term Effects
The long-term effects of bullying extend far outside of the classroom. Researchers have found that young adults who have experienced bullying in the past often face substantial challenges in entering the workforce, becoming financially independent, forming healthy social relationships, and countless other lingering effects from the emotional problems they experienced as a result of peer bullying.
Bullying is rarely an isolated incident. It is typically a pattern of aggressive behavior that happens to certain individuals repeatedly, putting them at greater risk of developing the countless mental and behavioral problems outlined in this article.
Bullied children grow up to have internal bullying prevention strategies that are often at odds with living a healthy and productive life. They may avoid intimacy with others for fear that their intimacy will be used against them. They may struggle with supervisors at work who trigger an emotional reaction formed in childhood. The mental health challenges they develop because of bullying can often extend far into adulthood if they don’t find effective mental health treatment options to help them achieve lasting recovery.
The experiences of childhood and adolescence are formative. When children are subjected to bullying, the patterns of behavior they learn to avoid being bullied can be carried with them for the rest of their lives. Many of these maladaptive coping strategies can be overcome, but it often takes the support of mental health professionals for people to identify and change these behaviors if they weren’t addressed at a younger age.
7. Increased Risk of Suicide
There is a strong connection between bullying and suicidal behavior. Researchers report that both the victims of bullying and the children bullying others are 3-5 times as likely to report suicidal thoughts or attempts when compared to children who are uninvolved in bullying behavior.
Suicide is the second leading cause of death for children and adolescents in the United States, and bullying plays a clear role in this troubling statistic. Each of the facts about bullying above plays a role in why this may be the case; as anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, and social withdrawal are all known risk factors for suicidal behavior.
The more severe the bullying, the higher the risk of these dramatic consequences.
Finding Professional Support for Bullying
As alarming as these facts may be, there are evidence-based and effective methods to help support children who are being bullied or bullying others to achieve a full and lasting recovery. Therapy for bullying can help show children healthier and more adaptive ways of coping with this difficult experience and provide them with strategies to prevent bullying behavior in the future.
If your child is the aggressor, meeting with a child therapist can help identify the root cause of the bullying behavior, help your child address these emotional underpinnings more directly, and ultimately stop the bullying from continuing.
Therapy and treatment for bullying victims and perpetrators is essential, but it’s only one component of a comprehensive approach to bullying. Prevention efforts and firm policies against bullying behavior are important components of helping stop bullying from happening in the first place. Spreading awareness of the consequences of bullying is an essential first step and can support parents and communities in taking action against bullying in the future.
Our mental health experts can help you choose the right treatment options for your family’s needs, and help your child make a full recovery from the devastating effects of bullying.
If your child has been affected by bullying, reach out to the team at Elite DNA for support by finding a location near you today.
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