A study published this week in the American Journal of Psychiatry suggests that the negative impact of bullying can follow a person into early adulthood and even into middle age.
According to NPR, “Researchers found that at age 50, those who’d been bullied – particularly those who were repeatedly bullied — reported somewhat poorer physical health than those who hadn’t been, and also had an increased incidence of anxiety, depression and suicidal thoughts. They also had lower education attainment; memory tests indicated that they tended, as a group, to have somewhat poorer cognitive function than those who weren’t bullied.”
Bullying is a problem that impacts many children (by some estimates in the US up to 50 percent of kids say they’ve been bullied at least once within a month) and with the advent of cyber-bullying, having a safe place to escape to is more difficult to find than ever. The perception that popularity protects against bullying had been proven incorrect, as well. According to a study in the American Sociological Review, as kids became more popular, their chances of getting bullied actually increased. So what can parents do to help protect their children from bullying and cyber-bullying?
Programs like clubGEN can help. clubGEN brings together girls from a wide range of social backgrounds, and teaches them to work together to achieve common goals. Girls learn to relate to one another and look past their perceived differences to see that they share so much more in common that they realize. To read more about the positive impact clubGEN has on girls, read this interview with clubGEN girl Gracie and her Mom, Laurie.