Bullying is when someone intentionally hurts another person, or group of people, by using words or actions that embarrass, intimidate or threaten them. Bullying is a repeated behaviour — it’s not just a one-off incident where someone is mean to another person. This means it’s different from things like having an argument with a friend and saying mean things to each other. It’s something that happens more than once, where one person wants to hurt or embarrass another person on purpose. 

Bullying also involves a power imbalance, where the people bullying and people being bullied aren’t seen as being ‘equal’. For example, older and bigger people picking on smaller and younger people, or ‘popular’ people targeting people seen as ‘unpopular’. 

Bullying can come in many different forms and includes a wide range of behaviours. Here are some of the different types of bullying:

VERBAL BULLYING 

Using words to make others feel upset, angry, and embarrassed. Includes teasing, name-calling, put downs, and threats, as well as harassing someone based on their race, sex, religion, gender or a disability.

PHYSICAL BULLYING

Any physical violence like kicking, punching or pushing. It can also include stealing or damaging property. Sexual assault is also a form of physical violence.

SOCIAL BULLYING

When things are done to hurt people’s reputation or exclude them. Includes leaving people out of social groups or situations, spreading rumours or ignoring someone.

CYBERBULLYING

Any type of bullying that takes place online like through social media, text messages or email.

There are also serious types of behaviours that overlap with bullying, which are against the law: 

DISCRIMINATION 

When a person is treated differently because of an aspect of their identity, such as race, religion, ethnicity, age, disability, body size, sexuality, and gender identity. Learn more about discrimination and how you can deal with it here. 

ABUSE 

There are many different forms of abuse, including physical, sexual, emotional, and neglectful abuse. It can include things like hitting, unwanted sexual contact, and not being given treatment when you’re sick. Learn more about abuse and how you can deal with it here. 

SEXUAL HARASSMENT

Includes commenting on someone’s sex life, making sexual jokes, displaying unwanted sexual material (porn), asking for sexual favours and intrusive questions about your sex life. Learn more about sexual harassment and how you can deal with it here. 

What are the effects of bullying?

Being bullied can make you feel pretty horrible. It can make you feel lonely, sad, confused, ashamed, hopeless, and really affect your self esteem. It can also affect your mental health by making you feel depressed or anxious, and even unsafe or afraid about going to school or work. Bullying can have some serious impacts, so it’s important to ask for help if you are having a tough time.

What do I do if I’m being bullied?

Stay calm: When you’re in the moment, it’s easy to get angry or upset by a bully — but remember that this is what the bully wants. By acting calm and planning some good responses, bullies will get bored or back down. Check out our tips on how to handle a bully for some things you can say back! 

You can also try staying away from the person who is bullying you, and ignoring them if they try to talk to you. This might seem really difficult, but if you don’t give the bully the reaction they’re looking for they might lose interest. If you are being bullied online, don’t reply to their messages.

Find coping strategies: There are many great things we can do to overcome bullying. Try hanging out with people that make you feel good and make sure you look after yourself if you are feeling stressed or anxious. Do things you enjoy that might make you feel better, and focus on the things you’re good at that makes you unique! If you’re being bullied, another really important thing to remember is that it’s not your fault. Bullies often have low self-esteem, and are doing it to try and feel better about themselves. 

Get support: Talk to someone you trust about it. This could be a friend, parent, teacher or school counsellor. If that sounds too scary, you can call Kids Helpline or talk to one of their counsellors through their online counselling service. Talking about your problems can be hard, but you’ll probably feel a lot better afterwards.

Report it: Your school or workplace will have an anti-bullying policy in place, so if you’re ready, tell your teacher or your boss about what’s going on. They will help you try to sort out what’s going on and put a stop to it. You have the right to feel safe at school and at work. Although it might be hard to talk to someone in charge about what’s happening, they’ve probably dealt with similar situations before and will be able to help you. If this seems too hard, talk to a parent, your school counsellor or call Kids Helpline to work out some strategies for telling your teacher, principal or boss.

You can read more about bullying on the Reachout and Kids Helpline websites.