1) Bullying is a defined as unwanted, aggressive behavior among school-aged children that is repetitive, involves a real or perceived power imbalance, and is designed to cause fear, distress or harm

2) There are 4 types of bullying – verbal, social, physical, and cyberbullying

3) Verbal bullying – saying or writing mean things, name calling, teasing, making inappropriate sexual comments

4) Social bullying – designed to malign a child’s reputation or negatively impact peer relationships, intentionally leaving someone out, telling other peers not to be friends with someone, spreading rumors

5) Physical bullying – pushing, hitting, kicking, intentionally breaking someone’s things

6) Cyberbullying – intentional and repeated mistreatment of others via technology such as social media and cell phones/texting

7) Roughly 21% of students reported being bullied in 2016 according to the National Center for Educational Statistics

8) According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), suicide is 3rd leading cause of death among young people which is about 4400 deaths/year and bullied victims are 7 – 9 times more likely to consider suicide

9) Over 30,000 children stay home every day due to the fear of being bullied

10) Consequences of bullying include

• Academic – school avoidance, higher rates of absenteeism, decline in grades, higher drop out rates
• Psychiatric – higher rates of depression and anxiety, sleep disturbance, suicidal ideation, suicide attempts, substance use/abuse

Sources – stopbullying.gov, Anti-Defamation League at adl.org/bullying, CDC