I remember a few bullies I encountered back in my younger days.  There was the obvious bigger-than-everyone bully who didn’t do so well at school.  He made up for that by showing his physical dominance when the opportunity arose.  But then there were the not-so-obvious bullies.  People you might never suspect.  Do you know about bullies in your child’s life?

1- Confident – This is your stereotypical bully, like you would see in the TV movie “A Christmas Story”.  He has the attitude, the physical prowess, and has no empathy for the little people around him.  He’s strong and mean.

2- Social – This bully spreads rumors, gossips, and verbally taunts others, Social shunning is also widely used by this kind of bully.  Sometimes it only takes a look to do the job.  Girl bullies commonly fall into this category.  Be aware – they can be difficult to spot because they are subtle.

3- Fully armored- This bully is a charmer, a real cool customer.  He or she are likable to adults, and deceptive to avoid arousing suspicion.  But when the adults are gone this bully is vicious and unemotional to their targets.

4- Hyperactive- The hyperactive bully bounces around and does his or her bullying with a lot of excuses “he made me do it” or “it was just an accident”.  They struggle with grades and have poor social skills.

5- Bullied bully- This kind of bully is the direct result of being repeatedly bullied themselves.  They have been a target for so long, they find some sense of relief from the powerless.

6- Bunch of bullies – Group mentality comes into play here.  A group of “nice kids” find themselves joining in or observing someone getting bullied.  They know what they’re doing is wrong and don’t stop it, but none of these kids bully anyone by themselves.

7- Gang of bullies – This is a group of kids who strategically align themsleves to gain power.  This can be a scary bunch because they lack any sort of empathy or remorse.  They know they are bullies and they are OK with it.

A newer breed of bullies are now starting to use text messaging and social media.  Cyber bullying has become more and more common as these communication pathways have become popular.  The trick with these types of bullies is that they can bully without being present and even at a different time than the target gets the message.  They can have anonymity and a lot of separation from the bullying event.  I think this makes cyber bullying a pretty easy thing to get away with.  It’s hard to feel sympathy when you don’t even see the person’s face.  I’ll probably do another post on cyberbullying later, but I wanted to throw that in there as something relevent.

Just knowing how many types of bullies there are can open your eyes to problems.  It’s more than just the obvious bully.  Anyone using power and fear to cause a person some sort of pain is being a bully.  Even siblings to each other.  I have a lot to say about bullying, so stay tuned for future posts or perhaps a few long articles for the Mental Health Library.

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From Psych Central's website:
PsychCentral (November 12, 2009)

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    Last reviewed: 11 Nov 2009