Bullying Prevention Month 2023: Adult Bullying is Not Talked About Enough and Can Be Just as Traumatic or Sometimes Worse Than Childhood Bullying
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Bullying is unwanted behavior that is aggressive, controlling, and harsh. It can also be cruel, disturbing, wicked, evil, and even vile. Most of the time people think of bullying occurring as student-to-student in preschool, elementary, middle, and high schools; however, adult bullying exists too. It happens in workplaces, adult friendships, and on college campuses. Even when your next-door adult neighbor, parent/guardian, adult sibling, adult cousin, other adult family members, adult friends, friend or partner's adult family member(s), or the adult sitting next to you is mean to you, that is considered adult bullying.
Adult bullying has many of the same characteristics as childhood bullying along with worse higher-level characteristics in some experiences. Most of the time one adult or a group of adults over power another adult or a group of adults. This behavior is ongoing and happens repeatedly. Adult bullying can be identified as an imbalance of power where adults use physical strength, popularity, authority figure power, and/or disrespect to cause physical or emotional harm towards others.
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There are different forms of bullying that include emotional abuse, physical abuse, and cyber-bullying. Emotional abuse also known as mental abuse or social bullying can include but is not limited to the following:
- Teasing (This is not the same thing as playful teasing.)
- Name-calling
- Other insults
- Cursing people out
- Inappropriate sexual comments
- Taunting
- Gaslighting (This is when the bully intentionally wrongly accuses someone of doing something instead of taking responsibility that they were the one who actually did it.)
- Deflections
- Mind games
- Betrayal
- Gossip
- Yelling
- Raising voices (This is not the same thing as projecting one's voice.)
- Talking over and interrupting victims
- Refusing to let victims speak
- Talking down to victims
- Ignoring or being short with someone
- Being overly controlling
- Finding and sharing embarrassing information about people in front of one or more person or groups of people
- Threats made toward another adult
- Creating or spreading rumors
- Intentionally not telling information to someone that they should know
- Using words or actions toward someone with the goal to hurt them
- Hurting someone relationally - This is controlling, manipulative, abusive behaviors with the goal to harm a person's relationships with other people. It can be intentionally not including someone or encouraging others to not be friends with or be in a relationship with innocent people.
- Intentional social isolation - This is purposefully not allowing peers or adult children to participate in group activities or preventing them from interacting with supportive loved ones. When parents/guardians bully their minor or adult children, this is known as family abuse, which also counts as domestic abuse since domestic abuse is not just abusing intimate partners.
Physical bullying is hurting another person's body or their possessions. This can include but is not limited to:
- Hitting
- Kicking
- Pushing
- Punching
- Pinching
- Tripping
- Hair pulling
- Taking or breaking someone's things
- Making rude hand gestures at people
Cyberbullying happens when using any electronic devices, such as phones, computers, and tablets. On these devices, people use social networks, text messages, pictures, videos, and/or even create imaginary profiles to bully other people. Cyberbullying includes but is not limited to the following in messages and social media posts:
- Teasing
- Name-calling
- Insults
- Threats
- Cursing at the receivers
- Embarrassing pictures, videos, and information about people being created, posted online, and/or sent in messages
- Harassment that consists of several nonstop messages and demanding immediate responses (except in emergencies) with refusal to show respect for boundaries
- Contrary to popular belief, cyberbullying can also be intentionally stating lies and false accusations about the victim in messages sent to them and talking down to people in messages.
- Doing any of these things behind someone's back in group chats that they are not included in also counts as cyberbullying.
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People can play all types of roles in adult bullying. They can be bullied, bully, or witness the acts of bullying. It is shown that in these situations, people can play multiple roles. Many bullies are being bullied by another peer or an older person. It is very important to understand all aspects of bullying so that it makes it easier to prevent and respond to the bullying.
While there are many bullying prevention advocates, there is strong controversy about the ways in which adult bullying is handled. There are many supporters who argue that adult bullying is a growing serious problem in workplaces, schools, homes, and communities that needs to be put to an end; however, there are also many people with opposing views that argue that the supporters are wrong. For example, when an adult bully is overly controlling, yells, insults, and does not let people speak, this can harm victims' feelings and self-esteem; however, opposers argue that they should not be punished for what they say and do to people because of their freedom of speech and that what they said was not meant to hurt their adult child, family member, coworker, or peer in any way or that their adult child, family member, coworker, or peer was being too sensitive. The adult bullies may also make the argument that their behaviors should be excused if it happened in their own homes; however, there are also disturbance of the peace laws that occur as a consequence if a next-door neighbor reports hearing yelling. Many victims have also reported that they did not yell at or treat anyone wrongfully in any way before their adult bully yelled at them. There are also many people who say that bullying does not exist in adulthood.
Supporters of victims argue that bullying needs to be handled legislatively. Some states have taken action by enacting anti-bullying state laws to prevent bullying as a way to protect people. Due to these laws, bullying is a crime in some cases. In the state of Pennsylvania, bullying is a civil rights violation in several types of situations. Currently, bullying is considered to be a form of discriminatory harassment or ableism in some situations according to federal civil rights laws that are put in place and checked up on by Pennsylvania Adult Protective Services (APS), United States Department of Justice (USDOJ), and United States Department of Education (USDE). It can also be a disability rights issue according to the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and Pennsylvania APS. No matter what, these laws obligate regulators, schools, workplaces, and APS inspectors to address all types of bullying that are threatening, increasing, and constantly creating an uncomfortable educational, working, or home environment affecting and limiting people's abilities to participate or have involvement in services, activities, or opportunities provided by schools, workplaces, and communities or discriminates against a person's disability, race, color, national origin, gender, or religion. Unfortunately, some APS inspectors, regulators, workplaces, schools, and communities do not respond to the bullying of victims for opposing views of the situations. Some people will constantly insist that the victims should just ignore bullies or tell them, "People are going to be mean" or "That is the way that he/she/ is/they are" as an excuse so that they do not have to help the victims. Some bullies will even intentionally deny that they are doing anything wrong and find ways to hide it and intimidate (scare) their victims to prevent getting caught. Some people will even see a person being bullied right in front of their eyes or the victim will speak up and witnesses will do nothing about it. These people are called bystanders. If an APS employee, workplace, or school in Pennsylvania does not respond to bullying incidents in the required way(s) that they are supposed to, they are violating one or more of the civil rights laws enforced by the USDOJ and USDE. The laws that they could possibly violate are ADA, Title IV and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, and Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).
As a twenty-five-year-old, unfortunately, I have experienced and witnessed adult bullying. I will speak freely without getting into the details that adult bullying can be a very traumatic experience. Knowing if a loved one who I care about is experiencing adult bullying by being shamed, hurt by words, and overly controlled is heartbreaking. Even worse, finding out that people who I thought that I could trust is shaming, using words to hurt, overly controlling, or physically hurting people is devastating. The idea of adult bullying itself recalls past experiences that the pain of being victimized was unbearable. Everyone's experiences with adult bullying along with their reactions as victims are different and if they become traumatized, it can negatively affect their mental and physical health in many ways. For example, "if you’ve ever felt psychologically or emotionally unsafe at work, you know that your heart, brain, and central nervous system can feel like they’ve been hijacked and thrown into a spin cycle. Simply put, it can really mess with your body and mind. The concern about your emotional safety can make going to work feel painful or frightening, can create physical illnesses and/or mental health concerns, and can impact the school workplace as a whole” (Bowerman 2023). Concerns about emotional and physical safety and mental and physical health can occur when adult bullies are parents/guardians, siblings, other adult family members, college classmates, and teachers as well.
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Bullying can be personal for people who have experienced it and for people with legal backgrounds in handling these situations. The true professionals and true loved ones want it to stop as much as the victims do. When bullying is not stopped as soon as possible, adult victims can experience anxiety, depression, suicidal thoughts, loss of interest in spending time with the people who they lost trust in, and loss of interest in the world around them. The last thing that a person wants is to feel helpless when someone that they experience adult bullying or are aware of the fact that their loved one is experiencing it with very little power to handle the situation. Bullying can hurt not just the victim, but everyone around them. By learning the signs, everyone in the world can help to minimize the negativity and harm spread by adult bullying one adult victim at a time.
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You might also gain a better understanding of bullying prevention by reading:
- The Importance of Showing Respect for Other People While Advocating for Your Own Respect
- Bullying is One of the Major Causes of Suicide
- What is Cyberbullying?
- How Traumatic Loneliness Can Be is Not Talked About Enough
- Trauma's Impact on Mental and Physical Health Can Be Really Scary
If you or a loved one is affected by adult bullying, remember that you are not alone and there is hope. If you or someone you know needs support right now, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988 or text "HOME" to the Crisis Text Line at 741741 if you live in the USA or text "CONNECT" to the Crisis Text Line at 686868 if you live in Canada.
You can also visit The Mighty's suicide prevention resources page by clicking on this link: https://themighty.com/suicide-prevention-resources/
In addition, if you need to report experienced, witnessed, or suspected adult bullying, you can reach out to the following below resources to do so and to find out your and survivors' legal rights:
- Call the National Adult Protective Services Association (NAPSA) at (202)-370-6292 (for reporting physical, sexual, emotional, and/or psychological abuse and/or emotional, educational, physical, medical, supervisory, and/or environmental neglect of an adult child in the disability community or senior citizen if you are a family member, educator, service provider, or good Samaritan.)
- Workplace Bullying - United States Department of Labor or United States Department of Justice Civil Rights Division
- You can also call 911 if your and/or anyone's life is in danger.
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Citations
1. (2023). Adult Protective Services. https://www.dhs.pa.gov/about/Fraud-And-Abuse/pages/adult-protective-services.aspx
2. Bowerman, M. J. (6 Sept. 2023). A Guide to Psychological Safety for Educators. https://www.edutopia.org/article/guide-psychological-safety-teachers
3. (2023). File a Complaint. https://www.ada.gov/file-a-complaint/
4. (2023). NAPSA - National Adult Protective Services Association. https://www.napsa-now.org
5. (2023). Resources for Employees with Concerns About Improper Conduct in the DOL Workplace. https://www.dol.gov/agencies/oasam/civil-rights-center/internal/policies/improper-conduct
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